sarah just told me that she was impressed on how lucky i am in all i have.
I know i havementioned many times before that i am indeed very lucky... but this time... ill go into very deep detail on my luckiness (long post.... beware!).
i think its a gift of somesort... this luckiness of mine. Even before i was out of my mom's uterus, i had a stoke of luck....... at the corner of my right eye; the doctor, who was prying me out of from the dark hole of the unknown using a... well... thong (ok i dunno wht its called.. tongs.. or sth like tht...).. that plier-like thing..... Well... accidentally.. he hit that thing at the corner of me right eye. Thus.. now... i have one eye smaller than the other. i Find this lucky in fact.. cos i think this is the reason many peole mistake me of other ethnic groups other than malay... which.. frankly.... has some advantages here in Singapore. A few months ago, Syah thought i was a Japanese-Malay..... i didnt noe there were such a breed till two weeks ago i saw a real Japlay/Malaynese on the bus... and yeah tts how i looked like... featureless from the sides. Among others, people thought i was Chinese. Some said i was adopted by my parents. Well.. anything goes. Cos even my birth cert states my race as UNKNOWN. How lucky is that?
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to make things more freaky, my IC number pertains directly to my birth date. That's super rare.
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and at four days old... i was circumcised... how lucky... zzz.... And now when ppl say that im insensitive.. i'll go..."yeah..."
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I find the fact that i am the only known surviving direct descendant of my grandfather very appealing. Among all my father's siblings, none of the males had a son, but one. but this other direct descendant ran away from home at a very young age. Noone knows where he is now. therefore, i feel that i have been given a gift; the power to uphold the family's name. After all I will be the first one in the line to serve NS. (bhb~~~)
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Then at four months old i took my first plane flight (one that i didnt rmemeber.. and didnt explode in) to Kuching in which i stayed in the Holiday Inn Kuching for the next 12 years. So.... the first step i ever took.... was on carpet..... -.-
For the next 12 years.. i was breathing aircon air... being driven around places by three drivers... dining on hotel food... watching cable tv... taking aadvantage of hotel equipment (my dad got a lot of things for me.... he got me an adult size lion dance mask complete with a shining red body... got me the hotel's full 88 keys keyboard which is still under my table back home.... he got the hotel to set up a cartoon channel after i requested for one.... he sneakily smuggled some of the hotel's videotapes to my room for me to watch... he got me quite a few things really.... Now i think abt it... omg..... what a son ive been becoming...).,
My life in the hotel was... should i say... shallow... on social grounds. I didnt make any friends of my age there... only those in my class. Sure.. i do get to mingle with some Germans and Dutch around my age (their parents are friends of my parent's..) but never more than just a day or two with them. I guess that's where i got my anti-social behaviour from and learned to mingle around with adults and business suits.
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But there was a staff of the hotel... his name is Angeles.... i call him Uncle Angeles... he was one of my father's right hand man (my dad worked from a waiter up to FnB manager to General Manager... he was till an FnB manager when i was much younger) and Uncle Angeles would regularly carry me in his arms and go about with his duties... inspecting areas... checking log sheets.... doing paperwork in his office... and most of the times.. he would give me some supplied that were to be used in hotel events such as masks and real peacock feathers. Last year, when Ye Ol' Friends came over to the hotel (and changed the entire staff's perception of me).. i met Uncle Angeles.. he cant carry me anymore... and he's getting greyer and older.... .. hear dhes retiring soon... zz.... NOOOO~~~!!!!...
And i thin kmaybe because of him.. and that my other friends were either chinese or eurasians or europeans... and rarely malays (even if they were malays.... they werent pure breed.. lolz...).... i cant "get in touch" with the "people back hoome". And this is true especially when i come to sSingapore for holidays (can u belive that? holiday in singapore...-.-). I cant seem to understand my cousins.... and they call me "soft" cos i dont do wht they do. Well....
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Lodge School was good schoool. The entire school ahd levels from K1 to Form(Sec) 5... so yeah... some of my old friends now... haveknown each other since kindergarden. But i came in Grade 1 (pri 1)... to the expatriate stream... ahh yes... lucky bastard am i.... i knew abt sex when i was 5..... thanks to my sister... she asked me to read a book abt sexual intercourse.... i was using the F word at a very young age... i was already running around in the field and school... make believing... making things with my hands and bullying others in primary school.
My mum signed me up for plenty of tuition such as arithmetic classes (that's where i learned how to use my ten fingers to count up to 99.. and using the abacus).. i got sent to competitions and such and all these weird weird mind-related competitions and i got certs and all that... i still dunno wht ive been doing. My grades were... to say the least.... fantastic.. in Grade 1 and 2. I constantly got a A+ for maths, science, art and stuff like that... except music.. zzz.... Art was my favourite class... i made the biggest plasticine Bronchosaurus in class in grade 2 and everybody went "WOW!" ..... and started twisting off the neck of the animal...
It was fun.. my Russian friend, Anna Filipova (she looks like Anne Frank), brought her father to school once and my friends and i went nuts when we saw that he cant enter the class without ducking. LOLZ!!.... its like... we were as high as his knee.....
My grades started falling in Grade 4. From As... to Bs.. TO Cs.... and finally.. in Grade 6.. all Es and Ds... there were no Fs in Lodge. I reason this partly becasue of my playstation. and friends... my friends and i always bully. We woudl wrestle each other all the time during breaks and such.... breaking wondows and drpping on concrete floors (and i never broke a bone... lucky lucky lucky me) plus we always shared money to buy each other that expensive plate of fried chicken during recess.
It was hectic during recess. Everybody from pre-puberty stage to post-puberty stage was there eating. The canteen wasnt big. maybe abt 20 metres long. The Form students would be those rowdy ones (ah... hormones...) while the primary schoolers would be seating on the grass.... near the drain.. eating their lunch.
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The invention of the playstation was the turning point of my life. I played for hours.. non stop... sneaking in the middle of the night just to play game... and once that feeling of pseudo-orgasm has been reached, i slently crept back into bed. I would save money (stealing came when i was in Singapore) just to buy a few games after school. the river would send me ff at the lobbby.. ill start to run like a rabbit on steroids, carrying my sports/school bag on my shoulders, having close encounters with the front bumpers of Proton cars all the time ( i was quite tiny then) and finally meeting my "Auntie Annie" to buy some games. I bought plenty of games. I counted 300 hundred games the last time. I bought a game shark.. i bought to pistols for it... i bought stickers for my playstation.. i arranged my room to fit the playstation... i started learning to use the net to find cheat codes because of it... (and the inevitable porn popups. "Nude"... was my first word to porno-mania.. on a 28.8k dial up modem). Final Fantasy 8 was my favourite game along with the Resident Evil series and Silent Hill plus Klonoa and Doraemon. All these games had an impact on my growing up years and some have even shaped the way i think now. That's one of the reasons why i found myself in a dream when i came to Ngee Ann... everything here is so independant and you can see clearly different groups of people from other courses and sections of the school.. everything here is like FF8!
it is impossible for me to list down my entire 12 years in the hotel without you getting vored so ill just move on.
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My grades were crap. Singapore called me. I went to Singapore and EVERY school teacher who saw my results rejected me. They would come and say im cute and handsome and look intelligent and such but once they saw my results... i was out. I took an IQ test at a school near the Novena MRT or somewhere there... 6th/8th mile junction shoopping centre.. or sth..... there... yeah... i took an IQ test along with my sister. I thnk my IQ results were like.. 115 or 114... i dunno.. cant rmemeber.. it had either a 1 or 5 or 4 in it... maybe 105 or 104.. i dunno... .. but i knew i beat my sister.. muahahahah....
So with this cert of qualification or something liek that.. my parents went around the country looking for a place for me... yeah they did consider sending me to RI as well because it was one of the schools i was qualified for but no.. they didnt want me to get a culture shock or the infamous STRESS (i didnt even noe tht word coudl be used for students till 2001!) i went over to Bedok View.
Why bedok View? Well.. it so happens that the principal there, Mr. Khairunan, is somehow related to my family or sth. so with a bit of persuasion and stuff..i enetred BVSS... otherwise i could have been at Bedok Green.
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Bedok View wasnt that pleasurable, i must say. Fitting in was hard. Everyone was so studious. I just couldnt study. i experienced culture shock. And as usuall... like my cousins.. the malays called me soft... cos i cant speak their language... and i dont even sound like them. I kept myself to an indonesian girl... name was Caroline... i loved teasing her like how i did back in Lodge on other girls (i was very popular for teasing girls in Lodge. Teachers kept warning me.).
That time i was staying with my Aunt.. in Bedok North Street 2. We never got along...i cant get used to her style of nagging and the decor of the house (cloth! cloth!! and more cloth!!! carpets!!! carpets!! wood!!!! ergh!! too much furry things!!!) so after a huge argument between her and my dad (they're siblings!! whee!!), my dad had to sacrifice himself and arranged for my mum to stay with her kids in Singapore. I wonder how my dad felt.
For a while, the family stayed at Bedok Reservoir, at the then Singapore SIA Manager;s flat. he happened to be my dad's friend as well. Currently, the guy(we call hm uncle now) is no longer working for SIA but is currently in South Africa working as a manger or sth in a hotel there (apparently all my uncles that arent blood related are in the tourism business). So i stayed there... till the Yishun house tenant here moved out.. the house here was renovated...and then it was for school-hunting again.
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Yishun Town...didnt accept me.. they saw my Grade 6 results... and my BVSS results... BVSS results were atrocious... lots of Es and Ds. My parents wrote many letters to the school to take me in but no. Then things got so frustrating that i said any school will do (when they said BVSS i rejected straight away. Never will i go back there) and even Ahmad Ibrahim was on the list. Till the day before school started, North View called me up. Mdm. Koh, the Vp, wanted to see me.
So i met Mdm Koh. such a wonderful VP with her frail body and curly hair to match her wrinkled and wise smile. We talked things oout.... She commented on my so-called "fluent english" and artistic talent (she knew i was drawing comics in Lodge) and decided to take me into the school. I was required to sign a promise (wont dishonour school and stuff) and there. i was in. bought the unifrom immediately and the next day i was officially a student of North View in class 2E1. Couldnt get any better than that.
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Its strange really... in Lodge.. i was in class 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, and when in BVSS, 1E2, and in NVSS, 2E1, 3E1, 4E1, and in Ngee Ann, T1A1. Now if u were to think abt it... my acedemic results weren't fantastic at all. and i start to wonder why is that i was always in such a better class than i was supposed to be in. I really thought of dropping to Normal Academic in 2002 but well.... lucky i didnt. Cos more lucky things were abt to happen.
It was by pure luck that i joined NCC. I wanted NPCC.but then.. in BVSS... i was pushed by some guy and ended up infront of the NCC (Land) booth. The guy at the booth kept talking and talking to me abt NCC Land till i signed up. Then in NVSS... i was given a choice whether or not to quit NCC ( i thoght i cant quit?!?!)... Mam Raps ( My godmother, if u wanna put it that way) spoke to me after Mdm Koh.... so i had to choose... she was biting her lips.... mm.... so then i made the big decision.. which im glad i did... i was drafted to NCC Air. It took the HQ quite some time (about a year and a half) to official convert me from a Land cadet to Air cadet. My name didnt appear on any Air registers for quite a while and i was the only one wearing a green beret. how cool is that.
And another stroke of luck.... it so happened that Mam rap's university close friend, is a contact of my dad... so when i, out of the blue, invited mam and sir to my house for visiting during the festival period, it became a very significant event. Immediately.... of all these years of mam taking care of me on trips to malaysia.. and expeditions.. and promoting my rank to Staff Sergeant though she wasnt allowed to, Mam became my dad's friend along with Sir Latiff. Then my dad actually brought Mam and Sir, and the Girl Guides offcier, ms. Jane Tan and St. johns oficer, Ms. Kaur, to Kuching for a trip.
and omg i heard that my father was dancing in the hotel pub. -.- .. i didnt noe that...... i only know that my father won a few sinigng competitions when he was younger. Mam even turned to me in her car to say,"Audi... there are more things about your father that you do not know.".
After that little trip, North View Air Unit had a trip where 30 over cadets(my juniors) went over to Kuching for an expedition.. and they stayed in Damai... partied there (there was a Dance Night in the itinerary!!) and dined in Holiday Inn Kuching... my home.
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North View really shaped me. My friends were the cause of soo many social problems that they are responsible for shaping me to wht i am now. i knew i couldnt be anti social and submissive... nor can i be agressive and brutal. I twisted and turn to conform to my friends in North View till i think i found a balance between being the so called leader and servant. I was truly lucky to have the famous 9 around me that time.
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Video cameras.. oh dont get me started at that. Without the video camera my dad bought when we were stll in Kuching... i couldnt have gotten into FSV.
Camcorders of Video recorders have also been a major part in my life since young. My dad first bought one when i was 5.... it was on a trip to new zealand's rotorua or sth. The smell of the volcano still lingers in my nasal cavities. The video camera got almost all our anual trips overseas... we went to new zealand. all part of Australia... Turkey... Saudi Arabia... Singapore (duh).... Egypt... My dad went to alot of places... he's been around the world, literally! There's China... Germany.. Denmark... Canada... london... san francisco... gosh....
i still have that old Hi-8 camcorder in my cupboard... it recorded my last day in Lodge... with girls signing their signatures with silver pens near my inner thighs... and me screwing up the relationship of my best friend.... ,, Too bad the camcorder is spoilt now. The tape compartment went bonkers.
i aslo have this 6-8 years old dvcamera... the one that Battle of the Field video was recorded with. Its also spolit now... 'Doctor' said that it was a "total blackout". SGD$500 just for a repair. Now i wonder if i should repair both of these cameras.... and bring history back to life.
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i spent my last few days of school with Donald. That's real lucky. All through my NVSS years.. he has been the one ive been pinpointng and modelling up to. And it is moslty because of him in my early years in NVSS that i shape up to wht i am now. He wasnt "always there".... true... but that was also the reason why i tried to grow up and learn not to be too dependant on just one person. Donald and i had some really weird moments. We both fell for the same girl. My first girlfriend in Singapore was Xinni. Such a tough girl, i must say. Rude then... but more ladylike now. Don and her were together when i entred class for the first time in 2E1. i didnt know that... till i was playing iwth her hair and she said her stead was looking (i dont even noe what was "stead"). Donald and her broke up... i hooke dup with her... then we broke up cos she still loved Donald and they got together again..... then they broke up... and on 1st Januray 2003, i asked her for a patch... she said,"no". zzz.... but then again... she and i are STILL friends.. though i havent been hearing from her... reading her blog though.. LOLZ......
Don's in Tampines JC now.... another smart boy of the country on his way to bring his family, his parents, high income so that they can live comfortably and happily in time to come.
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i sgined up for quite a few courses onmy own as well in Singapore.. i took advantage on wht the CCs had to offer. I took up Ki-Aikido. Not Aikido... Ki-Aikido. Currently im holding a brown belt... on the way to being a black belter until O levels came about. It is during these weekly classses plus atachments (that my other friens are not aware of) that i learn how to deal with people who just love to seek attention by fighting. I learnt not to fight (tenage angst) and the importance of posture (Robot, desribed how i walked...) and also dealing with pain. I was always putting my self in painful situations when i was young. I dropped flat on a floor of thumbtacks when wrestling... i ahd people jumpng on my abs... i kissed the floor a few times and tore pants aplenty. What's worse... In NCC... i was the one running around in jungles druing expeditions.. getting scratches from blade leaves... parangs (OBS Sabah)... fires.... splinters... I even tore open my eyebrow when i was 6, doing maths!. Now i have a stich on my right eyebrow (it just has to be the right, isnt it?!). I guess pain got me so bad that some parts of my body isn't that sensitive anymore (among other things). Now i have to worry about bone problems because my neck is killing me and migrane is often since Ki-Aikido disappeared form my weekly routine.
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Once again.... my NVSS results were NOT good. I overslept my geography O level paper by an hour and was left wth only 15 minutes plus 5 minutes of "compassion time" by the teacher in charge.. who was supposed to call students that are late... and is also my NCC officer... and he can still give me a smile. i completed the mapr reading section (worth 10 marks! whoopee!!) and handed up the paper. My mum thought my paper was the next day so that's why she didnt wake me up.
I got bck my o level results and my combined humanities grade was an E!... you know wht that means? i didnt get an F!... so i think i did okay for my Social Studies. oh well. But FSV, the only course i applied for, stated that my CH grade needs to be 6 and below. Dear me.
the lady at the counter looked at my grades after taking my registration form behind the convention hall and blared,"Eh you cannot register for this course one leh... your hunanities grade not good enough!".
And out of nowhere, this guy comes and corrects her,"it's okay. As long as he took CH, he can enroll." And he disappeared. Literally. I dint know where he went to.
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Rememeber the Mark story ? Well... I met his guy frm the Netherlands called Mark. Shaun might noe him... he's that guy with the horseshoe hairstyle and is always dying it purple or silver.. otherwise.. he's that guy that informed us during Audio Tech class that two components of the studio has been stolen.
Well.. I spoke to Mark on my second visit to the FSV booth (my first visit, i ran into an MCM lecturer.. damned bastard...). He informed me in great detail about the course and we had a few laughing moments as well. He even lent me his pen to fill up the enrollment form. After this enrollment was a written test exam, if i were to be shortlisted (i was.... thankfully). I came and seached around for my seating number. Ah yes.. there... right infront of the entire exam hall. I was seated near the main door. While the test was abt to start, Mark walked by and our eyes made contact. I think he was pleasantly surprised that i got shortlisted. Then it was time for another shortlisting. This time, an interview. Guess who was my interviewer? Yes.. MARK. things got so familair than the other interviewr, Adam, felt left out. LOLZ!!! mark and i didnt really question each other much.. he just asked wht have i been doing that pertains to FSV. I told him about the Battle of the Field Video and passed it to him. interview over. Just like that. Next few days... I'm an Fsv Student with ID number S10022707K.
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In FSV itself.. im lucky to have seen quite a number of well-known faces like Daphne Khoo... the Ah Girl.... that German guy who did some audio work... and ex-deejays and even my Audio tech tutor, Mr. Tan Chin Boo, was working as a conductor with the TCS Orchestra!. He is even a Berkeley graduate! you know how high-standard-ish that is?!
So far in my time in FSV... there has been various instances of luck... unexpected encounters with some people that help to drive the crew and i forward.... striking deals with correct people out of the blue (rmemeber the barber?).... I am also very lucky to be in my crew now. because frankly, i belive that my director, Justin.. will make it somewhere. He plays in a band.... and you should see him play... it's scary! It's scary to see his fingers whipping to and fro of his bass guitar! Shaun is also another significant player in my social life right now.... if i were to list down the similarities between him and i, both physically and spiritually and mentally, with his consent, you would be shocked. Shocked at such similarities do happen between two people who have never met each other (or havent we?).
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i have stumbled upon many famous names known by word-of-mouth such as Bernard Cher of M Worksop and Dhinesh Ned and Calvin Tan. I've seen managers of this and that company and Lee Kuan Yew has smiled at me as well. Many people whom i have met have some kind of relationship to my father. I just found out that a relative of Shaun has some sort of contact with my father. How lucky can things get?
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but when i think about it.. all these luck... ties up everything else in my life into a circle. Whatever it is... whatever happens... it still returns back to my time in Holiday Inn Kuching. Its weird.... that however i move forward in life.. i meet new people and things end up back to the hotel itself (just think about it... i spent a few hrs in Shaun's room and magically, i turned nostalgic. My childhood questions started to be answered) . I guess it all goes to my father. Now isnt it just lucky for me that the CEO of Raintree Productions, is my father's classmate? My father is so confident in "getting in touch with the producer" to take me in for a private attachment in the industry during my 2nd year holiday. thogh i wouldnt bet on it (Production's got no time for a small fry like me)
I wonder what more could come.
(Note: The score now was played, impromptu, by Shaun. One must wonder how such a piece of our great national anthem be played on a low-grade keyboard with only 3 sets of scaled down keys, such as this.)
Okay... i am clearly aware of my many typing errors and grammatical errors. I apologize for my untactful typing behaviours when on an adrenaline rush. Ill see to it that future posts have less errors. Thank you.
I know i havementioned many times before that i am indeed very lucky... but this time... ill go into very deep detail on my luckiness (long post.... beware!).
i think its a gift of somesort... this luckiness of mine. Even before i was out of my mom's uterus, i had a stoke of luck....... at the corner of my right eye; the doctor, who was prying me out of from the dark hole of the unknown using a... well... thong (ok i dunno wht its called.. tongs.. or sth like tht...).. that plier-like thing..... Well... accidentally.. he hit that thing at the corner of me right eye. Thus.. now... i have one eye smaller than the other. i Find this lucky in fact.. cos i think this is the reason many peole mistake me of other ethnic groups other than malay... which.. frankly.... has some advantages here in Singapore. A few months ago, Syah thought i was a Japanese-Malay..... i didnt noe there were such a breed till two weeks ago i saw a real Japlay/Malaynese on the bus... and yeah tts how i looked like... featureless from the sides. Among others, people thought i was Chinese. Some said i was adopted by my parents. Well.. anything goes. Cos even my birth cert states my race as UNKNOWN. How lucky is that?
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to make things more freaky, my IC number pertains directly to my birth date. That's super rare.
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and at four days old... i was circumcised... how lucky... zzz.... And now when ppl say that im insensitive.. i'll go..."yeah..."
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I find the fact that i am the only known surviving direct descendant of my grandfather very appealing. Among all my father's siblings, none of the males had a son, but one. but this other direct descendant ran away from home at a very young age. Noone knows where he is now. therefore, i feel that i have been given a gift; the power to uphold the family's name. After all I will be the first one in the line to serve NS. (bhb~~~)
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Then at four months old i took my first plane flight (one that i didnt rmemeber.. and didnt explode in) to Kuching in which i stayed in the Holiday Inn Kuching for the next 12 years. So.... the first step i ever took.... was on carpet..... -.-
For the next 12 years.. i was breathing aircon air... being driven around places by three drivers... dining on hotel food... watching cable tv... taking aadvantage of hotel equipment (my dad got a lot of things for me.... he got me an adult size lion dance mask complete with a shining red body... got me the hotel's full 88 keys keyboard which is still under my table back home.... he got the hotel to set up a cartoon channel after i requested for one.... he sneakily smuggled some of the hotel's videotapes to my room for me to watch... he got me quite a few things really.... Now i think abt it... omg..... what a son ive been becoming...).,
My life in the hotel was... should i say... shallow... on social grounds. I didnt make any friends of my age there... only those in my class. Sure.. i do get to mingle with some Germans and Dutch around my age (their parents are friends of my parent's..) but never more than just a day or two with them. I guess that's where i got my anti-social behaviour from and learned to mingle around with adults and business suits.
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But there was a staff of the hotel... his name is Angeles.... i call him Uncle Angeles... he was one of my father's right hand man (my dad worked from a waiter up to FnB manager to General Manager... he was till an FnB manager when i was much younger) and Uncle Angeles would regularly carry me in his arms and go about with his duties... inspecting areas... checking log sheets.... doing paperwork in his office... and most of the times.. he would give me some supplied that were to be used in hotel events such as masks and real peacock feathers. Last year, when Ye Ol' Friends came over to the hotel (and changed the entire staff's perception of me).. i met Uncle Angeles.. he cant carry me anymore... and he's getting greyer and older.... .. hear dhes retiring soon... zz.... NOOOO~~~!!!!...
And i thin kmaybe because of him.. and that my other friends were either chinese or eurasians or europeans... and rarely malays (even if they were malays.... they werent pure breed.. lolz...).... i cant "get in touch" with the "people back hoome". And this is true especially when i come to sSingapore for holidays (can u belive that? holiday in singapore...-.-). I cant seem to understand my cousins.... and they call me "soft" cos i dont do wht they do. Well....
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Lodge School was good schoool. The entire school ahd levels from K1 to Form(Sec) 5... so yeah... some of my old friends now... haveknown each other since kindergarden. But i came in Grade 1 (pri 1)... to the expatriate stream... ahh yes... lucky bastard am i.... i knew abt sex when i was 5..... thanks to my sister... she asked me to read a book abt sexual intercourse.... i was using the F word at a very young age... i was already running around in the field and school... make believing... making things with my hands and bullying others in primary school.
My mum signed me up for plenty of tuition such as arithmetic classes (that's where i learned how to use my ten fingers to count up to 99.. and using the abacus).. i got sent to competitions and such and all these weird weird mind-related competitions and i got certs and all that... i still dunno wht ive been doing. My grades were... to say the least.... fantastic.. in Grade 1 and 2. I constantly got a A+ for maths, science, art and stuff like that... except music.. zzz.... Art was my favourite class... i made the biggest plasticine Bronchosaurus in class in grade 2 and everybody went "WOW!" ..... and started twisting off the neck of the animal...
It was fun.. my Russian friend, Anna Filipova (she looks like Anne Frank), brought her father to school once and my friends and i went nuts when we saw that he cant enter the class without ducking. LOLZ!!.... its like... we were as high as his knee.....
My grades started falling in Grade 4. From As... to Bs.. TO Cs.... and finally.. in Grade 6.. all Es and Ds... there were no Fs in Lodge. I reason this partly becasue of my playstation. and friends... my friends and i always bully. We woudl wrestle each other all the time during breaks and such.... breaking wondows and drpping on concrete floors (and i never broke a bone... lucky lucky lucky me) plus we always shared money to buy each other that expensive plate of fried chicken during recess.
It was hectic during recess. Everybody from pre-puberty stage to post-puberty stage was there eating. The canteen wasnt big. maybe abt 20 metres long. The Form students would be those rowdy ones (ah... hormones...) while the primary schoolers would be seating on the grass.... near the drain.. eating their lunch.
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The invention of the playstation was the turning point of my life. I played for hours.. non stop... sneaking in the middle of the night just to play game... and once that feeling of pseudo-orgasm has been reached, i slently crept back into bed. I would save money (stealing came when i was in Singapore) just to buy a few games after school. the river would send me ff at the lobbby.. ill start to run like a rabbit on steroids, carrying my sports/school bag on my shoulders, having close encounters with the front bumpers of Proton cars all the time ( i was quite tiny then) and finally meeting my "Auntie Annie" to buy some games. I bought plenty of games. I counted 300 hundred games the last time. I bought a game shark.. i bought to pistols for it... i bought stickers for my playstation.. i arranged my room to fit the playstation... i started learning to use the net to find cheat codes because of it... (and the inevitable porn popups. "Nude"... was my first word to porno-mania.. on a 28.8k dial up modem). Final Fantasy 8 was my favourite game along with the Resident Evil series and Silent Hill plus Klonoa and Doraemon. All these games had an impact on my growing up years and some have even shaped the way i think now. That's one of the reasons why i found myself in a dream when i came to Ngee Ann... everything here is so independant and you can see clearly different groups of people from other courses and sections of the school.. everything here is like FF8!
it is impossible for me to list down my entire 12 years in the hotel without you getting vored so ill just move on.
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My grades were crap. Singapore called me. I went to Singapore and EVERY school teacher who saw my results rejected me. They would come and say im cute and handsome and look intelligent and such but once they saw my results... i was out. I took an IQ test at a school near the Novena MRT or somewhere there... 6th/8th mile junction shoopping centre.. or sth..... there... yeah... i took an IQ test along with my sister. I thnk my IQ results were like.. 115 or 114... i dunno.. cant rmemeber.. it had either a 1 or 5 or 4 in it... maybe 105 or 104.. i dunno... .. but i knew i beat my sister.. muahahahah....
So with this cert of qualification or something liek that.. my parents went around the country looking for a place for me... yeah they did consider sending me to RI as well because it was one of the schools i was qualified for but no.. they didnt want me to get a culture shock or the infamous STRESS (i didnt even noe tht word coudl be used for students till 2001!) i went over to Bedok View.
Why bedok View? Well.. it so happens that the principal there, Mr. Khairunan, is somehow related to my family or sth. so with a bit of persuasion and stuff..i enetred BVSS... otherwise i could have been at Bedok Green.
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Bedok View wasnt that pleasurable, i must say. Fitting in was hard. Everyone was so studious. I just couldnt study. i experienced culture shock. And as usuall... like my cousins.. the malays called me soft... cos i cant speak their language... and i dont even sound like them. I kept myself to an indonesian girl... name was Caroline... i loved teasing her like how i did back in Lodge on other girls (i was very popular for teasing girls in Lodge. Teachers kept warning me.).
That time i was staying with my Aunt.. in Bedok North Street 2. We never got along...i cant get used to her style of nagging and the decor of the house (cloth! cloth!! and more cloth!!! carpets!!! carpets!! wood!!!! ergh!! too much furry things!!!) so after a huge argument between her and my dad (they're siblings!! whee!!), my dad had to sacrifice himself and arranged for my mum to stay with her kids in Singapore. I wonder how my dad felt.
For a while, the family stayed at Bedok Reservoir, at the then Singapore SIA Manager;s flat. he happened to be my dad's friend as well. Currently, the guy(we call hm uncle now) is no longer working for SIA but is currently in South Africa working as a manger or sth in a hotel there (apparently all my uncles that arent blood related are in the tourism business). So i stayed there... till the Yishun house tenant here moved out.. the house here was renovated...and then it was for school-hunting again.
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Yishun Town...didnt accept me.. they saw my Grade 6 results... and my BVSS results... BVSS results were atrocious... lots of Es and Ds. My parents wrote many letters to the school to take me in but no. Then things got so frustrating that i said any school will do (when they said BVSS i rejected straight away. Never will i go back there) and even Ahmad Ibrahim was on the list. Till the day before school started, North View called me up. Mdm. Koh, the Vp, wanted to see me.
So i met Mdm Koh. such a wonderful VP with her frail body and curly hair to match her wrinkled and wise smile. We talked things oout.... She commented on my so-called "fluent english" and artistic talent (she knew i was drawing comics in Lodge) and decided to take me into the school. I was required to sign a promise (wont dishonour school and stuff) and there. i was in. bought the unifrom immediately and the next day i was officially a student of North View in class 2E1. Couldnt get any better than that.
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Its strange really... in Lodge.. i was in class 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, and when in BVSS, 1E2, and in NVSS, 2E1, 3E1, 4E1, and in Ngee Ann, T1A1. Now if u were to think abt it... my acedemic results weren't fantastic at all. and i start to wonder why is that i was always in such a better class than i was supposed to be in. I really thought of dropping to Normal Academic in 2002 but well.... lucky i didnt. Cos more lucky things were abt to happen.
It was by pure luck that i joined NCC. I wanted NPCC.but then.. in BVSS... i was pushed by some guy and ended up infront of the NCC (Land) booth. The guy at the booth kept talking and talking to me abt NCC Land till i signed up. Then in NVSS... i was given a choice whether or not to quit NCC ( i thoght i cant quit?!?!)... Mam Raps ( My godmother, if u wanna put it that way) spoke to me after Mdm Koh.... so i had to choose... she was biting her lips.... mm.... so then i made the big decision.. which im glad i did... i was drafted to NCC Air. It took the HQ quite some time (about a year and a half) to official convert me from a Land cadet to Air cadet. My name didnt appear on any Air registers for quite a while and i was the only one wearing a green beret. how cool is that.
And another stroke of luck.... it so happened that Mam rap's university close friend, is a contact of my dad... so when i, out of the blue, invited mam and sir to my house for visiting during the festival period, it became a very significant event. Immediately.... of all these years of mam taking care of me on trips to malaysia.. and expeditions.. and promoting my rank to Staff Sergeant though she wasnt allowed to, Mam became my dad's friend along with Sir Latiff. Then my dad actually brought Mam and Sir, and the Girl Guides offcier, ms. Jane Tan and St. johns oficer, Ms. Kaur, to Kuching for a trip.
and omg i heard that my father was dancing in the hotel pub. -.- .. i didnt noe that...... i only know that my father won a few sinigng competitions when he was younger. Mam even turned to me in her car to say,"Audi... there are more things about your father that you do not know.".
After that little trip, North View Air Unit had a trip where 30 over cadets(my juniors) went over to Kuching for an expedition.. and they stayed in Damai... partied there (there was a Dance Night in the itinerary!!) and dined in Holiday Inn Kuching... my home.
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North View really shaped me. My friends were the cause of soo many social problems that they are responsible for shaping me to wht i am now. i knew i couldnt be anti social and submissive... nor can i be agressive and brutal. I twisted and turn to conform to my friends in North View till i think i found a balance between being the so called leader and servant. I was truly lucky to have the famous 9 around me that time.
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Video cameras.. oh dont get me started at that. Without the video camera my dad bought when we were stll in Kuching... i couldnt have gotten into FSV.
Camcorders of Video recorders have also been a major part in my life since young. My dad first bought one when i was 5.... it was on a trip to new zealand's rotorua or sth. The smell of the volcano still lingers in my nasal cavities. The video camera got almost all our anual trips overseas... we went to new zealand. all part of Australia... Turkey... Saudi Arabia... Singapore (duh).... Egypt... My dad went to alot of places... he's been around the world, literally! There's China... Germany.. Denmark... Canada... london... san francisco... gosh....
i still have that old Hi-8 camcorder in my cupboard... it recorded my last day in Lodge... with girls signing their signatures with silver pens near my inner thighs... and me screwing up the relationship of my best friend.... ,, Too bad the camcorder is spoilt now. The tape compartment went bonkers.
i aslo have this 6-8 years old dvcamera... the one that Battle of the Field video was recorded with. Its also spolit now... 'Doctor' said that it was a "total blackout". SGD$500 just for a repair. Now i wonder if i should repair both of these cameras.... and bring history back to life.
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i spent my last few days of school with Donald. That's real lucky. All through my NVSS years.. he has been the one ive been pinpointng and modelling up to. And it is moslty because of him in my early years in NVSS that i shape up to wht i am now. He wasnt "always there".... true... but that was also the reason why i tried to grow up and learn not to be too dependant on just one person. Donald and i had some really weird moments. We both fell for the same girl. My first girlfriend in Singapore was Xinni. Such a tough girl, i must say. Rude then... but more ladylike now. Don and her were together when i entred class for the first time in 2E1. i didnt know that... till i was playing iwth her hair and she said her stead was looking (i dont even noe what was "stead"). Donald and her broke up... i hooke dup with her... then we broke up cos she still loved Donald and they got together again..... then they broke up... and on 1st Januray 2003, i asked her for a patch... she said,"no". zzz.... but then again... she and i are STILL friends.. though i havent been hearing from her... reading her blog though.. LOLZ......
Don's in Tampines JC now.... another smart boy of the country on his way to bring his family, his parents, high income so that they can live comfortably and happily in time to come.
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i sgined up for quite a few courses onmy own as well in Singapore.. i took advantage on wht the CCs had to offer. I took up Ki-Aikido. Not Aikido... Ki-Aikido. Currently im holding a brown belt... on the way to being a black belter until O levels came about. It is during these weekly classses plus atachments (that my other friens are not aware of) that i learn how to deal with people who just love to seek attention by fighting. I learnt not to fight (tenage angst) and the importance of posture (Robot, desribed how i walked...) and also dealing with pain. I was always putting my self in painful situations when i was young. I dropped flat on a floor of thumbtacks when wrestling... i ahd people jumpng on my abs... i kissed the floor a few times and tore pants aplenty. What's worse... In NCC... i was the one running around in jungles druing expeditions.. getting scratches from blade leaves... parangs (OBS Sabah)... fires.... splinters... I even tore open my eyebrow when i was 6, doing maths!. Now i have a stich on my right eyebrow (it just has to be the right, isnt it?!). I guess pain got me so bad that some parts of my body isn't that sensitive anymore (among other things). Now i have to worry about bone problems because my neck is killing me and migrane is often since Ki-Aikido disappeared form my weekly routine.
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Once again.... my NVSS results were NOT good. I overslept my geography O level paper by an hour and was left wth only 15 minutes plus 5 minutes of "compassion time" by the teacher in charge.. who was supposed to call students that are late... and is also my NCC officer... and he can still give me a smile. i completed the mapr reading section (worth 10 marks! whoopee!!) and handed up the paper. My mum thought my paper was the next day so that's why she didnt wake me up.
I got bck my o level results and my combined humanities grade was an E!... you know wht that means? i didnt get an F!... so i think i did okay for my Social Studies. oh well. But FSV, the only course i applied for, stated that my CH grade needs to be 6 and below. Dear me.
the lady at the counter looked at my grades after taking my registration form behind the convention hall and blared,"Eh you cannot register for this course one leh... your hunanities grade not good enough!".
And out of nowhere, this guy comes and corrects her,"it's okay. As long as he took CH, he can enroll." And he disappeared. Literally. I dint know where he went to.
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Rememeber the Mark story ? Well... I met his guy frm the Netherlands called Mark. Shaun might noe him... he's that guy with the horseshoe hairstyle and is always dying it purple or silver.. otherwise.. he's that guy that informed us during Audio Tech class that two components of the studio has been stolen.
Well.. I spoke to Mark on my second visit to the FSV booth (my first visit, i ran into an MCM lecturer.. damned bastard...). He informed me in great detail about the course and we had a few laughing moments as well. He even lent me his pen to fill up the enrollment form. After this enrollment was a written test exam, if i were to be shortlisted (i was.... thankfully). I came and seached around for my seating number. Ah yes.. there... right infront of the entire exam hall. I was seated near the main door. While the test was abt to start, Mark walked by and our eyes made contact. I think he was pleasantly surprised that i got shortlisted. Then it was time for another shortlisting. This time, an interview. Guess who was my interviewer? Yes.. MARK. things got so familair than the other interviewr, Adam, felt left out. LOLZ!!! mark and i didnt really question each other much.. he just asked wht have i been doing that pertains to FSV. I told him about the Battle of the Field Video and passed it to him. interview over. Just like that. Next few days... I'm an Fsv Student with ID number S10022707K.
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In FSV itself.. im lucky to have seen quite a number of well-known faces like Daphne Khoo... the Ah Girl.... that German guy who did some audio work... and ex-deejays and even my Audio tech tutor, Mr. Tan Chin Boo, was working as a conductor with the TCS Orchestra!. He is even a Berkeley graduate! you know how high-standard-ish that is?!
So far in my time in FSV... there has been various instances of luck... unexpected encounters with some people that help to drive the crew and i forward.... striking deals with correct people out of the blue (rmemeber the barber?).... I am also very lucky to be in my crew now. because frankly, i belive that my director, Justin.. will make it somewhere. He plays in a band.... and you should see him play... it's scary! It's scary to see his fingers whipping to and fro of his bass guitar! Shaun is also another significant player in my social life right now.... if i were to list down the similarities between him and i, both physically and spiritually and mentally, with his consent, you would be shocked. Shocked at such similarities do happen between two people who have never met each other (or havent we?).
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i have stumbled upon many famous names known by word-of-mouth such as Bernard Cher of M Worksop and Dhinesh Ned and Calvin Tan. I've seen managers of this and that company and Lee Kuan Yew has smiled at me as well. Many people whom i have met have some kind of relationship to my father. I just found out that a relative of Shaun has some sort of contact with my father. How lucky can things get?
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but when i think about it.. all these luck... ties up everything else in my life into a circle. Whatever it is... whatever happens... it still returns back to my time in Holiday Inn Kuching. Its weird.... that however i move forward in life.. i meet new people and things end up back to the hotel itself (just think about it... i spent a few hrs in Shaun's room and magically, i turned nostalgic. My childhood questions started to be answered) . I guess it all goes to my father. Now isnt it just lucky for me that the CEO of Raintree Productions, is my father's classmate? My father is so confident in "getting in touch with the producer" to take me in for a private attachment in the industry during my 2nd year holiday. thogh i wouldnt bet on it (Production's got no time for a small fry like me)
I wonder what more could come.
(Note: The score now was played, impromptu, by Shaun. One must wonder how such a piece of our great national anthem be played on a low-grade keyboard with only 3 sets of scaled down keys, such as this.)
Okay... i am clearly aware of my many typing errors and grammatical errors. I apologize for my untactful typing behaviours when on an adrenaline rush. Ill see to it that future posts have less errors. Thank you.
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Audi
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