hey you..

someday, when i'm awfully low
when the world is cold
i will feel a glow
just thinking of you
and the way you look tonight

oh, but you're lovely
with your smile so warm
and your cheeks so soft
there is nothing for me
but to love you
just the way you look tonight

with each word
your tenderness grows
tearing my fear apart
and that laugh
that wrinkles your nose
touches my foolish heart

lovely
never never change
keep that breathless charm
won't you please arrange it
cos i, i love you
just the way you look tonight

just the way you look tonight

bonjour, monde :s

it's been a pretty long time since the last post, apparently. and because exact dates don't make sense to me that much anymore, i conclude that the reference to le PQP implies sometime while i was still doing french at l'alliance française.. probably while pascal was on holiday, with janet.. so that'd be somewhere about a month before my last day at MHD.

quite a lot has passed since then - 5 months or so? just in case anyone's wondering, french is still very much a part of my daily life, manifested in music, the news on tv5monde and homework. oui, les devoirs. ne te trompes pas en croyant que j'avais arrêté d'apprendre le français, d'accord? :) en fait, maintenant, il fait une partie bcp plus grande qu'avant - une unité sur quatre, les quatre unités que j'ai besoin de finir cette année academique à UCL.

so that's brought us conveniently to UCL - i'm not counting days since I left (or since the last mambo or the last chicken rice, wanton mee or mee pok. or 菜饭 meal), however. it's not exactly a sad event, although to say that it was emotionless would be a horrid lie. Life here has been good - it's hard to ask for more when most things are indeed going well, by objective standards. of course, perfection cannot be expected, neither can absolute coherence with personal goals and desires. there have been pleasant surprises, of course, but also a handful of not-too-pleasant ones, although one would stop short of condemning them to the "to be forgotten" bin.

oh yes, i remember the can of redken mousse falling on my keyboard and the resulting need to replace it. damn.

family came for a visit, left just yesterday night. in a whirlwind 180km/h (on average) holiday, chasing TGVs once every 2 days, from St. Pancras to Gare du Nord, to Gare Cornavin, to Gare St. Charles, back to Gare du Nord and finally St. Pancras. 3 cities in a week, more walking on french speaking soil that i've ever done in my life, and a greater percentage of thinking and speaking in french than even in class. if anything illustrates the magnitude of the effects that experience had, then it must be how i said "bonjour" to the fitness first receptionist, "merci, au revoir" to the waiter at the malaysian resto on charing cross road, and "pardon" when i bumped into this old lady on the way out from st. pancras. oh, and possibly, how i suddenly notice how impolite we sound when we don't use le conditionnel heh - "would I happen to be able to have a little more water please?" heh.. well.. "est-ce qu'on pourrait avoir un peu plus de l'eau?"

if it weren't for the fact that the only french word in my vocabulary last year was bonjour (not least thanks to the bread brand..), i'd have thrown in applications to study in france. then again, we never know how things would've turned out, do we? it does feel good to always know that UCL's no shabby institution, as much as this city.. cette ville.. elle est TROP laide en comparaison avec la belle Paris heh. at least the weather's good..

pour exprimer les regrets

there must be a million things in life we regret, wish never happened or wish we could've changed. then again, it's necessary to remember that today exists by virtue (or by fault) of days and events gone by. If it's a good thing that we have the wisdom (albeit of hindsight), then this goodness must be the value of those mistakes made.

so let's value our mistakes well, for to learn, we must first learn how to fail.

now, let's try that in french. seriously, it's pretty clear that from "it's necessary...":
mais, il faut souvenir que le présent n'existe qu'à cause du passé.
okay skip skip too chim heh

donc, vaut bien des erreurs; pour qu'on sache comment réussir, il faut savoir comment échouer.

Belvedere BEAT

it's the last day of belvedere BEAT - after many bottles of pure, cytrus and pomerancza, several others topped with moet or VC.

the impending inactivity disturbs me - the month has been great, couldn't have asked for a better month of june. working on BEAT has also left me with superb memories of the people I work with: in no order of preference, Marie and Esther, Pierre (bien sur que oui!), Sam, jeremy, cherine and kelvin, dorothy and sebastian from creative forte, amanda and cassh from attica, eugene lim (yes.. arrete) from indochine, jeffrey, shahmil and umm from china one.

oh and how can anyone forget the St. Pierre Experience? The food was great, admittedly, although before and after wasn't exactly comforting.

well it's monday soon, and hopefully, not a day spent sitting waiting for an email or two to come in so i can have something to do. much rather study for french test on friday - mention tres bien, please.. how bad can my conjugations get?

pretty bad, actually. study.

La Mer

La mer, qu'on voit danser
le long des golfes clairs
a des reflets d'argent
La mer
des reflets changeant sous la pluie

la mer, au ciel d'été
confond ses blancs moutons
avec les anges si pur
la mer: bergère d'azur, infinie

voyez, près des étangs
ces grands roseaux mouillés

voyez, ces oiseaux blancs
et ces maisons rouillés

la mer, les a bercés
le long des golfes clairs
et d'une chanson d'amour, la mer
a bercé mon coeur pour la vie

Enfin.. heh.

sometimes, i wonder why i feel so vindicated. especially in recent days when i read the newspapers. guess it's right to listen to people who really know the world and how it works.

le monde, et comment il marche - c'est une grand mystère. mais, quand on écoute de les experiences d'autres, on peut découvrir ce que a raison et ce que a tort. à ces temps, on saura ce qu'on doit faire pour réussir.

c'est ça, non? on doit être d'accord.

Just went to take a look at two other blogs, courtesy of some free time and no alcohol today. Loh's and Sherwin's. Last posts dated 5th nov and sometime in august, respectively. Well, I won't go so far as to say I miss army life and all that, but what I will say is that I miss the memory of the way people were back then.

Then again, logically speaking, memories are always missed. by default. I can barely say that I'm thrilled by the way some of us have turned out (for others who've always been that way, what can I say?). For one, Sherwin's a miserable drinker. So am I, I suppose, although I must add that I was at it for 1.5 hours before his grand arrival. Not so elegantly wasted eh.

So there they are - memories of what used to be. I kinda liked the many sleepy afternoons with the cool air in the bunk being blown around by the fan that's directly above me (and sherwin frequently requests to have lowered. how low, i wonder. low enough to scratch our noses? hahaha) immediately after the 3pm hot shower. natural water tank heating. somehow you wonder how the water can get so hot but the bunk remain cool.

It's pathetic how some relationships have went the last few months. It's so awkward between some of us who used to be the closest of friends, thanks to one happening or another. So this is what the "real world" does to people: scares us, degrades us to our primal instincts and leaves us deprived of the intangible, non-profitable (yes, isn't it?) aspects of life that are, without doubt, the very foundations of our relationships.

maybe it was the apparent hopelessness of the entire ns affair that left all the "oh i want to make some money for so and so purpose" thoughts all the way till the end of our.. sentence. and with our meagre possessions, some of us strove to make a fortune mountain out of a financial anthill, and attempted to make up with time, effort and all things intangible what we lacked in cash and more importantly, credibility and experience.

yes, if you ask me, it's something regrettable. not completely, but at least to some degree.

Alors

thought of the moment. Completely random, probably completely isolated. might not be another heh.

It's ironic that people value Money more than Time, even though the latter is the one that is irreplaceable, while the former is very much the reverse. It's a pity how people don't see beyond the glaring highlight of saving/earning lots and lots of money and realize the true cost, opportunity cost if you would, they're paying.

There're easier ways. Yes, you were right when you gave these lines:
"Let's talk about the risk factors. 1. Time; 2. Effort."

Risk, indeed. The biggest of which must be time. Having your time leveraged on for remuneration - that's probably the second saddest thing to selling your soul. Wouldn't cost much to throw in the effort as a free gift, while you're at it.

j'ai vu le commentaire de Zhiheng.. eh merci bcp, mon ami :s tes remarques sont si compliqué que j'ai pris au moins de 5 minutes pour les comprendre complètement..

while i take another few minutes to figure out what's in that really long comment, here's what i initially wanted to post. just for fun.

leverage? what leverage when you spend the bulk of your time defending (rather than deriving benefit from) the organization you're associated with?

compare that with perhaps, just perhaps, "oh yes, hi. enchanté. I'm from moët hennessy diageo singapore.. and you?"
now that's cool shit leverage. :)

champion ou champignon? c'est la question. :) vraiment, non. je plaisante.. haha.. à propos, j'ai changé la langue de Blogger à Français. Pour l'instant, cela est maniable. Un peu pénible quand je doit utiliser le dictionnaire mais, le plus grand défi est quand j'essaie d'éviter d'utiliser Babelfish.

alors, parce qu'il est si difficile de créer ce message complet (bien que il est très simple..), je le publierai et vais lire Tintin :) Objectif Lune! Apres ça (oui, j'ai preparé), je vais lire l'episode suivante, "On a marché sur la lune"..

au fait, n'importe quelles corrections sont l'accueil.. je sais que je suis mauvais à cela..

important, but not urgent.

first off, let's give my marketing manager, fanny, some credit for this wonderful if not completely all-encompassing system of classification :s no, it's not SWOT (as in, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), although i believe it does come in a similar format of a big square cut into smaller quarters.
important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important and not urgent and not important ("then don't do la", says cynthia)

while that was totally pointless, i just had to put it up, for in itself is a tongue twister. important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, not important and not urgent.
just like "les chausettes d'archi-duchesse sont seches et archi-seches." seriously, must try. it's worse than peter piper and the pickled pepper. literally, the socks of the arch duchess are dry and extra dry :s which reminds me of nature brut, extra brut, brut, sec, demi sec, doux..

that's it for the rambling. today's incendiary post was instigated by Anna (yes, the ac arts anna wang) after she stole my quote from the god delusion - it's got nothing directly related to the justifiability of the existence of religion; rather, the irritating nature of what we can safely term "lazy christians". Notice, then, that lazy christians are a subset (proper subset, actually) of christians in general, so if there's any one group to blame for the existence of the following incendiary opinion, please, hunt down those particular lazy people.

Lazy - the entire idea encapsulated in this fable of sorts I heard:
once, there was this farmer who was immensely pious, details of such behavior I have no ability to describe. one day, there came a flood in his village, and the government ordered an evacuation due to the threat to villagers' lives. Rescue vehicles went to pick villagers up but when one stopped in front of the house of this particular farmer, he goes "no, don't worry. God will save me". Despite the pleadings of the rescuers, he desisted. Days later, flood waters covered the entire first floor of his house. A rescue boat came along outside his second floor window where he was hiding from the waters and offered to rescue him - again, "My god will save me - don't worry!"; a week later, he's found taking refuge on the roof of his house, with everything below submerged. A rescue helicopter comes along and offers to pick him up "Sir, you have to leave or you'll die!" again, "Don't worry about me - God will save me!" Eventually, of course, he dies (causes of which are irrelevant), and assuming, for fictional purposes, the existence of spirits, he turns into a very angry ghost. One day, he meets God, and questions him "I believed so firmly in you, but when I was in need, WHY DIDN'T YOU COME AND SAVE ME?!"
God tells him "I tried to save you, but you refused. First, I sent the rescue vehicles; then I sent the boat; then, I sent the helicopter. All three times, you refused my help. How can you say, then, that I didn't save you?"

the point, essentially, is that there're so many incidents where people do have the chance to take control of their lives; instead, making a false claim to "faith" and in an occurrence of divine intervention in a self-conceived stereotypical form (i.e. light from the sky, angels coming down and picking you up vs. angels in blue riding in cars, boats and helicopters) as a reason to be effectively (rather, ineffectively) lazy and wait for things to happen.

If anything, I'd think that the central purpose of religion associates itself with the human mentality - in times of difficulty, we have the ability to go against natural circumstances and be proactive against the conditions that prevent us from progressing. It's what makes us human, and even objectively, based on the idea that religion in itself is a human construct, there can be no benefits from believing in the existence of divine beings who set standards of morality and performance for us to meet. It's all in the process of raising the bar for human evolution and progress - while the actual bar may not exist, believing that it does lets us know that we've failed when we hit it (supposedly) and we've succeeded when we've crossed it - hence the idea that the sky's the limit.

here's my take on religion and belief - it should be our impetus for further, accelerated progress; divine purpose is very well the intangible manifestation of the cumulative effect of long periods of rumination into a seemingly illogical but emotionally acceptable decision. After all, people make emotional decisions and fill it up with logical substantiations; logic is secondary, and when we find that no logic can explain what we've decided on, at least we've got the entire notion of divine purpose/calling to back it up. and it's perfectly fine. for them, at least.

damn you lazy christians. you give the entire bunch a bad name - god gave you an existence so that you could make the most out of it in a allocatively, if not socially, efficient manner. by being lazy and waiting for things to happen, you throw nothing but insult back at the hand that fed you. thankfully, you're a minority. better remain that way.

whee - finally got this off my chest. feels good :) sounds familiar? think prison break.

just for the fun of it :)

La première loi de Newton déclare qu'un objet reste dans son état de reste ou de mouvement à une ligne droite à moins que ne suivi par une force externe.
La deuxième loi de Newton déclare que le taux de changement de vitesse linéaire d'un système est directement proportionnel à la force externe nette y agissant et la direction de changement est dans la direction de la force externe nette.
La troisième loi de Newton déclare que quand l'objet A exerce une force F sur l'objet B, l'objet B exerce une force-F, de l'étendue égale, mais la direction opposée, sur l'objet A.

and physics, for a moment, became 100x cooler. just for that little while.

a tidy disappearing act

for most people, less the few that either live with me, live near me or work with me, that's what it's been. poof. not into thin air, thankfully.

so things have been going on, despite the lack of visual evidence. for one, the decision's out. to UCL we, or rather just I, will go. let's try that in french. À Londre j'irai. heh aside from the ucl decision, i will return to L'Alliance Française on monday and see if i actually passed that horrendously pulled-off test last friday. merci to alvin (oh, i didn't introduce him? ah yes, i didn't. obviously. Alvin Natanael Kumarga or something like that. bizarre name, marginally less bizarre than the fact that he looks uncannily like LUCAS LI haha. seriously.) for doing the je suis desolé, mais tu ne me donne pas ton numéro téléphone thingy haha. let's hope we pass and get pascal again for the next class.

let's see, what else. oh yes, the moët hennessy internship. well it's been good working with pierre, celia and fanny. and marie and esther, naturally - thank you for even the opportunity. like they say, it's not WHAT you know but WHO you know that counts in this (i hesitate to say "brave" but well) brave new world. many flutes of champagne have gone down, well appreciated I must add. the maisons will be proud if they knew. i hope.

and for the guys, well, let's just say the thing that i finally realized moved my decision to the many other opportunities (seriously, be fair! we had a good one, but there're others that're equally good, if not better. really.) was chester's story about the man who wanted god to save him in the most bizarre and obvious manner. let's just say i take the opportunities that come by as they come by - certainly ain't hoping to strike toto or something by virtue of a ticket i find on the bus. plus, in jason's words - long term, no? i'll cya guys, maybe not so soon again, but certainly in the future. don't commit me to anything, for goodness' sake.

alors. that seems to be most of it. seriously, you can't expect me to write a post just for the sole purpose of telling people what i've been up to right. i came here with a purpose heh. i need the experiences of previous batches of london bound individuals - packing lists, if you still have them, envoyez-les-moi, s'il vous plait. as with the other important and essential information you may have. in fact, either important OR essential. I know i've been playing the "yea, it's important, but it sure ain't essential" phrase a little too often for my own good, but this time, it's OR. mathematically, anything that touches those 2 categories.

c'est tout. simple, non? :) merci beaucoup! il me semble que ce n'est pas très facile.. mais.. :s

it's the chase for the impossible that's keeping me on the move. ironically, if all that i wanted were right in front of me, i'd stop moving. right away. just, stop.

so as much as possible, keep moving; keep moving away from me, so that i may not stay still; stop only when you deem me fit.

Lead me on

Taking the chance to unwind a little from all the insanity that has been the main, if only, thing this month (more of the last, though), I watched what could arguably be the BEST movie ever, for the 100th time (probably) - Top Gun. Yes, Tom Cruise and Kelly McGinnis; Maverick and Goose. For the record, this IS the reason why my jungle hat says "Maverick" as well.

In addition to that, I managed to get my hands on the Top Gun Soundtrack:
1. Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins
2. Mighty Wings - Cheap Trick
3. Playing With The Boys - Kenny Loggins
4. Lead Me On - Teena Marie
5. Take My Breath Away - Berlin
6. Hot Summer Nights - Miami Sound Machine
7. Heaven In Your Eyes - Loverboy
8. Through The Fire - Larry Greene
9. Destination Unknown - Marietta
10. Top Gun Anthem - Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens
11. Memories - Harold Faltermeyer
12. Great Balls Of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
13. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin - The Righteous Brothers
14. Playing With The Boys (Mix) - Kenny Loggins

And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips. It makes me just feel like crying, baby, cos baby, baby I know it - you've lost that lovin' feeling, wh-ohoh that lovin' feelin. you've lost that lovin' feelin now it's gone, gone, gone.

Wasn't too long ago, the last time I saw Top Gun. At Ben T's house, if I'm not wrong. Before that, though, was a really long time ago. Listening to the soundtrack, the scenes where each of the songs are played (some aren't played in the movie, but for those more prominent ones) pop up naturally in my head. Guess it's like 15 years ago or so, once more. Kinda miss those days.

Negative, Ghostrider, the pattern is full.
*FLYBY, COFFEE SPILLS* (:
something I'd do.. and I was this close to signing for air force in BMT. wonder if I should've. nah.

For now, though - to all the guys who've been working with me all this time and keeping me remotely sane in all that's been thrown at me:

I will take it to the wire now
Until every race is run
I'll go straight into the fire now
Until every day is done
Voices say -- break away
Live each night as if each moment
Was the only one

-Through The Fire, Larry Greene, Top Gun OST (1986)

do it right, won't you?

to the dude who didn't do it right.

I've no idea what you perceive your friends as, but I certainly hope you aren't seeing them as a statistic. treat them with the respect they deserve, won't you?