The Beginning of the End

Hey everyone. Still alive. And kicking. Was stuck in a rut a few days ago when I was caught out in the cold and rain, all wet and shivering in my goretex jacket in the vehicle travelling for hours at end. But that's done and over with. Will be embarking on another similar journey tomorrow so wish me luck. Hope the weather's on our side this time.

The weather's here finally beginning to turn warm again. For once, it's a welcome change. Can't believe I was shivering the whole of yesterday, and the day before. That was a pretty trying time. Trying to look comfortable to others while writhing in freezing pain within.

At the moment, I'm trying to finish this blasted book called "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov or something like that. Love love love this book. The subject's a perverted old man who never ceases to think highly of himself and is diseased with a natural inclination towards small little girls or nymphets as he calls them. It's a fascinating read and I can never put the book down once I start reading it in my free time which is not a lot at the moment. Damn funny. The prose is excellent and the author never fails to draw your attention from the cruelty or pervertedness of the act to make it look or sound like an extremely applaudable or innocent act. The author's really damn good. Right now, I'm stuck at the part where he's thinking about killing his wife to see whether he can go further for his incestuous lust for his step-daughter. It's disgusting and revolting but I really cannot put this damn book down! :P

I'll be back in about 2 weeks and I've officially prob spent about 3 weeks already here. Things have been crazy but everything I guess has to be taken with a pinch of salt and by gritting the teeth. It's been crazy and I'm still loving every moment being here. Almost feels like home here and it's damn frightening.

Cheers from me,
Raffli.

PS: Managed to get to McDonald's a few days ago!!! And never has fillet-o-fish or french fries tasted like heaven before!!! Now I'm just waiting for my Tandoori chicken and Indian cuisine later on at Kaohsiung. :P

Happy Birthday to Me! :P

Hi everyone! :P Me again... Finally got hold of a computer once more. Got 9 min exactly till the computer dies. It's my birthday today and I'm turning 21 finally... Can't believe how old I am. And I seriously cannot believe how much of that was spent in school... Lemme see 2+6+4+2=14 whole years in school.... How ridiculous is that?

Anyway. I'm still stuck here in Taiwan on exercise. It will end soon and I can be on my way back to Singapore soon! :P Miss everything about Singapore. Everything. The food. The people. The weather. And most of all my friends and family. Can't believe how much I think about them when I'm about to plop to sleep.

I'm finally beginning to settle down to the environment here. Am finally comfortable to talk to everyone in a casual manner since now I know most of them by name :P And the work's settled down a bit now that the ex is finally beginning.

Gtg. Internet's dying once more. Ciaoz for now. Everyone: I'm still alive and kicking. At least for now :P Till next1

Cheers from Taiwan

Hey everyone! :P Cheers from me in Taiwan... I'm currently on an overseas exercise with my unit and I'm loving every moment being here. I feel that I'm really blessed because I came up with some of the best ppl I could possibly have worked with here.

The environment's great - never have I seen such camaraderie between the different ranks and people who are forced to live with each other side by side each night as the beds are placed really close to each other. You're literally facing the other person's face when you turn left or right.

And the weather's driving me nuts. It was freaking cold when I first arrived but now it's sweltering hot, like in Singapore. I came to experience a different environment, and I did initially, but now that full-blown summer has arrived, it's hard to escape from the heat, especially when there's so few air-conditioned rooms around unlike in Singapore.

Managed to get a nights off a few days back because one of my buds here just celebrated his 20th birthday here, in a small town called Douliu. Interesting small rustic town with the usual amenities such as shops and the obligatory McDonald's and KFC. Never have I been so happy to put french fries in my mouth before. Dang... And it's only been what? Slightly more than 7 days.

Been sick for the past few days with flu, a runny nose, a sore throat and a bad cough but I'm slowly getting better as I increasingly take my medication. Mom, Dad, Sis and all those back at home - don't worry :) I'm ok now... :)

Also, there was a 6.4 earthquake reported in the Taizhong area about 2 days ago and apparently some of the guys felt their beds shaking. I was in the cookhouse at that time, enjoying my dinner so I didn't feel a thing at all. Damn.

Alright, this is all that I can type for the moment. Internet's here ridiculously expensive but cheer up everyone :) I shall be back soon.

Cheers,
Raffli,.

Random Ramblings...

I am so tired. I really am. It's not so much of physical exhaustion, mor of my mind's pretty crapped up at the moment. I am leaving for Taiwan in what 2 weeks and I still have so so much to do in the office.

Like today. I was on the dept outing in the morning @ East Coast, hoping to have a great day in the sun rollerblading and laughing with the dept I love and care so much about. Then, the dreaded W word appears out of nowhere and slams me right on the face with a tight tight slap. So tight that I couldn't even be bothered to blade after that - no mood. I mean I told OM (OM will henceforth be known as the person who is in control of the office and everything that happens within - I'm pretty sure u guys know who he is) the day before we left for the outing that since we will be out and that there's no duty storeman, I wanted to write a note to this company saying that we won't be around to collect any indents that may arrive via milkrun. He bloody knew about it. Then this last minute thing comes up that the indent has to be distributed on this very bloody day: the day of the outing. And I can feel that he's blaming me that this thing got up to OC level. I am damn pissed at OM. So pissed that I am glad I am robbing him of 2 more people to order around in the office and I am glad that I am leaving the office for a month.

This smiling thing too is beginning to feel like a burden though it comes so naturally. It's who I am. But when I'm suffering so much from so many many things happening around me, it's really hard to smile sometimes. Work's piling up so high that I am beginning to see that nothing short of a miracle can accomplish all that's been set to be done. Yesterday's meeting just left me totally flabbergasted. At department level - I can understand. But extending it to company level and setting a dateline that's just too close for any comfort at all... It's just... A herculean effort. And the stress level's really high. Together with the tension. I can sense definite tension between my buddy and his understudy. They are like opposing forces and it looks set to continue that way. It's becoming really exhausting just being in the office.

And I still have tons of scholarship applications to complete plus testimonials to obtain from my past teachers plus the rescheduling of any interviews required plus application for financial aid. And everything's gonna be processed while I'm not here in Singapore. Any interviews scheduled and I won't be around. How fun is that? It's really beginning to stress me a lot...

Plus, I need to make sure that my understudy's ok with everything that he needs to know before I leave him at the mercy of OM and all the CQs and the OCs. Hopefully he'll do ok. :) I have high hopes for him and his colleague-in-arms.

And I haven't even packed anything yet... At all! I'm prepared mentally to accomplish all the tasks set for the exercise but at home and at work, there are so many many things to settle before I go. The trip I took last Dec was ok because I was only away for 2 weeks plus... But this one is a month plus. Plus, I will be clearing almost immediately after returning from Taiwan. There's so much shit to clear...

Nothing is making me happy at the moment. Nothing. I have to find that one thing that can make me happy but at the moment, nothing is making me any bit happy. Even listening to music is not helping. Home is equally stressful and just being at home makes me want to bolt out for the office. But being in the office conjures up the same feeling as well... If I can't find refuge in either place, where on earth am I supposed to go to? Totally disappear? I can't even go to the movies nowadays, seeing it being totally pointless - I know it will be interrupted by some other event.

Maybe it's just me who's complaining about all these things. Perhaps these things don't even exist. I probably created all these problems myself in my head and they somehow materialised in the most solid form possible. I do that at times. Imagine things that are not there. Am I ok in the head?

But I really am looking forward to the rainbow which appears after a storm - my university education. I really cannot wait for it to begin. But I know that I want to be challenged in Uni. Which is why the strong consideration for the Business and Law Double Degree thing in NUS and the Monash application for Arts and Law Double Degree popped up. I want to do so many many things to prove to everyone that looks down on me that I can do it... Those people who think that I'm a social outcast just by looking at me on the train or on the bus. How awkward that I'm unable to assimilate seamlessly into the teenage crowd. That I'm not a useless piece of crap that society can leave at the corner of a street and totally ignore. That everyone will not look down upon. I managed to start that from a family level - being the first to be formally accepted on academic grounds into a Uni. That's a big achievement in my family. Really. And it feels great to have successfully accomplished that.

But a good friend of mine once told me that it's not good that one does something just to prove something. One must have the passion and desire to do the thing before embarking on the task. But all my life has been about challenging people. I only took my own path in JC when I chose to take the Arts rather than the Sciences. My interests only lie in the arts so it was a natural choice to choose the arts. Teachers didn't think I would even pass my science subjects in secondary school. I did. Teachers who thought that I would bring down the whole school's reputation for failing Malay lit. And I got an A for that. People who laughed in my face when I told them that I wanted to go to RI after PSLE. People who thought I would never come out of BMT alive. I did. I want to have the satisfaction of knowing that I exceeded someone's lowly expectations and that it was totally unexpected. It's a nice feeling of superiority. Maybe... It's this superiority complex that I'm suffering from? Dang... Why am I speaking so randomly today? Complaining to no one in particular... Sigh...

I so want to be in Montréal right now, buried deep in the snow where no one can ever find me. Lost under my Fugly snowman in Montréal. Just me and Fugly. That was such a great moment.

Travel Journal (Part 1) - Singapore to Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan

17 Dec 2005

I couldn't believe it but the day finally came - the day I would leave for a trip that would last a lifetime, the first ever trip I would embark upon alone. Plans were to visit Honolulu (a choice made at the very last minute), New York, Montréal, Québec City and back to New York before returning home to Singapore. This travel journal, though long overdue (because my computer went down the day I got back :P ), will record the events and thoughts that occured during the trip, both memorable and some I would most like to forget forever. They will be based on my own memory as well as journal entries I wrote down in my little book I brought along to write with.

First on the list was the most important of things that I should have taken care of much earlier - how to get to Changi Airport from home and arrive there at around 4.30 in the morning. Moreover, my whole family had insisted that they wanted to see me off. I was very touched. And the thing is, I only finished packing for the trip the night before leaving, having been to camp during the day to see if I had any unfinished work to finish before leaving for about 3 weeks. I could hardly sleep after that but I did and I got about an hour's worth before I was rather suddenly woken up by my Dad's voice in the middle of the morning at 3: "How are we going to get to the airport?" I thought of calling the cab down but my Dad insisted that we could easily get a cab just across the road. We did get cabs within 5 minutes of waiting and then we were off... My heart was just racing like mad and when I saw the Control Tower of Changi Airport loom before me in the cab, I couldn't contain my excitement. I started smiling like a lunatic. :P

Upon arrival at the United Airlines Check-In booths, I found out that it was already pretty full and that only United and I think Emirates was open that early in the morning. Being the eager beaver that I was, I promptly queued in line with my huge haversack and my smaller bag and was asked a few protocol security questions by a nice lady. Having entered another queue to receive my actual tickets however posed a problem - they wanted me to supply the address I was going to stay at in Honolulu. I was damn scared that I actually perspired. I tried calling my buddy whom I was going to meet there but his phone didn't respond. So I messaged him instead and he replied with his home address less than a minute later... PHEW!!! :) Thanks bud!

After I checked in the bigger haversack and promptly got my tickets, I felt damn hungry so we stopped by Burger King to have a really really early breakfast. This time however, my appetite was kinda bad because I started having fears of flying all of a sudden. The thought of being up in the air with practically nothing under my feet except for the plane floor and that frightening feeling one gets when the plane lifts off and lands all culminated in me confiding in my Mom that I was really really scared out of my wits that I even started to shiver in fright. My Mom then reassured me that nothing would happen and after seeing my youngest bro's cute face, I was calm once again... :)

With a face as cute as that, how can one remain frightened of the prospect of having nothing under your feet for the next 10 hours or so? :P

Soon, it was time for me to board the plane as the gates for the plane started to allow passengers to board. Before that, we went to wander around at the Viewing Hall to try and spot the United plane and just to see the planes lift off, so as to calm my nerves. A last photo with the family and then I was off to the departure gate.

A very happy family indeed in the early hours of the morn. Amazing.

At the departure gate, I hugged all my siblings and kissed the hands of my parents. Then suddenly tears started forming out of nowhere. I couldn't believe how emotional I was becoming - and this was just for a holiday in the States! Imagine if I had gone to study overseas - I would have been a wreck in the airport! Then my Sis started crying as well and my tears just became more worse.

When I finally got through the gates after they checked my passport and my tickets, I bade a final goodbye to my family, quickly wiped off the tears (!) and swiftly proceeded to Gate C20. Changi Airport is a really really cool place to linger around in. The shops I saw on the way to the gate were pretty fascinating and they even had a McDonald's within Departures Area! :) Really cool... But I was really kinda too nervous to grab fries or anything so I just went to the gate and waited for my class of seats to be announced. About half an hour later, I was able to board and thus, began the journey of a lifetime: my first ever plane ride alone and to the States for that matter! :)

I prepared myself for the take off. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. True, the speeding got my heart racing but once the plane flew, I felt at ease again. I kept telling myself that a plane ride was just like riding a bus. In a way it is. And it is because of this that I can happily smile and write on the plane, high above the clouds.

Flying past the Philippines, close to Kaohsiung...

17 Dec 2005, 4.15pm, Tokyo Time

As I sit at Gate 42, awaiting for boarding to begin on my NRT->HNL flight, the sun lies low on the horizon. It is roughly 4.15pm, Tokyo time and already the sun is about to set.

The waiting area in Narita Airport - it's so so clean! I've never seen a place cleaner than this! :) And the seats are very comfortable too!

The plane ride from Singapore to Narita, Tokyo was interesting to say the least. 95% of the air stewardesses on the flight were Japanese and they were all so kawaii! :) Managed to watch 3 whole movies throughout the whole flight - "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit", "Ice Age" and "Fantastic 4". All would have been perfect if not for the fact that since I had asked for Muslim meals, I received Nasi Lemak for my breakfast on the plane. And it was pretty horrid too. But since I was hungry, I galloped it all up. Then, I left my plastic spoon jutting out of my meal box. By luck, my hand would suddenly come down rather violently on the spoon and I created a small mess on my jeans and my shirt. Very visibly stained since a lot of oil goes into the preparation of Nasi Lemak. That was so unfortunate - I was very very embarassed. The flight stewardess saw it and so did the passenger who sat next to me. So... DANG!!!

And when I arrived at Narita Airport, I felt so so lost. I was going to board a plane to connect to Honolulu. The Japanese lady at the International Connections area wrongly pointed me to the direction I was to take. I was supposed to join the queue but she pointed me towards Domestic Connections instead. That was very exasperating. Then, the security check has to be the most embarassing thing ever. Before I put my bag in the conveyer belt, my passport slipped and all my air tickets fell out onto the floor. Then, after passing through the metal detector doorm it beeped. I promptly pointed out that it was my buckle on my belt, but she asked instead for me to remove my shoes and to take my belt off in public. There were tons fo people behind me but I did it anyway. Then with my socks on, she asked me to step through the metal detector door again. And after that, she asked whether she could pit my shoes through the metal detector. That was so embarassing!!! Esp with my unfortunately soiled shirt!!! DANG!!! I guess it's a ritualistic thing to have first-time travellers to be embarassed so severely!!! :P

The beginning of sunset at the airport. That's my plane to Honolulu!!! :)


Playing around with the sepia filter that came with the camera...

It's 5pm now (Tokyo time) and the sun has fully set. It's a lovely and amazing sight. Hopefully, tomorrow morning when I reach Honolulu, would fare much much better. I really hope it does.

Sunset @ the airport. Stunningly beautiful sight - I've never seen the evening sky so clearly delineated by 3 different colours! :) Later in Montréal, I will even see a pink sky during sunset!!! :)

Back in New York

Hi everyone. It's me again and i'm back in ny. It's currenty 1am in the morning here, having just turned Dec 31. Thismeans that you guys back in Singapore willprobably be celebrating new year's almost half a day earlier so HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! MAY ALL YOUR BEST WISHES FOR2006 COME TRUE :)
Anyway, I arrived here in ny frommontreal via amtrak train and what a jouney it was! Nearly 12 hours stuck in te same seat with a 2 hour delay because of the snow - now that was omething. It wasn't the most comfortal of rides but it has ot to be ride with the most beutiful and pictuesqueviews from a train windw I've ever taken.
I realise tha've alreay left Montreal but sohow I fel tat part of my hart has been left behd. The atmosphere and the people hav left an indellible mark tha would be difficl to erase and I eel that I have to return o this place one day. Perhaps I couldapplyfor McGilll College located in downtown montreal. :P

Bonjour à Montréal, Canada

Hi everyone! :) Me again! And I'm now in surreally beautiful Montréal, which is currently covered with wonderful snow!!! There was a snow storm before we arrived so it's snow's covered the sidewalks and the roads! :P

That's me and my cute / fugly snowman! :P First one ever!