Moonlight, mooncakes



Tuesday is about
reliving childhood moments, leaving the books
behind for a bit.
We brought our laptops along, though
(some music is always good)
This spot amid dim lantern glows -
a mat, tea, some snacks
Voila! This park is ours for tonight.

Reliving the moments

I've finally completed labelling and uploading those Beijing Model UN pictures. Check them out from links at the sidebar.

From Guardian Unlimited Politics:

Mr Mugabe replies, "Nice to see you," before asking an adviser, "Who was that?" When told the president, fresh from delivering a scathing attack on Britain during the UN general assembly, is seen creasing up with laughter.

Need me say more? Here's another bit from the same article.

"I hadn't expected to see President Mugabe there," Mr Straw said later. "It was quite dark in that corner I was being pushed towards..."

N will be away for the week, bon voyage and have a good time in the Land of the Khmers. Bleah, I wish I could have been there.

Boys and their ball(s)



...Successfully keeping us busy and on our feet all weekend.

Request

N complained the other day that he is not getting enough airtime on this blog. I will try look into the matter. Definitely, anything for you hun.

Hilarious stuff courtesy of Stoned.Nerd, you probably have to be Singaporean and male (above 18 years of age) to appreciate them in their entirety.

We are curious people.

Few can deny they are not intrigued by the secret lives of spies, often glorified by hollywood and in one too many tom clancy novels. But gossip, under the pretext of espionage and turning up on the frontpage of a respectable mandarin daily, to that I am speechless.

Shooting smu

Most wanted

To shoot on sight: The slime who had stolen my shoebag, that which was inaccessibly-placed on top of lockers. How desperate can anyone get?

From Wired Magazine:

But it isn't the food or the furniture that lured Martin Hibberd from his tenured post at London's Imperial College to run the population genetics lab at the Genome Institute. It's the equipment. Biopolis labs are lavishly outfitted with mass spectrometers, robotic microarrays, and a computing room that can house a petabyte of data storage. On a tour of his facilities, Hibberd proudly notes the $600,000 sequence variation analyzer purchased by the government. The system can sequence 4,000 DNA samples a day. Then there are the four $400,000 Applied Biosystems DNA analyzers. "At Imperial, it was hard to get funding for new technology, but here it's available," he says. "We've gone from nothing to this in only a short period of time."

It disgusts me to see that my motherland is moving into the "money-can-buy-you-anything" direction. Yes it is for our future (undertone: we have no choice but to seek a new niche to sustain this flailing economy). Just the kind of excuse people give when they become unscrupulous, over-pragmatic hypocrites - I don't want to turn out this way too, but I've got no choice, this is for survival. How do we expect our younger generation to grow up untainted when daddy himself is not leading by example?

Time out for a little pampering

Upon the waiter's recommendation, I had Tagliatelle with foie gras in port wine sauce, and for dessert, shared a Giant profiterole with vanilla ice cream in hot chocolate sauce with J. Mild regrets over Escargots baked with garlic butter or blue cheese which I'd nearly ordered but didn't; result of a poorly-positioned poster and J's passing comments. Other than that, you never thought french cuisine would fill you up this full. Bugging thoughts on if escargots come with feelers intact (and visible) remain till today. Someone pls enlighten us. Pity J does not drink much and my urge-to-splurge guilt was already setting in, I am almost certain some wine would be good last night.

Instant gratification. retribution

jeanette: u know wat happened???
jeanette: i was on the escalator up
jeanette: and there were 2 indian guys abt 10 steps away
jeanette: one of them turned and asked 'so where's ur fren?'
jeanette: argh
myself: !
myself: are u kidding!
jeanette: serious!
myself: why did they ask
myself: are they drunk
myself: or were they friendly
jeanette: not drunk
myself: or serious?
myself: or cheeky
jeanette: he said 'if she was here, we could go on double date'
jeanette: he was being cheeky i think
jeanette: no more going little india at nite
myself: i think i know which two guys u wer etalkin about
myself: not very young dudes
jeanette: how come u know?
jeanette: yeah not young
jeanette: abt 30 plus?
myself: was one in maroon shirt?
jeanette: i dun rem
myself: haha... i cannot believe this
jeanette: nvr going to little india at nite again
jeanette: was contemplating calling daniel to come accompany me
myself: i cannot believe this... u got picked up by indian guys
myself: did u quickly walk away?
myself: or left a lingerin smile
jeanette: i was behind them
jeanette: how to quickly walk away?
jeanette: could only walk slowly
myself: walk up another exit
myself: turn and go
myself: and then cross the road
jeanette: i was already on the escalator
jeanette: freaky thing was that they noticed u too
jeanette: and he was like 'my guess is correct'
myself: WOT GUESS
jeanette: 'both of u are students'
jeanette: 'from uni'
myself: FREAKKKYYYYY... we are gettin retributions for gossippin aobut weirdass guys
myself: HOW DID THEY RECONFIRM THEIR GUESSES THAT WE WERE UNI STUDENTS
jeanette: they asked me
jeanette: if i was working
jeanette: or a student
myself: WHY did u TALK TO THEM
myself: I thought u seem wary of them
jeanette: he talked to me wat
jeanette: wat can i do
jeanette: there was no one else behind
myself: hah.... caught u unawares...
myself: thats why u got no time for reactions
jeanette: heh
jeanette: turn and run down the up-riding escalator?
myself: hahaa... i can picture ur situation now
myself: oh no.. how... when u reached the top did u quickly walk awy
myself: did they cont talkin to u
jeanette: i walked slowly
jeanette: let them walk in front
jeanette: he tried talking somemore
jeanette: but i think i seemed uninterested
jeanette: why dun i get chatted up by cute indian guys?
myself: like the one workin at mustafa
jeanette: yeah
myself: haha... man, were u traumatized?
jeanette: okie lah
jeanette: just surprised
jeanette: tt's why i got a bit worried when i didn't see u online at 12
jeanette: brb
myself: where are the indian guys taking u away to?!
myself: JEANETTE, COME BACK
jeanette: hahah
jeanette: u silly
myself: haha....
myself: sorry u had to go through this .. although i guess this is well erm an exciting night of random freaks, in convos and in person (s).
jeanette: hahaha
jeanette: yeah
jeanette: freaky nite
myself: haha
myself: its hilarious
jeanette: hilarious for u
jeanette: weird for me man
myself: hahaa....
myself: its so random. i had a less enviable ride home on the bus, non too exciting other than seein weishan on the bus and her she-male friend
jeanette: she male?
myself: haha.. a person who looks likea girl but she sounds like a male. serious.
myself: i was contemplating her sexuality all through the ride home
myself: his/her/its*
jeanette: wat's her name?
myself: no idea. i didnt talk to her.
myself: too intrigued by his/her/its presence .

Irony, in intentional progress

It usually holds true that the times you need a cab, your entire neighborhood also seems to be hailing cabs from the same stretch of road; while the times you don't, cabs pass by and offer to stop for you every five seconds. So the school bookstore does not stock up on a particular text I need; to order, I would need to wait a week (way too long) and it'll cost me almost $40 (way too much). I got a copy from the library and went to one of those shops that could help you photostat the entire book, cover to cover. The first copy shop I went to, actually rejected me because of recent crackdowns on textbook piracy. For fear of the next surprise raid by American publishers who look out for legal reference materials, the friendly owner told me that she did not want to risk a $13,000 fine and instead recommended me to go to one of the other copy shops nearby, which indeed agreed to make an infringing copy of my required text, entitled Intellectual Property Law.

伟大的中国共产党万岁！ *

My current fascination with Chinese blogs (note: China-based, preferably Beijing sites, either in Chinese or English, written by mainlanders and foreigners alike) has yet to cease, evident by fervent scouring over the internet these days in between work, applications and emails. Even news and propaganda interest me to no end. Recent additions to the favorites folder include this (switch encoding to chinese simplified), this, this and that, all poised for due consideration before probable sidebar listing.

P.s. It's uncanny how Mr P can accurately point out details about myself even I didn't seem to realize at first. Alright, you win this time, I am really becoming too cheena-fied for my own good.

* Loosely translated: Long live the great chinese communist party!

He would have turned twenty-four if he is still alive today.

Untitled poem written couple of weeks back pre-Beijing where else, but at a bus-stop

A myriad of faces,
this bus-stop.
lives passing us by
rushing minds

two seconds of familiarity
swept afresh by a new expression.
the story behind every smile, a wink,
clasped hands

who can decipher them
look, don't judge,
impressions only last till the next
stranger who walks past.

Can you spot my name?

While justice may not prevail all the time, one thing we can be sure of, schemers do get tired of their games.

Get the specifics here.

I didn't bother catching PM Lee's maiden National day rally speech, either on tv or in papers couple of weeks back. I also didn't watch the national day parade on tv like the good citizen I was supposed to be, although I did remember spending part of that time conversing wit N on the mobile, and the other half digging holes on campus grounds.

Today I not only viewed a C-span recording of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Aug 31 "economic girly men" speech, but moments later also caught the live! telecast of George W. Bush's acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination/speech at the GOP Convention in its entirety. And listened to both so closely that I was able to voice out some heartfelt opinions/analytical thoughts on both speeches in class.

This just about sums up my allegiance to local politics.

To the one whom I can't sum up my feelings for in a word because you can be quite a pain in the arse most times, yet I still do care for you in a way even I can't exactly fathom. And it's true, I don't show it much; so all you need to know, hidden and packed away doesn't mean it's not there. Happy belated birthday.

I stumbled upon a sunset on campus the other day.

From BBC NEWS:

The former president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, has begun his much-delayed defence at The Hague. He began by denying the charges against him over his alleged role in the 1990s Balkans wars.

Mr Milosevic, who is representing himself, is accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the conflicts, in which tens of thousands were killed. But he said the international community had been "the main force for the destruction of Yugoslavia" in the Balkans wars and argued that the Serbs had been victims defending themselves.

Mr Milosevic also says he wants to call more than 1,600 witnesses in the 150 days allotted to his defence - including former US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair - however correspondents say it is unlikely they will appear.

The fundamental aim in setting up courts and legal institutions is to enable and oversee the administration of justice, in providing for an independent party to assure the public that the innocent will not be wrongly accused, the guilty not escape scot-free and that respective punishments are meted out fairly. However as legal proceedings become institutionalized over the years, the judicial process in itself has, more than often not, worked against what it has set out to achieve in the past. Those who are well-versed in the ways of the litigation processes or who are rich enough to appoint lawyers to represent them can be shielded behind the mess of complicated formalities or find loopholes in certain statutes or procedural inevitabilities. Everyone is (supposedly) equal in the courts of law, thus the law protects all, even those who are making ridiculous floundering bids to delay prosecution. And what prosecution may we say, when they are already sheltered from death penalty in yet another system failure.