been a rather eventful week, those most of the past few days were spend with both my parents overseas. it also meant missing breakfast on most of the days either cause i overslept or simply am too lazy to fix something. out of the few changes there were one was the most significant, the onus was on me to account for my sister's well-being and safety. so imagine my horror when she phoned me and said, "eh i was robbed." oh yes, she was staying at my grandma's for the time-being.

okay i myself aint too sure about the actual details, as most of our subsequent telephone conversations was about me telling her i would go take her to make a police report with her pleading not too as she was too afraid. apparently she either dropped her wallet and some young guy behind her picked it up and ran off, or he might have picked it out of her pocket after bumping into her. yes that isn't robbery, thank God.

and she scared the living daylights out of me when she went uncontactable for a good 5 and a half hours, even my grandma wasnt at home to pick up her phone. plus it was the darn the heaven's cried and it was flooded everywhere. it was so so hard to focus on shepherd's meet while her phone kept going into voicemail. haha funny thing was she actually coaxed my grandma to take her home to get some stuff and "while we are here might as well" help her pack her room.

yeah and went for kim's 21st birthday party yesterday. yes incase you all bought in to whatever she said about samuel and i being so willing and volunteered to perform, and to "climb mountains" for her, let us first establish that she successfully conned both of us to do so some 7 days ago. "fine, i wont mind if samuel agrees." and "okay sure if shawn agrees.", actually turned out to me "samuel agrees." and "shawn agrees" to her lol. so that was how she successfully conned us into agreeing by telling us that the other had already agreed. okay if u are still following that is.

we did "how six songs collide", a medley made out of the 'collision of six songs'(duh) my norwegian recycling. the other items put up was awesome though. her dunman high cg did some cover of michael jackon's billy jean which really quite set the bar. haha that guy, wadeva his name is, can really sing. and then her friend(sheesh i forgot her name!) played the guitar and sang some song, and gosh she sings so awesomely! haha no seriously im wasnt smittened into a poor objective judgement but she seriously was good!! has that style and swagger in her voice, very much suited for the genre of the song. qianjin did 'the man who can't be moved' by the script, which i thought was a considerable effort for such a hard song, though just a tad too fast.

well anyway, quite a fun and memorable party overall i must say? got to meet up with some of the youth peeps whom i havent seen in a while, like finally hearing qianjin sing after like almost 2 yrs. haha back then it was almost every week during ministry time. yeah i guess its true you know. like what kim said, parties no doubt a chore to organise actually is a good time to be used to catch up with one another and foster old/new friendships. oh well. we'll see how i would wanna have my 21st then.

anyway, keith woo came by my place just hours ago to try out the threadless shirt sizes. he wants to order them but dont really know whether the sizes fits. haha yeah i know so yesterday right? lol anyway threadless is having some 2 day free-shipping sale so u might wanna check it out. haha after some deliberation and erm, much nervous moments i decided, that since both my parents were out, and the traffic is minimum at night, and i'm just so tempted and still way too young to die, i took my parents car out for a spin. haha first time driving an auto-car. i was actually quite surprised it moves by itself, yes i know lah that's what it means right. oh man the thrill of driving out onto the main road, without so much as even a triangle plate. haha i duno if it was nervousness, the adrenaline, the fear of getting caught behind the wheel of a mobile without a license, or a mixed emotion of anxiety and thrill that kept us laughing quite abit. and taking the route on the main road was really quite, erm an experience.

anyway, in case you're wondering my driving test is on the nov 26. hope i pass then and finally, OFFICIALLY get licensed. and guys.. 8 more days till 'ALTER THE ENDING'!!!

First it was oasis, now the honorary title as well!!??

sigh, there goes another of my fav bands.

"Friday Nov. 20th at the Williamsburgh Music Hall in Brooklyn NY, will be the final show for 'the honorary title', for those hard core fans who have followed the band you will know that the bands line ..."

yes im back from hongkong, though very much hate the sad fact of it. though hongkong had really bad air(and smell) the weather wasnt as unforgiving as singapore's for sure. and besides, it felt totally awesome to be away from the the mundane work life and just to let go off everything and just go on a holiday for a while. yeah my first properly holiday overseas, not counting those trips for training purposes.

well, hongkong was every bit what i expected it to be. you know, from what you see on the television and stuff. and yet at the same time the trip was packed with erm.. a series of 'what!?' events(sorry i lack a better word). i probably wont be able to fit everything into one post should i have the urge to spell everything out but for memories sake i shall fill up as much as i can remember.

well for starters i kinda arrived at singapore airport with the wrong passport. well not exactly wrong as in someone else's, but just not my latest one. yeah i know dumb me. well singapore said it's fine to let me through since my passport aint expired yet, but apparently after arriving at hongkong i was barred entry. okay so the plan was to wait for ivan on the later flight to bring in my newer passport. seems like a perfectly sound and okay plan, just try to explain that to hongkong immigration officials who dont really understand english well, and to convince them you arent some illegal immigration or smth. okay so i waited a total of 5.5 hrs.. (yes sitting there). i got to see a fair bit of the immigration police at work. met all kinds of people in there, from bombay, mumbai, vietnam, thailand, china, india, america blah blah. all kinds of people on all kinds of business brought in. it was interesting to see the police interrogate them though, and how they really pay attention to the intricate details and all. sad to say though, i witness a fair bit of racism displayed by them, like refusing to point the toilet out to this indian man when its just some 10m away, even after 1.5 hrs..

oh well. basically the entire hongkong trip was one mad rush. at least the first two days felt like so. we've probably been to every mall known to exist in hongkong in the first two days alone. walked till our knees ached and feet blistered.

the hotel room's design is rather amusing though. you know the wall that usually separates the bathroom from the bedroom area? yeah this one's made of glass. those foggy glass kind, so while watching tv on your bed, you could very well glance over and watch the silhouette of your friend bathing haha.

the main problem was the communication barrier though. like everyone there mostly spoke cantonese and the main common language we used was mandarin. haha some even mistook us for being taiwanese/jap when we spoke english.

oh and the power of our 11B though. i think im gonna bring it as my ic even after i ord, everytime i go overseas. i remember there was this once after we left lang kwai feng(their clarke quay area) -hope i spelt it correctly- we got stopped by two policemen. yeah that area's quite notorious for triads and drugs apparently. they were about to probably take us back for further questioning till they saw the huge 'SINGAPORE ARMED FORCES' at the top of my 11B. then let us go when i told them we're in the army.

okay all in all spend close to 1k, excluding travel and accommodation. yeah i know its quite a bit but its mainly a shopping trip so i should be pardon. the prices there werent much cheaper than singapore anyway, just probably a little due to the non-existant tax. oh well.

there, i wrote it down.

my heart is home, in Your courts oh Lord.
How i long for You.

such a tiring week this was, except for the fact that it wasnt because i had any physical stuff or high-key event meetings of that sort. its more like im.. drugged(yes you heard me).

went to national skin center on tuesday for my first medical appointment regarding my foot rot. apparently there's a cooler name for it, trenched feet. yes you soldiers all over the world i know you feel my pain. its like the curse of infantry soldiers. so so so very difficult to get rid off. in case you all have no idea what's going on here, my once happy feet were abused and drowned in the treacherous waters of the brunei jungle for a good whole 9 days without a change of socks. what resulted was fungi that found my feet to be a prime location to have a street of 5-star hotels and shopping malls, and have since refused to recognise any other feet to be as cosy as mine. yes, its been there on my feet for almost a year now. occassionally it would itch but recently for wadeva reason they've gotten really itchy and erm.. nvm.

so anyway, the doctor gave me a new type of medication this time ard(im telling you by now i've known every single anti-fungi cream). so it was an anti-inflammatory with anti-microbial cream for external use on my feet, as well as an oral anti-fungus medication. okay basically you just need to know that the cream to be applied contains steriods, which would reduce the itch but on another hand, over application would cause the fungi to cultivate even more. so here comes the oral medication to help suppress such a situation.

here's the catch, there's ALOT of side effects to this oral medication, from getting sunburn easily, to feeling ridiculously fatigue for no apparent reason.

anyway, the next afternoon after taking the pill, a strange thing happened to me in office. it was like all of a sudden a thousand ants were in my boots at once, and both my feet felt so terribly inflamed and swollen. i ripped off my boots and socks to find both my feet bright red(for God knows why) and could barely walk without cringing in pain. i thought it was some allergic reaction to the medication, but thought otherwise since it took like a good whole 17 hrs for my body to show signs of it. i soon realise it was that the oral suppressant medication had worn off..

so basically im like living off the drug now, for a whole month!! so annoying how its just so tiring to drag yourself through the day, and can u believe it, i even felt breathless blowing a balloon for CG games and climbing across an overhead bridge lol. sheesh old age. haha good excuse to sleep more though.



and also two afternoons ago my sister cooked the first ever lunch for me. yes, from cracking the egg to lighting the store, it was 100% hers, which of course includes the inedible finished product(which erm, needs getting used to). armed with a cup of milk and a prayer against any possible liver failure, i tried to down her noodles as best as i could. haha and i ate every strand alright. but i really couldnt take her eggs. who on earth, fries the eggs with black sauce!? correct me if im wrong, shouldnt it always just be used as a "seasoning" only after frying it?? i took a small bite(out of kindness but mostly out of encouragement) and found my mouth swimming in oil. HAHA gosh i can still taste it in my month two days later. nvm lah right, we all start off with black eggs. she eventually threw them away after failing to persuade my dad or bro and (even herself) to have a mouth.

okay, one more week to HongKong. need some friendly advice here if you've been there before since none of us going knows how to speak a word of cantonese and erm decent mandarin. if you know where's the must go, and what nots. TELL ME!!