1L of Tears

"Based on a true story

This story is about a girl named Aya who suffered from an incurable disease, Spinocerebellar Degeneration (in which the nerve cells of areas necessary for the human body to move and balance - including the cerebellum, brain stem, and spinal cord - transforms and eventually disappears), but lived life to the fullest until her death at 25. The original story is based on the diary Aya wrote before she could no longer hold a pen. The book that later followed entitled “One Liter of Tears" has sold over 1.1 million copies. Aya's only wish was “to live". By carefully depicting Aya's earnest desire to live, and the love of her family, friends, and lover, the drama “One Liter of Tears" hopes to deliver her simple yet strong message:

“Just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing."

I never like Jap/Korean drama series, but this particular drama really got me hooked. Ego aside, this is the first show that actually made me cry, and by cry i don't mean "teary eyed but never really falls" cry, I mean "tears falling down while making weird noises" cry. The drama not only shows the agony and seriousness of such disease, it portraits the cruelty of our society on how we look at people who suffers from illnesses that makes them behave abnormally. The stares, the avoidance, the teasing... It's just plain irony why God ever allows the induction of these. It's not just these handicapped people; how many times have we actually criticized people who is ugly or retarded? I am guilty of that, but i understand the fact that they are not given the choice to choose the way they are born, and if they are allowed to choose, will they choose to be abnormal?

Maybe it's time to hold back on what you are doing, sit down and just listen to the world for once.

Quoted by the heroine of this true story, "While other people struggling for their future, I'm struggling to live." *sniff*

Bloody Thursday, Soccer Sunday

Finally, i had my braces on and embarks on the journey to a greater smile!! Reasons to put on braces?

1. I chipped a portion of my front tooth when i was around 12 yrs old. It happened in australia when i was going down a steep water slide in a theme park along with another caucasian boy side-by-side, disregarding of the safety rules. On the way down, there was some collision and my month banged into the side of the tunnel, with a broken front tooth...

2. Uneven set of teeth, both upper and lower.

3. Financially stable myself. Had always wanted to put on braces but needless to say, my parents opposed strongly to it because of the money!

The preparation was a painful path, having to do a root canal treatment on my chipped tooth, to patching up both my last molars caused by my wisdom tooth and extracting 4 teeth all in all.

I could not eat, chew and speak properly the first few days, the tightness causing a huge pressure on my nasal area. Don't believe? Try pressing your teeth hard, yeah that's the feeling, continuously. Pain killer and ice water can only help so much.

Celebrated Brian's bday on saturday, had a feast at Family international Buffet at Tampines Mall, which used to be Pariss. Food there was good, though inferior to the Pariss at Marina Sq. With my condition, i was only wacking oysters and sashimi, but its good! Celebrated with a birthday cake at the downtown east chalet which was used by my brother the day before, also to celebrate his bday which is on the same date as brian. Throughout the night was the usual drinking and playing games, with long lost Tom and his friend luther, Mango and Liyin joining the fun together. Bday boy, sher and me emerged victory against ks, tom and luther in the game, 'Beer Pong'! Whos your daddy~?! haha
Brian eating his longevity pao at Family International Buffet, Tampines, while ks was smiling like the longevity pao =D

Me having my 50th slice of sashimi while sher was trying hard to stick to his diet regime.

Played our first league game in the Espzen League on sunday against Interlink Football Club. The opponent was 1-0 up on half-time, and not long after the start of 2nd half, 2-0. The weather was hot, field was muddy and tired legs all around making our team lethargic and morale was rock bottom. Through a wonderful goal by jonathan near the dying minute, we got 1 back, and suddenly the team sprung with limitless energy. We were chasing down every ball, challenging hard to win back possession, and we did. At the last min, another superb run and a cross-in found our other striker, alvin open and he headed into goal, after striking the goalpost and the back of the keeper's head first. It was a repercussion of ManUtd vs bayern Munich Champion League match!!

It would not be a Soccer Sunday for me if not for the GREAT comeback by Arsenal down 0 - 1 against Man Utd to the final score; 2 - 1! Van Persie and Henry adding onto the scoreboard in the 83mins and 94mins respectively. Arsenal gaining 6 out of 6 points against Man Utd this season.

KFC

"It's finger lickin' good", but for me,

"It's tummy achin' bad".

Used to be one of my favourite fastfood during my primary school days, or even before that. I can still remember vividly the taste and atmosphere of the KFC restaurant at Yohan(sp?), now know as Thomson Plaza. Those were the days where KFC provided bottled maggi chilli sauce, served chicken on plates and customers used forks and knifes to eat. I can only remember the taste of the original recipe, not the crispy type since i assume it was tougher to bite and thus less appealing to a kid.

Junk food? Calories, fats, cholesterols, cabohydrates? What was that to you when you were young? NOTHING

Now, things had changed so much so that eating fast food just once a month is consider sinful. For me, my experience with KFC had deteriorated to a very pathetic level, since the last two times i had their 2 pieces chicken meal, i suffered from diaherra. It came quick, and went off as quick, but during then, my tummy was twitching and twirling real bad, especially since i had to wake up in the middle of the night and dashed to the toliet...... Crapz

They will probably be given another chance by me, but definitely not next week, or the week after, or the following week after.

2007

Another month to my beloved holiday; Chinese New Year! It's been only 1/2 a month since new year holiday, and i am actually looking forward to the next... Anyway I had a really blasting nye celebration, the best in my last 23 years or so. This post will be a summary of what happened from nye to now. You can refer to sher or brian blog on the right for more pictures.

This was a really sick alcoholic buffet we had that night for 9 people, as listed below:
1 x Absolute Vodka

1 x Tequila

1 1/2 x Chivas Regal

1 x Jacobs Creek Champagne

1 x Redwine

12 x Carlsberg

I bet this amount of alcohol is enough for the surgeons to operate for at least half a year...

Nice pic huh? Taken in Zouk prior to intoxicating my liver and kidneys. These were the 8 out of 9 mentioned above.

Raygun FC. We had our first official match last sunday against Blue Steel FC since we joined ESPZEN. In the top row middle is brian, which i believe was kinda of squeezy back there. In the end, we won 2-0 but i had to mention my gruesome cramps on both legs' calves, thighs, hamstrings, adductors... In pain then, i told myself not to play 2 matches in a day... anymore. This was the 2nd match =

Feel like writing more, especially about the nightmares i had recently, but guess i will keep it till the next post, stay tune.

This month

This month, december, is the month of joy, happiness, sadness, giving, party, booze, more party and booze, and not forgetting party and booze. It is the end of 2006, 3 more days to Christmas, an cosmopolitan event, though it is a Christian's day to celebrate the birth of Jesus. 9 more days to New year's eve, to welcome year 2007. This year, particularly, has and soon had, to be one of the most memorable year of my life. I was involved in loads of events, know lots of new wonderful people, taking up new challenges and facing new situations, the list goes on. I will probably need the next two years just to write down my this year experience, but to keep it short, it was great!




Taken at the airport, yesterday. Were there to see geoffery (center) off for studies in LA, California. My 3 horrendous mths in Delta, ocs, were made possible just because of these guys. Pei'an (left) looked damn gay in the picture, especially after he joined the dance society in NUS, cheers mates.




Their first time, at St James PowerHouse. Pamela & Cheryl hooked up by the X'mas tree.




Group photo, at St James PowerHouse. From left, Sher, Ks, Brian on top of Cheryl O.o, me. Photo taken with my k610i by a not so good photographer cum waitress.




Picture of the year initiated by man of the year taken by photographer of the year lighted by flasher of the year, at St James PowerHouse. (sounds familiar?) Btw, Miss keller is sweet!




Game played, at St James PowerHouse. How to play:

A serviette is wrapped ontop of a glass. Dampen the sides with what ever drinks (cheapest preferred) so that the coin, placed at the middle will not cause the serviette to concave. Take turn using a lighted cigarette to burn a hole. The one who resulted the coin to drop 'ta' the whole drink!
Yuck
This photo is the 最高境界 (zui gao jing jie).




To summarize St James, they are still at the bottom half of the league table... er wrong (L)


To summarize Powerhouse, its hot, its crazy, its the best club in Singapore, especially in terms of the service there. Which club will not mind bringing cups of ice water to your table foc? I am touched.

Credit Card cum EZ-link

"Members of the public can now use a credit card to pay for your MRT or bus ride, and use the points acquired to redeem free rides.

The two companies have calculated that if you spend an average of $700 per month on your card, you can get up to 400 free rides annually.
However, as with all credit cards, a minimum income is needed to qualify - in this case, a $30,000 annual income.

A debit card will be launched in the first quarter of next year."

- sg.news.yahoo.com

Finally a groundbreaking yet simple fusion; Credit card with EZ-link. I was really hyped over this new card and was trying to get my hand on the some what limited edition brochure which seems to be low on stock in every counter. Got my chance to enquire more about this new craze in town yesterday at AMK mrt when i was going for a soccer match, obviously in my jersey. Went up to the counter, requested for the brochure and was slapped around a bit with a large trout with the following questions;

"Sir, are you working? Are your salary more than $2500?"

I was like, woah~ for the obvious reasons. Ok first of all, the "salesman" was damn rude and i nearly screwed him back by asking him whether he can afford this card, at all. 2ndly, middle class citizens earning $30000 or more per annual will most probably own a car, or two, or more. I am not speaking for everyone, but rather the majority. So who is this new project targetting? The rather well to do middle class who works around CBD? High income group who still takes public transport or middle class who prefers to own credit card?

I reckon this will still work with the increasing living standard in Singapore and our pay which can't even beat the inflation. I was taught since young that credit card has more cons than pros, and only to spend on materials you can afford now but not with your future money. I am sticking to that. Lets just hope that the soon-to-be release debit card will have similar benefits.

FT's (Foreign Talent) view on 2% GST increment

Nov 16, 2006
From Mika Sampovaara who left welfare state to come to Singapore

"I WOULD like to commend Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for sticking to the Singaporean economic model. I read with interest his views regarding Scandinavian welfare states. I am from one of them: Finland. While it is true that there is more 'welfare' in Scandinavia, it comes at a price. Public spending in my country stands at 25 per cent of GDP, twice that of Singapore. The government in Finland spends vast amounts of money on free health care and education, nearly twice the 8 per cent of GDP spent in Singapore. Having been to Changi hospital I can say that health care here is no worse than in my country and the charges are very reasonable. My point is it doesn't have to be free. It's a question of choice and pricing. The public sector typically does not run the most efficient services, because the services are non-competitive. Singapore runs a tighter ship, because it's only partially subsidised. Compulsory savings schemes for health care and pensions are a far better way. So is taxing consumption over income. Many people in my country give up half or more of their gross incomes to finance the almighty welfare state. This serves to promote equality of sorts and creates a vast middle class. It also stifles entrepreneurism and leads to voluntary unemployment. The cost of living is higher too, with GST at 22 per cent. I disagreed with the crushing taxes in my country. It is for this reason that I came to Singapore, and was happy to give up the benefits I had paid for over the years. Long live the Singaporean model."

(Picture courtesy of TheoDR, Hardwarezone)