Word of the Day: germane - closely or significantly related; relevant; pertinent

and though i cannot fly / i'm not content to fall

this was spose to be a post full of disjointed, pithy soundbites that i came up with during the past one and a half weeks while i was at ict, but i can't seem to remember any of them. i forgot to keep a notebook in my pocket which, incidentally, i used to do during my active days

my english has started to degenerate again and the condition is being compounded by the bouts of mindlessness i experience every now and then. or maybe my typing skills are just very bad

so anyway, i just came back from ict. im sleepy. while i was away, michael jackson AND farrah fawcett died. OMINOUS.

after coming back from one camp, im leaving for another one tomorrow. in the past 2 weeks, ive stayed at home for only 3 nights, and am probably gonna miss staying at home for another 4 or 5. ironically, i had an actual bed to sleep on in reservist, but ill have to sleep in a sleeping bag for the nus camp. in trying to put a positive skew on the reservist experience, i imagined that it would help me not take for granted what i had at home. this was successful for about 2 hours on the first weekend that i came back, and then i realised that im either very ungrateful, or i actually don't consciously take things for granted as much as i thought i did. i think that any extended period of time spent away from home would help me appreciate what i have. i wonder if it's like that for other people, and i wonder to wat extent id need to be away from home before i started becoming homesick

also, i am amazed at how transformers manages to be 2 and a half hours long, although credit to it for not actually feeling that long. i have major gripes with the stupid fembot thingythingy. also, as if the robots knowing how to speak english wasn't strange enough, where did they learn all their kung fu from? also, would megazord/voltron beat the devastator?

Word of the Day: tergiversation - the act of practising evasion or of being deliberately ambiguous / the act of abandoning a party or a cause

you better run for the hills / before they burn

hmm ppl keep talking to me today. strange coincidence.

i look in the mirror, and am reminded slightly of demian maia, and then reminded that i do not possess any outstanding skill set whatsoever

had a dream last night that managed to be both pleasant and disturbing, and i woke up after that and didn't manage to fall asleep for what felt like a long time, although by the time i woke up for good id almost forgotten that i hadn't managed to sleep previously

ive now inherited the mantle of chauffeur, which is something i neither detest nor enjoy, probably because im usually too sleepy to be aware of how i should be feeling. i was finally woken up by a phone call from a lady in psc who was apparently unaware that it's school holidays now although she sounded quite apologetic for having woken me up even though it was already late morning. i wonder if she felt any degree of animosity, assuming that she realised that she was busy working and had to talk to someone who was half asleep

been kinda engrossed with watching battlestar galactica. dr baltar particularly intrigues me because of his hyper-vivid imagination, although the inability of other people to nitpick on his odd behavior is a bit dubious at times. i also found that it tackles a concept that i've started to think more about, namely the nature of dreams and whether they serve any purpose. the bible suggests that some dreams do serve a purpose and are meant to be interpreted; BSG suggests this too in some measure. i dream alot but see no meaning in them, apart from the occasional amalgamation of different experiences during the day. for example, i ate at raffles city yesterday, and raffles place was mentioned in my dream. ok they arent the same place but it's pretty close. i wonder on what grounds dream interpretation websites come to conclusions about dreams

also, wow kaka is moving to real madrid. i dont understand any criticism levelled at him. surely from both a business and footballing point of view, this is the move that made the most sense

Word of the Day: sybarite - a person devoted to luxury and pleasure

tenim un nom el sap tothom / barça! barça! baaaaaaaaaaaaarça!

i think the part that amazed me most was when messi ran at two defenders, and then another defender closed in on him, and he collided with all of the defenders, but ended up first to his feet and still in control of the ball

qft, from sherdog:

'But long before college, (Jens) Pulver says, he would “absolutely” let his son start training in the gym while still a child. That goes double, he says, for his 6-year-old daughter, for very personal yet pragmatic reasons. 

“She has to train, at least in submissions,” Pulver says. “Because think about the rape position. What position is that? Oh, you’re in my guard. Think about the sport of jiu-jitsu. It’s supposed to be a weaker, smaller person fending off a bigger, stronger person, so, absolutely, my daughter has to train.”'

apparently the new hot topic is how the new paper revealed the name of the first singaporean to contract h1n1 and the response of other singaporeans toward her and smu, which i find sad and insensitive, all the more since the next confirmed case of h1n1 arrived around 12 hours after the first one and so far doesnt appear to have received even half the vitriol that the smu student has. it's quite stunning when you think that as little as 12 hours could separate infamy (or, by extension, other significant levels of attention) and anonymity in a whole country. and here i was saying that the new paper wasn't all about trashiness

Word of the Day: depredation - an act of plundering or despoiling; a raid / [Plural] destructive operations; ravages

i'm still running away / i won't play your hide-and-seek game

watched soccer last night. commentator said, after the stoke city goalkeeper had injured himself, "well he's touching his hip but he might have a problem with his back also, coz he has to keep picking the ball out of his own net." 

in the lifestyle section of sunday's newspapers, there was a feature on a 10-year-old boy named alec greven, who wrote a book entitled "how to talk to girls". words of wisdom from a 10-year-old: "i think it is good to remember not to tease and not to show off. also, if she ditches you, remember life is hard. move on."

and also, while i usually buy the new paper to indulge in its tabloid trashiness, there were a couple of articles i read recently in one issue that i thought were pretty interesting and it just struck me how appropriately juxtaposed they were next to each other

one of the articles talks about some indian inventor who developed a technology that allows people to manipulate projected images through the use of a camera and computer, similar to how you see all those holographic screens in sci fi thingy thingies that people can touch and activate or watever, when they're essentially not touching anything. the guy's name is pranav mistry, and you can find out more about the technology here

the other article was about some thai buddhist practice that involves tattooing people to ward of evil spirits or give protection or watever. the practice is called sak yant, and responses to its very nature have been mixed. the new paper (17/5/09) quoted venerable dhammika of buddha dhamma mandala society as condemning the practice, saying, "what protects us is the purity of our hearts, not shapes on our bodies or pieces of metal tied to our necks. to associate such practices with buddhism is an insult." i found this interesting and also probably indicative of my general lack of knowledge regarding the distinction between taoism and buddhism, especially the part regarding what the venerable dhammika said about outward appearances being no indicator of the strength of one's buddhist faith, coz i know of a lot of ppl who wear all sorts of pendants or bracelets or whatnot. i think there is a parallel between them and some christians who wear crosses, although i donno if there's a general trend behind the reasons why christians wear crosses

ive been having strange dreams recently. i had a rather disturbing one last night, where some guy helped save a village or donno what then when he was celebrating with some other guy and the rest of the village was cheering and throwing rice at them or sth, some other other guy went and stabbed the some guy through the shoulder then cut off his head. i was kinda surprised i didnt wake up. had another dream involving a school building, a carpark, characters from a variety of comics and a general feeling of suspense and tension

in the afternoon, i dreamt of playing with a cat that had amazingly green eyes although it bit me and i had to swat it away. after that i dreamt of a supermarket, and aliens and predators and a general feeling of fear and exhilaration

im quite glad that im starting to dream and remember my dreams again, especially during the holidays, coz they seem to add value to sleep

im also quite sure that i was supposed to say something about turning 22, but another time i guess. some things never change, other things just take really long to

Word of the Day: aliment - something that nourishes or feeds; nutriment / something that sustains a state of body or mind; sustenance / to give nourishment to; to nourish or sustain

it's summer, it's summer / where all you hope for is another

i learnt today that there's a hokkien saying: "boh her, hae mah ho", which apparently means that "if there are no fish, prawns are just as good" and which led me to think that for a lot of ppl, if they cannot catch a fish, pr0n is just as good.

mas selamat got caught in malaysia, and now malaysia will always have a 1-up on singapore. any argument that they take part in can be ended by saying, "but we caught mas selamat" and then they can say something like BOOYAH and then do a funky chicken dance

watched quite a few movies this week. watched taken, and x-men, and star trek. after watching star trek, i dont think ill ever start watching heroes coz i won't be able to take sylar seriously anymore. i thought that star trek was pretty good, especially considering that i don't like star trek. i think it has something to do with their weirdass uniforms and their lack of lightsabers. x-men was so-so, kinda exciting and stuff, and it made me think: america had the comedian, dr. manhattan, sabretooth AND wolverine, and they still couldn't win the vietnam war? that's kinda sad. also, it just struck me that as interesting that it's spelt sabretooth and not sabertooth. i wonder why.

Word of the Day: lugubrious - mournful, dismal, or gloomy, esp. in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner

watched soccer last night, which was obviously the wrong decision to make especially since i should kinda be studying for my last paper tomorrow, plus i had ippt today. my ippt, like arsenal, was an epic fail, although im not sure which one i thought would've been more epic. i took my ippt to get a result and clear my window and i hadn't really been training. it was heartening to know that i can still do sit-ups very fast (40 in 34 seconds huzzah.), but i kinda suck at everything else. like, i reallyreally suck. i need a jogging partner. preferably a hot one, to serve as incentive to jog properly and not wuss out halfway. either that, or i need a treadmill. and while im at it, i need a mouse for my laptop as well.

what to say about arsenal? they're like matt girauds: one game good, next game bad. see especially: manuel almunia (man u then man u) and andrey arshavin (liverpool then can't remember who. probably portsmouth). and fabregas has been very inconsistent this season. and he turned 22 2 days ago. im turning 22 soon, but more on this another time. ill be very sad if it's another man u-chelsea final

so exciting holidays are coming and i have no idea how to spend them, which is probably bad news coz the last time i didn't know how to spend my time and didn't plan anything, i ended up slacking for 9 months

this struck me when i was making a cup of tea:

almunia: spain

sagna: france

djourou: switzerland

song: cameroon

eboue: ivory coast

walcott: england

denilson: brazil

ramsey: wales

arshavin: russia

bendtner: denmark