Ten years ago, I was in shorts sitting in a classroom with 40 other kids conforming to the Singaporean way of life. Playing soccer, hanging out at arcades playing marvel superheroes and wearing Alien workshop attire.

Ten years from now, I just cannot paint a picture.

My back hurts and its due to bad sleeping posture. The recess week begins and it is another stark reminder that exams are gonna be near soon. I hate this sem big time because of tech com. Project meetings are a waste of time and the project is more time consuming than my core modules. I still haven't decided what to do next week apart from playing catch up with my tutorials. And while I thought I could get some peace at home, my mother invited my relatives to our house for dinner later, which means I have to entertain my Aunts and Uncle who try to engage in "young generation" talk which they have no oblivious idea about. Sometimes I feel that my relatives ask questions and generate talk for the sake of creating some buzz and noise. And it always ends up in asking me to go to church and pray to God. I don't know what I have to do to get the idea across their heads that I will NEVER EVER convert to being a wanker. It has been over ten years and they never get tired of trying to brainwash me. They think that they are my saviour and will liberate me from my shell. I think that they are just trying to score points only. Bunch of wankers!

Anyway Happy Lunar New Year nonetheless.

Having watched finished hotel rwanda, I defintely aprreciate the comfort and safety that I have enjoyed so far. To me, the movie proves a couple of points, that every action brings about an impact, like the red cross lady who went the extra effort to locate the niece and re-unite them with their relatives. Crazy dictators can really screw up the whole country and the rest of the world can do their part to help the poor but in the interest of themselves choose not to. Of course, the western powers are not always obliged to save the world and have to protect their own soldiers, but selling weapons to rebels and militia doesn't really aid peace. At the start of the show, Don Cheadle pleads with the reporter to report the chaos to the world but sadly the reporter replys " so what if the Europeans see this? They will pause for a second and shake their heads in pity but after that second, they will continue eating their cereals and read newspaper".

I admit that I am guilty of that sometimes, reading about peoples' plight and think in my head why has the world come to this and after awhile, the thoughts vanish and I get back to chasing materialistic dreams. Why doesn't God help the people that really needs help, does he really want to test the rest of us to see if we will lend a hand to the needy? I am sure people in first world countries pray for peace but what about those people in third world countries who pray for peace? Where do their prayers fall on? Does God listen to prayers selectively? Is it more beneficial to pray for world peace every single night or is it better to get one's ass down to help out physically? If one's son is naughty the parent usually gets the blame for not taking him in hand. If the world is in chaos who gets the blame then?

It was a pretty close encounter today and sadly we had to be eliminated by penalty shootout. We took the lead first with a try by Adam but slack defending allowed them to equalise. Afterwhich we held on even till sudden death extra time. In the penalty shootout, only Adam managed to covert a goal. By the fifth kick, hall 2 led us by a goal so me being the fifth kicker had to covert it to keep the game alive. It is the first time I have ever taken a drop kick but when it left my foot I was confident it would go in. Sad to say, it hit the crossbar and we lost. Not that I felt like Roberto Baggio, in fact I was proud that my kick was the best after Adam, at least it was near on target. Andy missed by a bit while Harith also screwed up his kick. Hengkia better, miss the ball totally. Lucky ref give him one more chance which fell short off target again. Ok la, at least we held our heads up high.

I hate it when every module decides to hold their respective quiz on the same week and worst of all the same day. So far 4 quizzes have been confirmed and others still pending. Totally spoils my chinese new year mood. Anyway my sister will be back for reunion dinner and hopefully she brings back some goodies from Hong Kong for me to munch.

Also I have decided not to take anymore ang pow from my cousins who are already married. Feels kinda of weird that we are of the same 'rank' and yet still receiving ang pow from them. Wasn't it not too long ago when we still played catching and silly stuff together? Damn it looking at my niece makes me feel old oreadi. Shit!

I still haven't really warmed up to this semester yet, yes I know its week 5 liao but honestly I am still in dec holidays withdrawal mode, totally miss those heck care days. My time-table sucks big time with tues, weds and fri having lessons at 830am. Somemore with tech-com involving project work and idiots not contributing and on the other hand EID project so simple yet made so complicated by the china guy, I can't help but feel sick of this sem, hope this sem finishes soon.

At lunch today, I was telling my parents about getting a job after graduation. I said not to worry, the future looks bright, after graduation, I will start a charitable organisation or self help social organisation. The plan is simple, cheat the public of their money and bankroll all the money myself.

Also last night, I managed to watch the Spore vs Malaysia game at the national stadium. The atmosphere was great with 55000 spectators in the stands. I wonder how it feels like in Barcelona's stadium. More importantly, we beat our neighbours on penalties. Yet somehow, it didn't feel like the Malaysia cup days when my father brought me to watch when I was young, gone are the likes of Fandi, Abbas, Sundram, Lim Tong Hai and Malek. A new generation has taken over. The stadium is gonna be torn down later this year to make way for the new one and so will the memories of what my father experienced when he was a teenanger and what I had experienced as a small boy.

Blood diamond is a fantastic show, definitely two thumbs up. What drugs was to the movie traffic, this is what diamond trafficking is to blood diamond. I have also comed to respect Leonardo Di Carpio as an actor, of lately, I am impressed with the shows he has acted in.

Last week, a casual chat with my neighbour, yes the wussies I mentioned last time, I found out that we share many common interest ranging from the movies we like and especially the drama series lost. According to him, the explanation and the mystery may boil down to a book which the character Sawyer read in season one. The title is watership down written by Richard Adams. It is a psychological test based on rabbits where they are placed on an island with food and shelter being provided by farmers. The catch is that the rabbits know they are being pampered by the farmers so that they can be killed for their meat. However it explores the possibility that some rabbits are relunctant to escape and fend for themsevles. That was roughly what happen in season one when Sayid opposed moving into the jungle on Jack's idea. Sounds pretty interesting, shall search for the book this weekend.

First and foremost, a very big thank you to all those who came down to support sepak takraw today, you people really made a difference tonight. It is the first time I have seen so many people down to support a sport in Hall 12. Good job Wengfai! Special thanks to Cheewee also for wishing me so much luck on msn too.

From the day I played the 2nd game in the preliminary rounds, I never expected to enter the semis. I think the reason why many of us feel so gutted after losing today is because we are the true underdogs in the whole tournament, many of us are new to takraw, we do not have any star players and we entered the semis through sheer hard work.

Playing the deciding game was definitely pressuring, especially since we went down 6-0 in the first set and fought back to 20-18. Needing just a point to win the first set, we kinda self destruct to lose 22-20. I felt confident in the first set esp since I scored quite a few pts. But 2nd set, I totally fuck up big time, dunno wat the hell I played. Not surprising we lost overall. However it has been a great experience and I have no regrets waking up early for matches and training in the late night.

Only 1 more dream is left, RUGBY!!!

I had a poor game today, passing was bad and crossing was lousy. It was no surprise that at half time we were 3-0 down. Helmi wasn't happy and demanded a pressing game for the 2nd half and it worked, we pressed the opponents and took the game to them winning 6-3. There were three new players, Joe, a former Geylang and Balestier prime league player, Farleh, Hazid's brother also another Balestier prime league player. The third was Akrab, pretty impressive as well. At this rate, I would have to buck up real soon with the growing competition even though we practise squad rotation. At least from today's game , I learnt from Joe postioning and closing down of wingers as a full back. I think it will take awhile for me to adjust back to the team's playing style from the more easier relaxed inter-hall games.

Oh man school starts tomorrow.

Once again, we choked during the final part of the game today. With 8min more to go, our keeper mishandled a simple high ball and punched it into our own net. Into extra-time, a simple bounce which the keeper shd have comed to out to take led to a mis-communication btw him and Lee Chang which allowed the hall 2 striker to pounce on the mistake and score the golden goal. This is the 2nd time whereby we have taken the lead and lost the game at the end.

I am proud to say I performed my role in this tournament well, at the very least none of the goals conceded could be attributed to me. I am disgusted to say some pple have let the team down. James for not coming down for stupid reasons, Weiliang for fucking up some simple balls, Alan Smith for drinking the nite b4 and having to sub himself out with a few min more to go, yea I bet the real Alan Smith would be proud to know that, so much so for calling urself Alan Smith, Kok Liang for complaining tireness after barely playing 10min. Its a total letdown to me, Hengkia, Chang, Joel, Liao and Ivan when we put in a gutsy display only to be letdown in this manner.

I know I wasn't showing much respect when I refused to take the team photo after the game but thats me, I hate to lose and I still can't understand till this day how some people can still smile and laugh after losing, it says alot about character.

Guess team sports ain't for me.

In a few hrs time, I will be out there in the field playing rugby, or is it ploughing the muddy field. At times I wonder why the fuck I am doing this. Is it really for the passion or for pride. Does it really outweigh the benefits of working or spending time with my family? It has kept me thinking this whole month. And boy am I sick again, really regretted playing the friendly on wed, it has left me with bad cuts on my left leg and a flu.

Year 2006 draws to an end and reflecting back on the year, it has been alright for me. Feeling pretty moody now becoz of a couple of things, a few incidents have made me pissed off this week. Hope that 2007 will be a much happier year for me.

Today I made my debut for sepak takraw. We won overall 2-1 and I also started my first fight in inter-hall. Ok la it was a small one and thinking about it, I also dunno what went in my head just now. Apparantly the opp leg had pivoted in the circle so the point went to us. Wengfai then went over to explain nicely to the hall 8 pple. Instead they rebutted a bit aggressively and I didn't like the body language of one of the vietnamese pricks so I ran over and pushed him. Immediately the hall 8 pple about 5 of them separated us and dragged me away, of course not without me swearing "u pu bor kia" at that arse first. Joel and the rest were juz laughing there, only hengkia bother to come backup. I think if Edwin was there it would have been a different story.

Yesterday's loss to Hall 5 was a bitter pill to swallow, we were so closed to winning en route to the quarters but a few lapses in concentration cost us a defeat. But the match did proved a thing, we are capable of matching the better halls. I believe we can beat hall 2. There was great support yesterday but we let them down, hopefully come next fri we can put a smile on everyones face.

Another point I have noticed, so far all the Popes have been white people. Will we ever get to see a black, Hispanic, Asian Pope at all? Is it a coincidence or racial related?

Also, according to movies like the exorcism, there have been incidents whereby people have been possessed by the devil and at the end of the day like all Hollywood movies, the good guys win, the priest sucessfully exorcised the devil out of the body. Of course the identity of the person is "conveniently" protected and withheld. Now my question is why does the church not videotaped the whole process and show it to the whole world. Surely if the world sees the tape, everyone would start praying to God. I mean if I were head of the Christian community and I have proof that God works to eliminate evil, I would surely present it to the whole world to prove his existence and increase the number of worshippers. Any marketing student can also testify to this strategy.Unless of course such a thing never happened in the first place. I can only SPECULATE that the movies is just a way to make money between Hollywood and the church or scare people to belive in God.

Also, the incident involving the Lady of Fatima appearing to the three sheperds in Portugal a few decades back is suspicious. Somehow only the "three" young sheperds can see the virgin Mary while the "rest" of the audience cannot see. Whether the sheperds were highly paid good actors I don't know. They are supposely told three secrets two of which has already happened, world war one and two. The last one is yet to happen and the secret is said to make every Pope who has ever read it turn pale white. Ok so it is a secret but come on surely God is not so selfish right? Only the Pope can know the secret? Fine. Some speculate it to be the end of world which brings me to ask why would God want to create the world in the first place if he knew he was gonna end it eventually unless of course he cannot predict the future which contridicts the theory that he is all powerful and almighty.

Furthermore, at the start of the bible, it is said that in the first seven days, God created light, darkness, the world, Adam and eve blah blah blah... But I noticed no mention of creating dinosaurs. Even if one were to read the whole bible, I do not recall any mention at all of dinosaurs. Now surely something as significant as dinosaurs derserves some mention? Surely humans muz have been eaten? Unless of course the bible is against the scientific evidence that dinosaurs exist way before time. Highly impossible becoz they wouldn't want to lose a significant number of worshippers who also believe in science. I know all these is rather confusing but give it a thought yea. And dun report me to any authorities. Thanks!

Ok I am bored again so I am gonna write about my fav subject God.

Some people say that since Evil is created by Satan and Satan is created by God, God is actually responsible for evil.

A simple analogy. If we were to put a toddler in a kitchen and the kitchen has three sharp knives. Suppose the toddler plays around and accidentally cuts himself with the knives, surely any adult would blame us for being ignorant by putting the toddler in the kitchen all by himself inspite of knowing the dangers the knives can impose. Of course one would argue that it is human error but lets say knives did not exist in the first place(assume that knives serves no purpose except killing), the accident would not have happened in the first place. Similarly, if God did not create evil feelings and emotions in humans, we would not be killing each other in the name of hate. My theory is simple, prevention is better than cure, if we do not impose the root factor in the beginning, nothing would take place. Without evil feelings like jealousy and hate in the first place, there would be zero percent success rate for many evil actions.

Its like a choice between putting a child through two schools. Say school one is a prestigious school with highly educated students and school two is a substandard school with students from dubious backgrounds, one would surely put a child in school one due to the fact that is has lesser risk of the child learning bad values from the other students. We cannot totally eliminate the possiblity of the child learning bad things in school one but for argument sake, we all know that the chances are substantially lower.

Therefore, my arugment is that since God has created hate, jealousy, greed in humans, the premium risk of us humans commiting sins is therefore gonna be there as compared to a world if he did not create any of these in the first place. Its like exposing the child to vulgar words, of course the child would pick them up as compared if we live in a world where everyone does not even swear at all. I know Christian pple out there would say that we as humans can make the choice between good and evil and that by doing the wrong thing it is a reflection of our morals but hey do think about my analogy of putting a kid in the school. If u guys got the balls, put ur kid in school two and teach him ur sets of values and see how he grows up, that is of course if one were to dare try it out in the first place if given a choice.

A narrow win it was today but nonetheless still a win. Could have been a draw if the ref had judged that I had handled the ball in the penalty area which I did. Lucky me otherwise I would have to take the blame. Hall 8 are whiners and wankers. Practically each time they go to ground they have to cry foul. I rem the fat ass midfielder no 28, in the last few mins of the game as he lined up to take a shot I threw my body to try and block it and caught his leg due to momentum. There he was saying I delibrately fouled him. End of game I still overheard him toking bout that foul. Eh if u not happy ask ur father come down la ah. He also said our hall machiam bo seh, only pump long balls to strikers and couldn't do much. Well how is this for stats, hall 8 shots on target ZERO. Cry father cry mother 100%.

Everyday rain rain rain and instead of sleeping I am out there playing, how wasted....

I finally tried out playing sepak takraw today, ok la its a bit fun but not as easy as I hoped it would be. I am stil trying to inspire myself for thurs soccer match against hall 8, somehow I have seem to lost the drive to play football. During the exams, I broke away from weekend soccer duties and lost the momentum eventually. Anyway Captain Helmi has organised a match this week, hopefully the match will take place, need to catch up on match fitness and technical positioning.

I need to psych myself up for this thurs, and yea I will practise my pre-match routine, drink teh c peng before the game!

Whoa, seems like google is buying over everything huh.

What a pulsating game, the Arsenal vs Chelsea game has got to be the best game I have watched so far this season.I admit chelsea were unlucky not to win in the final mins of the game.

I am still shackled by sat match. Totally no fitness and poor awareness of the ball. Morale and confidence a bit low in contrast to a few months back. It will be interesting to see how I fare on thurs. Anyway out of boredom, I have decided to name my dream team. Here goes. I have adopted a 4-3-1-2 formation.

Goalkeeper - Peter Schemichael

The great dane, I always fancy a keeper who shouts at you throughout the game thereby keeping you mentally alert.

Right Back - Gary Neville

A loyal servant and a hard working bloke who runs his heart out down the flank.

Right Centre Back - Rio Ferdinand

He may have been off-form sometimes but he hasn't let England down in major tournaments esp the world cup, he is fully focused and rarely loses a tackle.

Left Centre back - Tony Adams(Vice Captain)

A typical British old fashioned and no nonsense defender. Someone who can psych players up before a game and rally the troops when the chips are down definitely gets a slot in my starting lineup.

Left Back - Ashley Cole

The only person I feel who can stop Cristiano Ronaldo.

Right Centre Mid - Luis Figo

An extremely skillful winger who can play centre mid as well. At his peak, he was practically carrying Portugal on his own. My secondary school idol.

Centre Mid - Roy Keane(Captain)

Since I started watching EPL, I dun rem seeing anyone square up to him after any challenge. Week in week out players square up to challenges but no one has ever reacted to him after a challenge, he is that FEARSOME.

Left Centre Mid - Pavel Nedved

Many still say Juventus only lost to Milan in the 2003 champions league final because he was suspended. A talented player who also led Lazio to the scudetto. He can make mazy runs and pass a through ball.

Hole(In front of midfield and behind strikers) - Zinidine Zidane

How could this maestro not be in anyone's dream team. Practically the best player of our generation.

Left Forward - Rivaldo

Another skillful player full of tricks. He can dribble and most importantly score.

Right Forward - Fat ronaldo

He may be slow now but surely a few years back he was the best clinical finisher of the game. Able to do dummies and crossovers as well.

Reserves

Keeper - Buffon/ Oliver Kahn

It was difficult to choose between them so I decided to include both.

Sweeper/Left Back -Paolo Maldini

A world class defender who reads the game and tackles well.

Midfield- Michael Essien

A player who can slot in at any postion and excel. A physically powerful lad, almost a complete player, one to watch out for the future.

Attacking Mid - Paul Scholes

A technical and crafty player who has great vision and passing ability. Though quiet by nature, he stands shoulder to shoulder with the best players in the world. He is the most underated player who should deserve more recognition.

Hole - Wayne Rooney

Though he is not as skillful as henry or a finisher like Van Nisterooyl, he plays with his heart on his sleeve. Only 21 and still not the finished product yet. How could anyone ever leave him out.

Striker - Eric Cantona

My idol and also the reason why I supported Leeds Utd then and later Manchester United. He has a great footballing brain and is also a charismatic entertainer.