road to Lisbon

staying up to 5am last night was pretty awesome and worth while. caught the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. with last night's result of 0-4 and first leg result of 1-0, Real Madrid won on 5-0 aggregate and will be heading to the finals in slightly less than a month's time.

so happy to watch my favourite team and players playing so well last night. the result really reflects the effort they placed into the 90 minutes. so proud of them. first Champions League final in 12 years. hope they will go on to win the title and clinch their 10th Champions League champion status.

so here we go.. to Lisbon, 24th May 2014, #HalaMadrid.

ukubassist

the title of this blogpost is officially my new status. i am now a ukubassist. 

haha i'm sure there isn't such word or term but from the word itself one can easily know that i now play the ukulele and bass. not so professionally though but good enough for pass time and passion. for the record, i self-learn both instruments so i'm not exactly the super good kind. just nice to play couple of my favourite songs and what not.

i remember having talking about this in the past.. somehow i have a connection to instruments with four strings. lame coincidence i guess. EADG strings of bass and GCEA strings for ukulele. some bass tend to have five though but for now, the current one i have has only four.. so yeah.

all in all, this post is just that.. nothing much. 

have a little fun

matsuri

i'll honestly be rather surprised if you know what i am going to talk about the moment you read the title of this post. to be precise, the title is somewhat related to this man..

okay, this picture is actually slightly younger than how he looks now. anyway, he is Kitaro, a Japanese composer famous for his countless instrumental tracks over the decades. the most famous one would be titled "Matsuri". i first heard it seven years ago. only last year, i started to listen many of his albums and discover many more decent pieces. nonetheless, "Matsuri" remains one of the best ones yet.

if you have 8 minutes, do enjoy the piece..

short era

come on, as any football fan you would be feeling at least a little sorry for this guy as well. after a short 10-months run as the appointed manager of Man Utd after SAF's retirement, he has been officially sacked from Man Utd about an hour ago.

personally, i would just blame it on his luck. wrong club. Man Utd is a big club and generally expectations will be much more in amounts and height compared to those in his previous club, Everton. nonetheless, goodbye to this short era.

39

no, that's not my age.

that is something related to NS. after BMT, i went to the unit in Seletar Camp known as 39th SCE. we deal with chemical, biological, radiological threats and what not. well, my time has passed and i have ORD last November. fatbro, on the other hand, just POPed last week and just got his new posting.

of all possible units and place, he is being posted to exactly where i was from. 39th SCE in Seletar Camp. this really takes coincidence to a whole new level. what's even more coincidental is the company he is going to is the same as mine. Alpha Coy. i really don't know such coincidence is scary or what now. on the other hand, he will get to experience the pain and joy i went through. just saying.

FF

i am a fan of wide range of music. one of which is soundtracks. well, those kind of back ground pieces you listen to during a show or a movie that stirs the mood a little and what not. even games have them too. recently, i have moved away from the trailer or movie kind of music and head on to listen to game soundtracks.

the game franchise with one of the best soundtrack would be "Final Fantasy" franchise. personally, i don't play the games but for now i'm just listening to hundreds of the soundtracks they have. here is one.

wherever i'm with you

amazing song..

two years

fatbro and me are two years apart. considering we travel the similar education journey, except the schools we go to, we encounter each stage of life so far on a gap of two years.

today, he POP from Tekong and i was there to celebrate the moment as well. i have been through that two years ago. i have been through BMT two years ago. i felt how he felt on the Marina Bay floating platform two years ago. nonetheless, those weren't the main point.

my main point is.. two years. man, two damn years.

somehow or rather it felt so surreal. i am not sure if this feeling signals the fact that i'm old or time flies be it you are enjoying it all the time or not. i could not believe i was the one who POP two years ago. main reasoning being so much things and events happened between the time i POP two years ago to today. let's see.. had a failed relationship, had a shin splint injury for two long months, two surgeries to rid my wisdom teeth, getting my Class 3 driving license, meeting awesome people from 39 SCE of Seletar Camp, struggling to get a space in a local university.. and the list goes on and on and on and on until the sun stops to burn.

yeah, i just really can't bring myself to believe that two years gone by just like that. wonder if this feeling is a good or bad feeling.

these days

i looked through my past blog posts yesterday and i realised that i have been talking about many specific things for many posts now. have not really update you all abut what's happening in my daily post-NS pre-NUS life. well, so here i am updating you all.

probably mentioned before, i am looking forward to tomorrow's Monday morning for one reason.. season 4 of "Game Of Thrones" will be available online. been waiting for an odd one year or so for this show to come back on. really can't wait for it. this is actually like an English version of "San Guo Yan Yi" just with more lust and gore i guess.

next, i have a new student couple of weeks back with the worst result i've seen so far among the ones i teach. don't get me wrong, i am just really worried for him and really really want to put in my best to push those marks up for his PSLE in September this year. he has a lot of basic concepts and knowledge missed out.. so it feels like i have to teach those stuff from P1 to P6 in like half a year. glad for the patience i have and the love to help. minor self-praise there.

regarding NUS life, i have been rejected by a scholarship program but still crossing my fingers on some application. as for hostel, i have yet to read up and decide exactly where should i choose to live. NUS is 90 minutes of public transport journey from my doorstep.. with taxi maybe 40 minutes. still, too long.. i really want to stay in the hostel there.. at least the trip to my school building is just about 15-20 minutes.

alright.. that's all for now.. i'm a football fan of Arsenal and Real Madrid. and now an Arsenal match is one the way.. haha.

talk shows

it all started from secondary school i would say. i was introduced to a stand-up comedian who i known as Russell Peters. well some of you might have heard of or know him. he is well-known for his ever racist and sexist jokes. pretty loud and daring comedian too.. not for those innocent minds who cannot take sick jokes. if you need an image of him, here he is..

then i moved on to hunt for real good stand-up comedian. i followed Ray William Johnson on YouTube and from there i found another one who is known as Fluffy.. or his real name, Gabriel Iglesias. he prefer fat jokes and is really good at changing his voice to imitate anyone he has in mind. his jokes aren't sick but still as good and as funny. here is his chubby figure..

so two main stand-up comedians that i really follow and like since secondary school and then somehow in on way or another, i moved on to see and get interested into talk shows. now, through YouTube, i am entertained almost on a daily basis by Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen. the next three pictures are of them in the same order.

soon i realised, on top of getting entertained, i too get to know what's happening around the world in a more fun way. okay, yes news from the internet let me know too but through talk shows like these, they are different. you get to see what are the various views and parodies and jokes made from the news and what not. another bonus would be occasionally viewing your idols, be they are singers or what not, on the shows just talking.. random talking to the hosts. so yeah, can be really interesting.

these talk shows are what bring me through the mundane weekday routines of my real life from army to now and in the future. if you have yet to watch a stand-up comedy or an entertainment talk show, i suggest you should try. really mood lightening.

the generation before

ever wondered what the generation before us tend to listen to and watch in the cinemas and what not?

in recent years there are numerous songs made for movies.. "New Divide" performed by Linkin' Park for the movie "Transformers 2" and "Let It Go" for the movie "Frozen" are some of the many examples. easy to get english songs since we watch way more english movies than chinese ones i'm sure. however, let's see one from a chinese song which is from an 80s movie.

if you are curious, you could probably ask your parents about this song and movie. from what i heard, my parents once told be this song with the movie can bring one to tears. ohh well, i never watched the movie but i heard of this song a couple of times. read the lyrics if you can.. and enjoy.

love language

after years of schooling in Singapore education system, i'm sure many would have already been thrown with personality test and survey and what not on numerous occasions. one of which that struck me most was some to test one's love language. well, i can't exactly remember when i was asked to do that questionnaire but yeah somehow that was pretty applicable to real life and that is probably the main reason why i remember so vividly. the results i got was exactly what i am and it is applicable even to today. okay, before i move on, i would like to highlight that i won't want to discuss why the school wanted us to do that as well. like why would they eve want to pock into our love life and what not. nope.. nothing about it. so, moving on, there are numerous love languages people display.

okay for those narrow minded people out there, the love language we are talking about here isn't all about boy-girl relationship. in fact, it is more than just that. it is about the love between great friendships and family ties as well. anyway, off hand, i can list out few examples of the love laguages from the questionnaire i did years ago.

gifts. those with this as the main love language tend to love being showered by gifts and other things measurable by money. they would be pleased to have gifts and on top of that, gifts are probably all that they would like to get from opposing parties.. in a good way of course.. damn those gold diggers.

time. those with this as the main love language tend to prefer time spent with one another. they would treasure the time spent hanging out regardless if they end up doing nothing and stone or doing something more meaningful or just mere trash talk. such people will find relationships being strengthen according to the amount time invested by the parties.

intimacy. those with this as the main love language obviously would prefer physical and emotional support. they would love hugs and other form of physical comfort. relationships are enriched through acts of intimacy. friendship hugs, pat on the back, kiss or whatsoever.

there are other points that i forgot but whatever.. because mine is one of the three mentioned.

yeah.. some might guessed it, it is the second point on time. indeed, i prefer spending quality time on major occasions over receiving gifts. spending quality time create memories that last forever. not all gifts last forever though i don't mind gifts as well.. haha. okay ignore that, back to topic. so yeah, quality time above all other expects. that is why i always make it a point to have occasional meet-ups with the people whom i care. no matter the busy schedule or what, i will make time.