I think whenever it's my turn to take the Sec 1 and 2 Sunday classes, I tend to go wild on the topics because first thing is that I'm not bound by what we are doing on Friday youth services, and second thing is that the other adult auntie uncle teachers don't really sit in much so that means the discussions get way more crazy. So last week was honouring your parents, and it was pretty much the best setting to air your dirtiest laundry about our parents. I love my parents a lot, and I'm sure all the youths do too, but every teen I know has just about something to say about the irritating things that their parents do that bugs them. And everything was just "mum keeps nagging" or "dad keeps scolding", with a strict confidentiality clause that we won't go telling on each other's parents after that haha, but was good in the end to tie it up with honouring and respecting them.

Today's even more wacko, because we finished last week's topic already, so I did something that I really wanted to address for a long time. We were talking about swearing and vulgarities, and I think it was probably the only time they didn't have to watch their language and we could be a bit liberal with the f- and s-words haha. There was this long list of words that we all deem are not so appropriate at certain settings, and I've got all the usual swear words up there (with the Hokkien varieties), but then Rebecca, bless her, came up with "meow" and "gee mama" as her worst swear/cuss words ever. Hahahaha okay next time I am tempted to curse in exclamation, I'm so gonna just meow out loud to myself, and it's going to be so ridiculous that the intention of it all is all lost, haha precisely the point. 

And, the triumph of it all. Because I missed sermon since I was at class, and for some reason everyone I met after service kept referring to what was preached during service which I have no clue about, frustrating max! I managed to obtain the sermon notes which my corps officer left behind on the pulpit, I'm assuming they don't really need it anymore because they kept their Bibles but didn't bring along the notes, for the past few weeks too. I'm like vociferously going through it to update myself, and it's great their notes are actual essay speech too. And most of the time I come across Col. Bob's notes too, if he's preaching, because he leaves a copy in the control room for the slides projection, and his notes are great too as it's all full sentences. Would be very different if it were my own notes; it will all be one-word point form. Hahaha fastest way to recap sermons, just keep the notes they leave behind. 

This is an effort to put more pictorial stuff into my blog rather than just chunks of words. Wanna share something that has been really baffling to me, cos recently I've been seeing these posters around at bus stops and MRT stations quite a bit. So the WWF tells me to save the chilli crab, but then they show me a picture of a shark??? And if you read the fine print it does not really elucidate the connection any further too! What has crabs got to do with sharks? Okay yeah sharks are the top predators of the food chain, and I can infer mostly that this probably has to do with the "no shark's fin" movement, but that doesn't license you to just put chilli crabs up there with sharks!! 

And then there's that last bit which says "You can help by texting 'shark' to 98889992 or pledging 'No to shark fin' at wwf.sg", so I decided to text and see what happens, like maybe they will send me more info or something, but nope nothing. Actually this was what I really did... (I waited 15 mins okay!)

Conclusion, this whole thing just does not make sense. My friend thinks that maybe sharks and crabs mate together or something. I hope that's not true.

Currently on a crusade trying to weed out unwanted emails from all my email accounts. It didn't really bother me previously until in recent months, mostly because my emails are pushed to the iPhone, and it becomes really annoying when I have buzzers and alerts for each of these junk emails which I just delete without hesitation. The biggest culprit is the NUS school emails! They give me notifiers from all sorts of departments unrelated to me and my course of study! There's mailers on economic decision surveys, reminders for me to observe traffic rules, invitation to lectures on philosophy and psychology and science discoveries, free workshops, they even tell me when the provost blogs his latest entry! It won't be so bad if my own geog or lit department spams me, because at least that is my immediate department. But why are other departments abusing the "all students" email group?? And who in the world is the provost and why must I read his blog??

And I have been emailing all of them with vituperation telling them to unsubscribe me from their notifiers. Of course in all likelihood they cannot do that, I'm sure they can't just delete me from the "all students" group. But it's worth a shot I think, and lets me vent my frustrations at unknown office admin personnel who thinks that everyone in NUS is interested in their activities. I think they have their own department websites and notice boards and pamphlets for all of these notifiers already, there's no need to further promulgate it through email.

The Gmail account is much simpler, I just need to unsubscribe and usually it's a simple process. And I have to say, Gmail spam detection and group labeling is a lifesaver. I don't have to sieve through unwanted spam at all. Ugh okay angsty. 

I've decided at the beginning of this year that I shall place more emphasis on birthdays this year! I think for the past two years I have routinely ignored everyone's birthdays, and I no longer spend the time and money to write people birthday cards and presents. Well, unless there is a huge group of people sharing for someone's particular present, or something equivalent. But I compensate for it by writing lengthy Christmas cards and spending more on gifts during year-end. And traditionally I have always went by the policy of "cell groups first", so those in my cell group I am more willing to splurge more on presents and go entirely verbose on their cards! Haha so for this year I will take more effort to remember people's birthdays, and I will actually bother to type out that short Facebook shout-out (cos usually I do not).

And for the more observant people around me, yes I am trying to get back into the habit of wearing a watch more frequently to be more socially adherent to being on time! The last time I actually wore a watch every day I'm out was when I was in primary school. I think my mum forced me to, but I stopped wearing because I hated the feeling of things trapped/wrapped around my wrists. This wrist entrapment is good because it is so annoying that I keep fidgeting with it so much, and in the process I check the time a lot more often than usual. Still hate the feeling of it on my wrists. And kudos to the very observant friends that I have. 

This is slightly overdue, but on Sunday I was down at Dunlop Street and Haji Lane with Charmaine, with the purpose of checking out this small ukulele shop. She wanted to get one, and I heard of this shop before and wanted to see if I can take my ukulele interest anywhere further. Have to confess that the only times I actually visit that area is during cultural excursions, and from the looks of it I will definitely go back again, with the film camera this time and explore all the indie shops. And it was great catching up with her too, small trivia goes that she was in my cell years and years ago. Yes I am that old, and been cell leader for too many cells. Old =(

In the midst of preparing for a presentation tomorrow morning. The group members and I discovered a new place to eat in school! One of them suggested to go to the University Cultural Centre for the meeting, and then out of nowhere there was this Alcove Asian restaurant which wasn't too bad. New place for lunch in school.

Finally received letter from Priya again, I think the letter got lost for three months because the translated copy was addressed to a Miss Siew! But Priya's original letter had my name on it, and I have no idea how the error happened haha. But as always, each time I receive a letter from her I am instantly reminded of Bangladesh. Wanna go again, but don't fancy the hot weather so much haha. 

I'm bowing to intense pressure for me to reduce the number of words for each entry in this blog. Everyone tells me one big chunk of words isn't appealing to read, so from now on (until I get sick of it) I will try to be more succinct, cut to the chase, and paragraph more. Hahaha I like many many words, and I always think words are free-of-charge for you to express yourself, so might as well use as much of the inherited language as possible. Until I write an actual book, I think that this blog is my verbal diarrhea of everything and anything, so hooray to words galore. Honestly I don't care if most people just go TL; DR. But apparently not the same vision for everyone, and already as it is I am using too many words to write this. Okay, shorter posts, I will strive for.

Today I had lunch with two girls from one of my literature class, and it's like a collision of planets because I have totally no idea what really goes on in the lit department. They are updating me about scandals and juicy news about profs and students and whatnot, really interesting because I'm in my geog nut most of the time. All my lit classes fall on Thursdays and Fridays this term, and it's great that I actually have company in the lectures now, after being alone for all my past lit classes that I can remember.

This self-imposed word limit is an agony. Is this short enough?!!

Three times this week my phone ran out of battery before I can get to a power socket to charge it. And when my phone is dead, I realised immediately how vulnerable and how inadequate I get. Haha yes I am using one of those smartphones which can do everything from messaging and emailing, to getting on Twitter/Facebook/Foursquare, to playing a tonne of games, to reading news, to checking bus arrival times, to endless scrolling on 9gag.com (the latest app addition, and in a way, addiction)... So many things that I do each day with my phone that when the batt goes flat, I am instantly put to halt every single one of these things. Maybe I should go get one of those portable chargers so that I have a back-up power. But in a sense it kinda forces the involuntary caveman out of me, because only then do I pay more attention to my surroundings rather than on my phone. I'm so used to endless scrolling of tweets/news/whatever else while travelling on the go, and when the said phone is out, I take out a book and read instead. Should try leaving my phone charger at home more often, and when the phone batt is flat means that it is flat. Which means I should conserve.

And I thank all the creators of Wikipedia this week, because of their indispensable repository of knowledge that is superbly adequate and an excellent starter for research. The moment the professor says "actor-network theory" or "cartesian dualism" or "Falkland island", I am instantly looking at the Wiki definition and I am capisce in three minutes. Honestly, I don't understand why universities and all education institutes worldwide can't learn to embrace availability of knowledge like this. Sure I know, it is not infallible truth and it is amateurish and it is not corroborated by leading experts worldwide, but surely they can all get together on Wikipedia and turn it into something that is layman and professional at the same time? What if all the professors in the world stop writing research papers and scholarly journal articles for a month, and spend time improving Wikipedia instead. Three-quarters of the stuff they write gets into expensive journals that cost a bomb for an individual subscription, and is never going to be readily accessible for the mass public.

Which goes without saying, that I am checking up what Wiki has to say on my phone. I can never check the academic journals as easily as Wiki is so accessible and easy to grasp. Knowledge needs to be shared and spread, not hoarded up and protected by a million by-laws in the guise of intellectual rights. 

I've kinda always held the view that Gong Cha is better than KOI, mainly for the selection of flavours available at Gong Cha. They're more palatable to me. But in mitigation I've gotta admit that the number of times that I've drank from KOI were far and few, mostly because Gong Cha is just as readily available haha. So it was with an extremely skeptical take when I purchased my second or third cup of KOI ever in my life? I was helping Celine get her KOI fix, and you should know too that both Celine and Si Xuan swear by KOI's green tea macchiato as the nicest drink you can get from there. And obviously I have not got so much as a taste or a whiff of it before. I don't even know what's a macchiato haha isn't that one of the espresso-coffee variants? Why is there green tea involved?!

Anyway, I got one for Celine and decided to try one for myself too. Okay it's like creamy milk with green tea taste I think, it's a weird mix but I guess it worked for them because you get a little bit of both worlds. But what really amazed me was that you need an instruction manual to learn how to drink it properly! My instruction manual this time is of course Celine. Instead of the usual bubble tea straws that you poke into the cup to get to the drink, to really appreciate the green tea mac you can't use a straw! They gave me these little plastic blades to slit a tiny opening, and you sip it like that. Definitely weird haha! According to Celine there are pictorial instructions at the store, but I didn't notice it. And I even stupidly went to get those straws cos I thought they forgot to give me! Turns out nope, the plastic blade is all you need.

But nope I'm still not a convert yet, I think I still prefer my Gong Cha haha. The milky flavours there are definitely more full-bodied and stronger, compared to the delicate green tea. Give me the in-your-face stuff more frequently. Hahaha my ramblings for today. 

A month and two or three days into the new year, and already I've made one of the biggest decisions in my undergraduate life at NUS. Finally decided to drop one of the Geog modules that I've sat in for about four weeks so far. It's a big decision because that would mean that I'm only taking four modules this semester, which means that next academic year I have to take one more module to replace this one. Usually people do five a semester so that it evens out. And what led to the decision to drop? I feel like I am literally rotting in class. The subject is environment sustainability, but so far the lectures that I've sat through has not even fully tackled the subject head on! Instead the prof is making us do assignments like "what is learning to you" and then making us sit through some career talk. Oh cmon please if I really want to know "what is learning to me" I would have gone for a primary school civics class, I wouldn't wait till university to find out.

And the strongest hindrances for me not to drop it were because there isn't much else that I can take in the Geog department! Everything I want to study I've already studied. Not to mention the additional one module for next term, when I can just fully focus on my honours modules. Moreover the group project members have already been allocated! Which meant that me dropping the module now probably put them in a huge fix because they now have to wait for the prof to assign them into new groups or something. Kinda feel bad, but nah my friend's right, I wouldn't stop complaining about the module until I actually drop it. By the way this was a huge impulse decision, I bumped into a friend that I met while I was in army, and then after listening to me for 2 minutes he made up my mind for me and basically dropped the module for me via the computer. Right on, that's what friends are for haha. This ranks just as high when I was deciding between English Language minor or English Studies or English Literature.

Anyway, with that over, wanna document this. I was one of the unwitting victims of an orientation group's truth or dare target. So I was sitting in the train with this huge group of young JC students who were obviously out on their OG outing, when all of a sudden one of the girls from the group suddenly came to sit beside me and started asking me do I know the importance of recycling. HAHAHA the greatest irony of it all. I told her I was Green Link president when I was in JC and I used to give hour-long talks on that subject alone. But it was cool, her OGL took a photo for us and they got off the station before me. Hahaha this is the kind of dares that I would give to people, had I been the cell leader or OGL! My JC orientation was like 6 or 7 years ago, but I know I've got the chops and I rah-rah enough to be the most shameless OGL ever. *CONFIDENT SHRUG AND SWAGGER*.

Okay kidding, I'm getting too old for these. I hope I looked good in that picture.