A Quite Possibly Controversial Update.

So we lost the Inter-polys. Hm.

I dunno. I'm tremendously sorry, but somehow I'm not affected very much by it.



I think this is due to a range of factors:
a) My team won it last year so it's already in my list of achievements
b) The trophies this year really look like crap! Lousy, tiny-assed things.
c) You just don't care about losing to a team which says China and Brazil are developed nations

So oh wells. We'll get it back next year lah. Can wan. It's like how NYP won it two years back, but we got it back last year.

We've got some pretty good juniors, so we just need to focus on them and build them up and we'll be good to go. :)



I'm pretty relieved that it's over.

This year's Inter-polys wasn't the best in terms of its organisation, and our concerns and constant reminders to keep to previous standards set were looked upon as us making trouble.

As one might guess, this caused an incredible amount of frustration, drama and much forehead-slapping on our part.

It was the common reaction we had when we heard some of the things the other poly representatives had said in certain hostile discussions with our own reps.



Perhaps this was some strategy by the other polys to make sure we get as much brain damage as possible prior to the tournament. 'Cos slapping one's forehead can't possibly be very healthy.

And as such, by the time the Inter-polys came, we were as unhealthy as obese children on a McDonald's and Penang Chendol diet.



I just hope that next year's tournament will be run a lot better. Of course, TP will be the host poly, so my juniors will be the organisers. Hopefully they'll be the winners too,

So, to all juniors reading this (and I know some of you are reading this!), you guys better start planning for it immediately.



I think Team TP 2 has already heard enough congratulations for reaching the finals despite lacking training, so I'm not going to be all redundant by adding one more on my part. I'm pretty sure the team members know I was always supporting them, so that's fine.



I do, though, want to give a shout out to my own team-mates.

I think more than anything else, this year's Inter-polys should serve as inspiration to Don (and perhaps Anita) to work a lot harder and win it back next year.

They need to realise that they are the ones who will be carrying the teams next year, and as such, they need to be at my level (or better). And sorry guys, but you're not there yet.

Key word: "yet".

The Inter-polys is an avenue for debaters to bring out their best.

It brought out an incredible amount of strength and passion in Team 2, and hopefully it brings out a spirit of perseverance and courage in my own team-mates.



As for me, I think it's about time that I retire from debating and move towards adjudicating for two reasons:
a) I'm getting too old for debating. It wears out my brain and makes my bones ache.
b) It'd put my juniors in the front seat, allowing them to feel the burden of heavy expectations. They're going to feel it next year anyway, so it's better that they feel it now and grow used to it.



So the Inter-polys is over and done with, and it's a considerable load off my back. I say good riddance!

And all in the nick of time too.

School work has piled up considerably, and I've been under a huge amount of self-imposed stress to deliver academically.

For the first time in three years, I'm actually quite concerned that I might not do very well for this semester.

*JENG JENG JENGGG!*

I've got one assignment due next week for a subject known as Advanced Television Production. I've done all the filming, and now I just need to edit it.

But the problem is that editing can be a supreme pain in the nether regions.

The bigger problem is that my trusty Dell Inspiron 640m isn't as trusty as I thought it was. Apparently, it's such a lousy piece of junk that it won't be able to handle any professional editing software that I could download.

Damn you, 512MB Ram! Damn you and your suckiness!



All this means that I'll need to go to school and used the Video Editing Suites there.

And this puts severe restrictions on me as I'm unable to work on the assignment at night (which coincidentally, is the time when I produce the finer parts of my work).

Sigh.



I swear school is going to be the death of me. 20 year old guys should not need to deal with this amount of stress!

Goodnight World!

Paranormal Activity.

I don't like my friends. They used peer pressure to make me watch Paranormal Activity today.

And now I'm scared. And it's only 9.03pm.

I don't know why I do this to myself. :(



You see, I don't normally get scared while I'm watching the movie itself.

That might be due to how I was closing my eyes half the time, but then again it might not. Give me a break.



The real problem is that the other of the movie (the half which I'm actually watching) is enough to give me an idea of what's happening.

So for example, I watched enough of Paranormal Activity to know that it's about a spooky thing haunting a woman.

And most of the spooky events happen at night. Well guess what. It's night time now.



And the damn thing comes right into the bedroom, for goodness sake.

Our bedrooms are the place we all go to for safety and comfort. And *poof!*, now that perception of safety and comfort is all gone.

Because tonight, I'm probably going to lie in bed with my eyes wide open, hoping something with three toes doesn't come into my room and drag me screaming into the hallway.

Sighhh.



Moral of the story: If your name is Seow Wei-xun, don't be daft and think you can handle scary movies.

Goodnight World!

Watching The Facebook Feed.

I love watching the Facebook feed.

You know why?

See, here's how it goes.

Most of us are angry youths, right? It's the curse of being a teenager, we just get so consumed by anger and emo-ness and all these negative emotions.

Emo-ness normally leads to anger, anyway.



And more often than not, we're angry at other people.

Hatred boils within our souls; bubbling and rising higher and higher until we feel like we have to say something against the (in our opinion) guilty parties.

So we use our Facebook Wall to say it.



And this is the best part, really.

We're all going:

"ALRIGHT LAH, LET'S GET THE BUGGER(S) THROUGH THIS POST! FREEDOM OF SPEECH BABY! IMMA GONNA USE IT! READ THIS UPDATE AND CRY!"

But when the post/status update is all done and uploaded, it's the epitome of what my fellow Malaysians and I call "potong stim", aka anticlimactic.



Why is it anticlimactic? Because it's never direct.

Like, let's say a girl gets cheated on. Let's say her boyfriend's name is...I don't know... let's say "Jack".

And as much as she wants to write something like, "Jack, you're the biggest piece of sh*t the world has ever seen and I hate your guts and I'm gonna tell your parents that you're a man-whore", it never comes out that way.

It comes out as some lousy "Some people think they can cheat on girls and not get caught. *angry face*"



I think this is like some cultural happening, man.

At the end of the day, we're Asians. And as much as we can hate certain people/things, we can never find it in ourselves to break away from that old Asian value of being respectful and having a No Confrontation stance.



Maybe that's why we don't have the Freedom of Speech in our countries.

Do we really deserve the Freedom of Speech? What's the point of the freedom to give out our opinions if we aren't going to use it?

And I don't have any backing on this point, but I think that the Freedom of Speech has to come with an understanding that everyone can have his/her own opinion, and as such, one shouldn't take another's opinion too seriously.

It's this idea of a willingness to calmly Agree to Disagree.

I don't think Asians have that yet. Anything too direct would be too hurtful; there's hardly ever any amount of pure, cool, rational discussion.



And until we get to that point, until our minds are forward enough to adopt stances that allow us to have the Freedom of Speech, we're going to have to rely on soft, lousy Facebook messages to deliver our opinions. Like:


"I hate arrogant f*cks who think that their way is the only way and and hold no regard for anyone else."


That's a real post on my Facebook feed, by the way. Angry, huh! :D

I'm not complaining, though.

I kinda like it that way. Reading these Facebook posts is kinda like solving a mystery; you're trying to find out why that person is pissed and who they're pissed off at.

And if it's ever about me, I'd just go, "But wait! Nobody said *insert name here* was talking about meeee!!" *Cue Very Shocked Face*

Asians ah. Deceptive like anything. Or maybe that's just me.



Goodnight World!

Boomz.

I just want to say something which has been bugging me for some time now.

I really don't get how people can still be so amused by the mistakes that Ris Low made in that Razor TV video.

Boomz and Zebra Preenz. Okay fine. It was funny.



But really, how long ago was it? Two, three months?

The fact that it can still be one of the articles flagged out on the front page of 8Days is just sad. I mean, come on man.

It's stale news. It's a stale joke.

Just how little creativity do people have nowadays?! Come up with newer jokes lah, rather than stressing on one person for two whole months. That's like 60, maybe even 90 days of Ris Low.

Come on man, you guys can do better than that!



But perhaps it's not the media's fault that they're still harping on it.

Perhaps they're forced to keep writing articles about Ris Low and her mistakes because some people just can't get enough of it

And if that's the case, that's pretty screwed up.



Let's make something very clear. Or in Obama's words, "Make No Mistake!"

I'm not at all defending Ris Low, or the mistakes she made. Yes, yes, fine. Oh goodness, she's Miss Singapore, how embarrassing blah blah blah. I got it.

All I'm saying is that I really can't be bothered about the girl any more. And I don't think Singaporeans (or whoever else)should continue to be bothered.

For those of you who are still amused by the whole thing, those of you who still hang on to every article poking fun at Boomz or Preenz or whatever:

Please. Get a life.

The girl's out of the contest. She's not representing you guys any more.

And you just sink to new depths every time you use her as some cheap little thrill.

MOVE ON LAH.



So there.

Goodnight World.

Hell Semester.

This, ladies and gents, is my assignments calendar for the month of January.

See all the little coloured rectangles? Those each are separate assignments that I'm supposed to finish up, whether individually or in a group.

The week starting with the 11th will see me tackling 6 assignments in 3 days.

Fish. I've never seen my calendar this packed before. Which only means one thing.

This semester is going to be Hell.

Goodnight World!

The Boy and his Bear.

Today I learnt of something that really, truly horrified me.

Read this.

WHAT THE HELL.

The girl in the picture is the new Christopher Robin!


Okay well, I realise now that this has been happening for quite some time already. But that's not going to stop me from ranting about it.

I can't believe Disney actually did this! You can't replace Christopher Robin! You just can't!

I think that so much of the charm in the Winnie The Pooh series comes from Christopher Robin and his relationship with Pooh.

There's hardly anything more charming than the lifelike friendship between a boy and his teddy bear.

And that charm was embodied in Christopher Robin!



Call me a romantic, call me elitist, call me whatever you want. To me, it's simple. The fact is that Pooh is not Pooh if he's not with Christopher Robin.

They're like a duo, man. You can't have one without the other!

Oh, oh. And the reason for the replacement just kills me, you know: Christopher Robin just doesn't sell well.



All faith that I had in Disney just crumbles with that reason.

I mean, sure, it's a company. Sure, it's profit-oriented. Sure, it's their right.

But if it were up to me, I'd pay more careful attention to the fact that so many people around the world grew up loving Christopher Robin and Pooh.

And I think I speak for many of those people when I say that it's really painful to think of Pooh sharing that special relationship with someone else. I haven't been following the series, but I bet there's hardly or not any mention of Christopher Robin anywhere.

If that's true, it's as if Pooh doesn't even miss him. As if that relationship never meant anything special. Which is just wrong.



To me, this just shows that Disney has no respect for what it's been built on. It just shows me that Disney is nothing more than a cold-hearted corporation.

Something in me was holding on to the hope that perhaps Disney stood for more than that; that it actually took pride in the good that they were doing for kids and kids at heart.

But I guess that's not the case.

Sigh.



Dear reader, I understand if you don't get why I'm so upset.

And it's okay. But just realise that the concept of the boy and his bear was, and always will be, important to me.

And that boy was Christopher Robin. No one else.



In other news. I'd advise you not to watch 500 Days of Summer, unless:
a) You want to be depressed
b) You want to know the story of my life

It's a good movie lah. That, granted. It's just so. Freaking. Depressing.

Goodnight World.

Get Facebook Away From Me!

I REALLY NEED TO GET STARTED ON MY STUDENT INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME (SIP) REPORT! IT'S DUE ON MONDAY!

Cehh, as if I'm feeling that jumpy and uptight about it. I'm not.

I am, however, feeling jumpy and uptight that I'm not jumpy and uptight about the report. It's like I'm panicking because I should be panicking, but I'm not.

And all this is an incredibly weird sensation, to say the least.



It doesn't help that Facebook is just a click away.

It doesn't help that I've got Flight of the Conchords DVDs beckoning to me.

It doesn't help that my bed looks more comfortable than ever.



It doesn't help that I don't understand what I'm supposed to write for the report.

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Purpose
• tells the readers what you want to achieve through the report - state
the objectives you have set for the report.

I mean, let's be frank here.

Real Purpose Of The Report: I want to achieve a 'pass' for my SIP, so that the past 6 months of my life wouldn't be flushed down the drain. And the only way I can do that is by completing this report.



But obviously, academic reports can't handle the truth. So I have to come up with some lousy half-baked unrealistic crap like:

Through this report, I hope to provide the reader with a visualisation of the daily undertakings in MediaCorp's 938LIVE newsroom.

I don't even know whether that's the right answer. It probably isn't. It doesn't sound chim enough.



The good news, though, is that my Creative Juices seem to be flowing pretty well.

At this point in time, I just thought of a sexual innuendo in relation to the line above. But that just shows how active and creative my mind is right now.



So wish me luck, people, as I venture into the Final Frontier (of the SIP programme)!

Goodnight World!

Say Frog!

Thought I'd share this with you guys.



Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks?!

There are other videos of her on YouTube too. All incredibly adorable.

Goodnight World!

PS: Yes, Sunshine. I'll be doing that post on How Pokémon Is Bad-ass soon! Promise!
PPS: Everybody seems to be getting hitched nowadays ah. Leave me behind only. Babi lah you all. Next comes Janice Lee. Confirm one.

Sleeping on Paper.

I utterly despise how my secondary school friend Desmond Lim taught me how to sleep on a desk, using blank paper as a pillow.

It's just so utterly amazing how my cheek can actually sense the difference in texture between just the flat desk, as opposed to the flat desk with a piece of paper.



And it's this difference which tricks me into believing that the paper is actually rather comfortable.

Because the paper is softer than the hard wooden desk. Or plastic desk. Or metal, or glass. Whichever.

Before I know it, I'm asleep. On a piece of paper.



Dammit, why does paper feel this good?! And on a second note, why can't homework complete itself?!

They should invent that machine in The Matrix which lets you master stuff in the blink of an eye.

But then again, that would allow the scientists in Iran to learn the expertise it takes to build a nuclear bomb. Well, that's assuming they've got enough enriched uranium to make the bombs.

Argh. I hate homework. Homework makes me boring.



And on another note, my friend Vanessa Ho just got a papercut. From plastic. *sniggers*



Okay bye. I've got work to do.

Goodnight World!

*falls asleep on paper*

"SOME PEOPLE TALK DEM LOUDLY LIKE THE WHOLE WORLD WANTS TO KNOW!"

The above line is attributed to Sunshine. I think it's a phrase quite contrary to the kind of vibe one would expect from a name like "Sunshine".

You see, right now I'm sitting with my debate squad mates. We've been separated into two teams leading up to the Inter-polys - Team 1 and Team 2.



Team 1 is busy preparing fact sheets on various countries in Africa.

Team 2 is busy running through some debate cases that they've prepared.



Sitting nearby are a Group of Idiots.

Otherwise known as members of the Temasek Polytechnic Dance Ensemble.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think all members of the TP Dance Ensemble are idiots. I'm sure there's a chance that many members in the group are perfectly fine individuals.



But these buggers are different.

These buggers seem to think they've got a license to make noise around people who are doing work quietly.

And they're taking the rights that come with this imaginary license to incredible extremes.

I'm sorry, I just think that when you make noise in the presence of people who are enjoying the (previously) quiet surroundings, you are either:
a) Stupid
b) Inconsiderate
c) Both



And I'd throw in "ugly" for good measure.

I strongly believe that its easier for us to judge unattractive people negatively.

Observing the aforementioned buggers, I am now even more convinced that my theory is accurate.

There is nothing attractive about wearing oversized t-shirts and huge-ass three quarter pants, on purpose.

Really, you know.



So I really wouldn't blame Sunshine for exploding and indirectly telling them off with that fiery line.

Extremely annoyed at the noise, she had turned over to glance at Team 2, and one member of Team 2 looked back and signalled at her to calm down.

Fat lot of good that did.

Sunshine replied the signal by taking in a large breath, opening her mouth and shouting the line above.

"SOME PEOPLE TALK DEM LOUDLY, LIKE THE WORLD WANTS TO KNOW!!!"

Sunshine got balls, man.

The words reverberated on the walls. Bouncing. Echoing.

Silence fell.



Then came the whispers from the Buggers.

Probably malice-filled, but who cares. Nobody cares about the sentiments made by stupid and/or inconsiderate people.



They left after a while, and peace filled the air again.

Good riddance, I say. I realise that I can't possibly rid the world of all idiots, but at least its some kind of consolation when they leave me alone.



I really should get back to work. There's a ton for me to do. So I'll finish up this post.

Here are the morals of the story.
a) Don't make noise when other people are studying/doing work
b) Don't let your momma dress you funny



Goodnight World!