took the bus to sembawang then to chua chu kang.. then to petir LRT station. this took me 1 1/2 hours. got there on time though. got to know the kids.. young, hyperenergetic :) did some pre-tests on reading for the kids.. got everything done by 5:30pm. it was a nice start to volunteering with mendaki. decided to take a random bus from a nearby bus stop.. 75.. dropped off at holland road. took 165 back.. reached home in 50 minutes. good to explore.

Saturday, July 10, 2004 10:24 p.m.

Hello people. I know whats on your mind. All the rants and agonized rallies to the silent, immobile masses falling on deaf ears? why dont they stand up for all the injusticies in the world? Are they all heartless? Yup. Well, here's an excerpt from a book "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D."

Thirty-eight individuals were witnesses to a murder from an apartment building and yet none called the police or gave aid. New York-based psychology profresors, Bibb Latane and John Darly speculated two reasons. The first reason is fairly straightforward. With several potential helpers around, the personal responsibility of each individual is reduced: "Perhaps someone else will give or call for aid, perhaps someone else already has." So with everyone thinking that someone else will help or has helped, no one does. Without taking responsibility or feeling responsible, no one is moved into action. The second reason is the more psychologically intriguing one; it is founded on the principle of social proof and involves the pluralistic ignorance effect. Very often an emergency is not obviously an emergency. Is the man lying in the alley a heart-attack victim or a drunk sleeping one off? In times of such uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of others for clues. We learn from other witnesses's reactions of the event whether the event is an emergency or not. What is easy to forget, is that everybody else observing the event is likely to be looking for social evidence too. And because we all prefer to appear poised and unflustered among others, we are likely to just look around and see everyone unruffled and failing to act and by the principle of social proof, the event will be intrepreted as a nonemergency. This, according to Latane and Darley, is the state of pluralistic ignorance "in which each person decides that since nobody is concerned, nothing is wrong. Meanwhile, the danger may be mounting to the point where a single individual, uninfluenced by the seeming calm of others, would react.

if we're talking about a revolution, then we're talking about making everyone take personal responsibility. its not that they're blind, deaf to all the world's ills. on the contrary, they are bombarded with images and all sorts of information on it every other minute. its just that most dont feel immediately responsible (someone else will work it out). also, most dont know what they can do and since there is no motivation to action, whatever action they might be inclined to do will be most likely minimal. most people do want to help though, they're just waiting for the right thing to do and someone else to start doing it first.

Johnathan has a nice quote. "There is no such thing as good influence or bad influence because as long as I am influencing you, it means I am bending you to something that you're not."

Saturday, July 10, 2004 11:33 a.m.

yesterday, raced out of the house and got into Ridzwan's car. met Johnathan, another SMU freshie. mosque, then to SMU to drop some of my forms then we had milo dinosaurs at Al-Ameen and then Queensway to get shoes (his) where we met Sofian Tay from SA whose going to Melbourne next week to study. Also met Azhar from SA whose going to Tazmania to study. (anybody else see a pattern here?) its good to catch up with good friends and the mark of a good friend is no matter how long apart you were, you still can click together like a pair of mating crickets. no forget i said that. ergh.

home and snoozed for abit. worked out my emails and then ros gave me a call at nine. and out i went to meet up with him and hafiz. food, shisha, pool. nice combi. then home.

today, gotta go down to Petir Road to participate in Mendaki's Maju Minda Membaca. I'm looking forward to it but I'm a little anxious if everyone is going to be speaking Malay. luckily i have been practising a little and i think i can pull off sounding like a Malay! this all sounds very sad but if you look at the bright side, now i actually listen to what those malay radio station deejays have to say. learnt some new words like maklum-balas and saranan. well not learnt.. just remembered.

Saturday, July 10, 2004 11:11 a.m.

How to make a ahmad firdaus

Ingredients: 5 parts mercy 3 parts brilliance 1 part beauty

Method: Stir together in a glass tumbler with a salted rim. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of emotion

hotmail sends this out when it cant deliver email to certain addresses.

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at aristo.pacific.net.sg. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

i felt as if i've just been dumped. are you calling me the permanent error? are u trying to say u've given up? what do u mean it cant work out?!

Friday, July 9, 2004 03:15 a.m.

my life today started at 5pm. left for mendaki at 545pm. reached there at !@#$$%730pm. nvmind.got the details i needed for the weekly volunteer reading programme thing im going to do. its for kids 4 to 6 years old. :) cute little things.. so cute i could eat em. here kiddy kiddy kiddy..

oh talking about that.. im volunteering for the cat welfare society too. so its here kiddy.. here kitty..

tuition got postponed. that means no cash yet. gotta get more tuition. dammit.

anyway, met up with jacq. told her to meet me at burger king. yup you guessed it.. 4 dollar whooper meal. whoop. then i went home and watched whoopi. im not making this up.

i thought i had enough spare cash to get a sweater or a bag from bugis village tmr. i checked my account. damn insurance people took away another 16 dollars. when is SAF going to give me my due 100 bucks?! should call the dys3 tmr. sorry dude but if i dont make u a little hot around the collar, im not gonna get my money. heh heh heh heh.

Friday, July 9, 2004 03:05 a.m.

got to school today for the OCS briefing. that was at 930am. Talks.. networking sessions. got to know people. I break the ice with all the guys but the girls i only got to know two. but its okay.. heh. Quite fun except for the skincare session which was almighty boring but tolerable. i was having fun till it was four and it was over. if school is going to be this engaging everyday, then i think i'll have no problems.

came home and cooked pasta bolognese with sausages for my sisters and i. still hungry. got on the net to email Steph from OCS about my proposal to clock my Comm Service hours with Mendaki's reading with 4 to 6 year olds programme. everything should work out just fine.

juggling that with listening to all the recorded tracks that mte made that day. i have to learn and revamp some of that. busy month. tmr's meeting at mendaki. plus tuition before that. i have to decide on a laptop soon. okay go sleep.

Thursday, July 8, 2004 03:01 a.m.

did u guys actually read all that? sorry its all such a big mess. email me if u want a detailed and structured list of what i did today with whom at what time and where. be happy to oblige.

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 03:30 a.m.

today. was quite an engaging day. morning, me and my dad helped my mum work on my uncle's accounting.. crash course in profit and loss statements and income reports and projections and cash flow and balance sheets and stuff. okay. then rushed down to boons for jamming with mte. they havent changed the skin on those drums since before they renovated the last room.. or they keep using the same blue skin but whack on them real hard each time to fool people into thinking its the same one. anyway we recorded quite abit of stuff today. this time ros couldnt open the door while i could. i waited long for this day. haha.

then me, kc and merf had thosai and prata. the guy kept trying to convince merf to have thosai. in the end we had our proper meals. supposed to talk but we crapped about more. "infantron pte ltd" the company that sells baby transformers. the ability to morph into a pram.

headed down to city hall with immediate intention to source for lap tops at funan. found out leonard was at the starbucks. jasmine and bf was there too. talked.. first time i see leonard programming.. and such high standards too! haha. but use "CASE" lah brother.. copy paste "if then else" so many times like that not that high standard ah.. haha... then we went to check out the lap tops. this hp pavilion lap top had the same specs as the ibm thinkpad im thinkin of buying. only that it had a huge-er screen (yes huge-er) and looked way better than an IBM. (i wonder why IBM has to make them so ugly.. its ugly and expensive.. the good stuff must be unseen..) thinking about that laptop now.. but it doesnt have XP PRo. do u guys realize that XP <- thats the face of a person stickin his tongue out with his eyes shut? okay. anyway we headed to Davies then went off. I went down to Masjid Sultan for abit then decided to postpone my tuition in pasir ris (omg. pasir ris) then met up with ros, jame and fatin (jame's gf) at heeren SINS. and lo and behold, elaine was working there.. chocolates are nice but expensive. i shant say more. anyway, we headed down to burger king where arzish and frinn were. frinn is arzish's girl who is also a sminah. cuz in smu there are smuts and there are sminahs. thank u, i came up with that all by myself.

oh and whooper meal for four bucks. woo hoo. goodo foodo. met ira and abg ahmad there. good fun hehe. laughed so hard at one point i choked on a fry. interesting experience but not one i want to repeat often. yes. fatin, jame, arzish and frinn left. and hafiz and eugene came by.. pissed at wrong directions. but they didnt beat us up. much. they ate. we went off to pool.. good fun. some people got beaten up outside the pool place. sad. people should just get along and eat burger king whooper meals together. having fun is so much more fun.

got back and had tons of mail. sent off what i needed to and cleared the rest. that took me 45 mins. and i listened to ASh's videos that ros spliced for me. gotta learn those too. and damn i have to go to school tmr by 9am. i know.. i'll do my famous impression of a sleeping person there. i think the chocolates are giving me a sugar high. wahaha. and a horny leopard toy make elaine blush. we should upload pics of that guy, ros..hahaha.. might not have so much time to spend with friends next time.. glad today was fun.

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 03:10 a.m.

i read from an NLP (neuro-linguistic prgramming) book that in order to create a habit or pattern, you have to keep programming urself at it for about 28 days. that means if you wanna get up every morning and have a morning jog, you'd have to keep doing it for 28 days before it becomes routine. that got me thinking of ramadhan, the fasting month for muslims.. every year we're told to cultivate the best of behaviours for that entire month, 28 days. i just realized all the benefits that arise from having ramdhan. islam is of the nature where the more you learn and realize, the more it makes perfect sense. keeps us humble.

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 12:33 p.m.

was going to change the layout when i realized my dad deleted my dreamweaver. he even deleted frontpage. tried to re-install but i have no idea what the serial number is or where it can be found. i have lost all hope. ha. theres still kazaa.

i should sleep soon but i still have ash - meltdown to learn. i have 7 performances in these two months with lotsa new songs to do. decided not to go for the scv recruitment thing.. no time. i'll just focus on giving tuition. and i've spent the day doing o level a maths papers.. refreshed alot of stuff.. but realized i forgot a whole bunch too. my trigonometric functions and formulas are gone. but the others im getting back. damn. my schedule's in a whirlwind.. gotta get it all back into its proper slots.

tmr.. jamming at 2 to 4. then head to funan to check out the laptops. then to pasir ris. then to cumming st? we'll see. arzish says theres a nice chill out place at cumming st. tsk.. you guys.. cumming's an english surname.

had a bad dream this afternoon. its been bugging me till now. told naj about it. how come other people dont get these kinda dreams. theres a palpable presence around. im trying to deal with it. god help me.

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 01:16 a.m.

damn it! if he can climb up walls, so can i!

Monday, July 5, 2004 12:52 a.m.

spiderman 2 was a good movie. rather cliche and predictable filming but it was good. the scene in the train where the people helped him and got to know who he was was worthed $8.50 You never have the public know who a superhero is in other movies. Nice script overall. always loved spiderman, since the comic days. the emo superhero. hah.

jammed with pale pretense then had two prata kosongs. then went to al-falah.. met up with hanz at 730. went to bk. she wanted a hersheys pie. i bought a pie and a drink.. then i figured.. the drink's two bucks.. and the whooper meal's four bucks.. but i wasnt hungry.. but then the whooper and the fries would be like one dollar each! so i bought the meal and ate it. im thankful that i've been pretty well-fed the whole of last week. things been looking up. God answers :)

aah.. my childhood fantasy of swinging from building to building and walking up the wall and sticking onto the ceiling. spiderman~ haha.

Monday, July 5, 2004 12:42 a.m.

i am well reknowned for my antics, my features, my jokes and my woeful grasp of the malay language. i have committed myself to converse more in the language so that i wont sound like an ang-moh when i try to berbahasa melayu. i am methaphorically speaking a fish out of water.

benar sekali, ibu-ibu, ayah-ayah dan rakan-rakan sekalian.. saya akan cuba sedaya upaya saya untuk menguasai bahasa ibunda saya sehingga fasih di ngomongnya.. heh. i have my work cut out.

was supposed to go down to the mendaki workshop today but my uncle-in-law's mother passed away so i didnt go. after everything, met up with ros in the evening for pool and arzish came along. burger king whopper meal is four bucks. then met up with family at mustaffa centre. yup.

mum, look.. i met some of my fans.. *points to the standing fans section beside the aircons*

Sunday, July 4, 2004 03:03 a.m.

current music alexis on fire - pulmonary archery, .44 caliber love letter

alexis on fire rates 9/10 for drumming high. i am so looking forward to baybeats 2004 you should too.

met up with ridzwan, shanu and wu yan. relived old sajc times.. at funan taco bell.. which is where i spent most of my school hours at. heh. library. then dinner with family at sofra.

tmr morning, mendaki workshop. i have to be sleeping. yup yup yup.

Friday, July 2, 2004 11:48 p.m.

I spent the day organizing all my stationary. I got myself a nice folder for all the note-takings and to keep track of my schedules. You'd probably never guessed that I like to keep myself organized from looking at my room. Chaos in good measure, i'd say.

balancing all the schedules this month and the next.

Thursday, July 1, 2004 07:58 p.m.

today was matriculation day. it was fun =) went down to smu at ten, met up with dechao and edmund. saw ming siu. chatted with this senior who wanted me to go to sailing. did all the registration stuff.. we were the only three jokers laughing and joking and having fun. haha. during lunch, used the computer labs to check out the intranet and send emails to each other, turn on the msn and friendsters. haha. deciding on which notebook to get was a headache though. talked to a couple of people. the girls were not bad. but as i told edmund, "today first day, sure chio one.. put on make-up, wear nice nice. you see ah, one year from now.. face sure buang one.. flies flying around.. -"no need to bathe lah" " i am kidding of cuz.

i have an smu student card and email account and forum account. i feel so part of the school now. yay.

been looking at cnet reviews of all the laptops since eleven. i started off really wanting a tablet notebook but after analyzing it and putting it all in the boil. i guess what i need to go for is a stable, solid notebook that i'll use for assignments that would last me my entire 3 years. 3 years of lugging it around and working on it 24 hours a day. not many laptops can survive that.. and the tablet notebooks arent that durable. if i were rich, i wouldnt think twice lah. i'd buy two and keep one in the fridge.

need to decide on ccas. need to decide on notebooks. need to plan out what events i'll go for this month. need to see if i can work on the rest of the days. need to see if i can cram in my community service hours with mendaki camps during the hols rather than do the funny projects they're offering here. need to start giving tuition. need to learn how to give tuiton. need to settle part-time job of web maintanence fees. need to pay my auntie back. need to borrow abit more. oh yes. doubleyellowline sound team and equipment. moren tea estate playlist and performance. pale pretense playlist and performance. the whirlwind has begun, my friends.

i should be sleeping but i slept just now.

Thursday, July 1, 2004 02:03 a.m.

i got out today, met up with my financial planner julie to discuss.. basicly my lack of financials. nice to talk to her.. makes a lot of things clear.

caught KC at the bus stop opposite the ISA building and we headed down to Boons studio. the drumset here in the last room of the new studio was old.. but it had a pretty okay sound. i realize most of the snares in studios are metal. still lookin for maple snares or somthing. session was okay. headed to kc's house. dashed off to masjid khatijah (i think thats what its called) then spent my last and only 4 bucks on lunch+dinner of hor fun. (i seem to be eating hor fun very often.. its the most filling dish i think, lotsa gravy) i have to say i really appreciate my friends' understanding of my current financial situation. seriously. i wouldnt be able to survive without you guys. i'll be that much hungrier, thirstier and i'd probably walk home alot more often. :) give me some time guys, god willing, i'd get back on my feet.

we caught three episodes of "coupling" at kc's house. 1 1/2 hours swooshed by just like that. amazing.

met up with eugene on the bus. caught up at prata house.. (his treat of a cup of teh tarik.. heh) memories bro.. and dreams and passions. him, billiards, me, drums. then as i walked home, caught up with Ridzwan.. Fazleen his gf must have told him all the funny stuff i did in the trailblazer camp.. hehe.. same old same old. we have to hook up sometime bro.

Tuesday, June 29, 2004 01:11 a.m.

i was browsing friendster and i realized that quite a number of the wonderful people i met in the camp are just one or two degrees away from my personal circle. being in a different school and all, i dont know if i'll ever meet them again.. insya'allah i will.

rushed down to garage studios for jamming with pale pretense. good good session. i didnt really miss drumming while i was in camp but it felt really good to be on the drumset again. we finished working on the new song and we came up with two new song ideas.. one of which i really liked (nicknamed 2 notes) good stuff.. we come up with new material every 2-3 weeks now. heh. pale pretense gigs are lining up too.. 2 shows in july, one in august.. and one major one at the padang at the end of the year. :)

after that we had some food at this hawker place called POWER POWER Hainanese Chicken Rice but the auntie who ran the place said they dont have chicken rice. i ate wet hor fun instead thanks to lin for belanja-ing me. oh and Happy Birthday Lin! 19! Make your last teenage year your best :)

was at the traffic light when LT Conan stuck his head out of a nearby car and shouted my name and waved hello.. he is officially the nicest officer i have ever met. all the officers i've met have all been the nicest people. actually almost all the people i worked with in my company were really cool. well here's to reservist~~

dashed to a musollah before heading to jam with another band at the studio opposite hard rock cafe. there are a lot of ang mohs sitting outside this studio. Leonard on bass, jiahe on vocals, Clifton on guitars and Sana on the stool that creaks like the "Aaaaahhh" part in Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. It was an okay session.. partly marred from a lack of preparation but the drumset sucked. is it okay to miss a drumset? i did. damn.

i've kinda decided to stop pursuing sailing in smu. wanna try to be able to drum as a cca in smu or try to earn some money from it. and now im inspired to do more voluntary work. sigh i'm really missing those kids.. my finger's still smooth from rubbing out the glass paint from all the kids' hands with thinner. i wish i had pictures though. i didnt bring a camera. i wonder if i can get some pics from that camp from someone..

Monday, June 28, 2004 12:26 a.m.

Mendaki Trailblazer Camp 2004

The camp was really an experience for me. There is a joy of tending to and taking care of kids, entertaining them, making them laugh, cleaning their hands, answering all their questions.. It was a amazing. I learnt so much the last three days. It was really a humbling experience. I learnt about myself a lot too, my strengths and limitations. My inadequate grasp of the malay language (which has mysteriously gone closer to Bahasa Indonesia than Bahasa Melayu) and my ability to identify myself with kids, the ability to laugh at myself. haha. I owe so much to the other facilitators and the committee whom provided me with so much support and advice even though I hardly knew them, we clicked like family. I guess thats what made it quite painful to leave, we really really became family. The kids and all of us.. we were family in that short span of three days. They gave me the opportunity to be the emcee for those three days, coordinating all the facilitators and generally the one speaking out the orders.. i am grateful for the trust they put in me. In that same role i experienced pride as well as temperance and humility. It was an amazing thing we had going on and I am grateful to all my brothers and sisters and especially to God for giving me so much.

Sunday, June 27, 2004 01:37 p.m.