This entry was written on 30th Dec 2010.

My 2010 was nothing compared to all the great places and achievements of others I've read all around. (I especially admire Kenny Sia)

 

Just a little record for myself so that when I'm old and forgetful, I know I've lived well in 2010.

10 'Firsts' in 2010:

1) First flashmob experience

Singapore's largest flashmob and the first in the world to have a flashmob happen in the airport transit area

 

Us at the end of performance with the pretty marketing/advertising firm rep

Met a few awesome people who became World Cup buddies and eventually best friends

 

2) First Bachelor Degree in Business Management

And its not gonna stop here! Its just my first step to conquer the world (HAHAHA wtf)

 

3) Designed my room for the very First time

Here's my new room layout. Yes, I'm moving.. Can't remember if I've ever mentioned this here. Its been too long since I last blabbered.

 

4) First themed-based blog

And I dare say I'm doing some good (great feed backs too). 3rd month into it and I've 38 posts with 55 followers (not bad, considering I post on random and is pretty quiet about it)

Lil things for Love

 

5) First trip to Taiwan

MANY firsts there. First sunset, first time to shop till I'm broke (on the 2nd day of the 5 day trip ), first hot spring experience...

 

6) First Blackberry

 My love!

Witness Berry evolution wtf LOL.

Then the Blackberry fever starts to spread...

 

7) First ZoukOut experience!

Biggest out door party of the year!!! Free tix cos I sold 2 supposingly free tickets for $90 in 10 mins! Hehehe *cue superhero music*

So I got a chance to party with

 30,000 people. With music featuring David Guetta (OH YES) and mambooooo alll nightttt longggggg :D

Here's Guetta that night morning!

 

8) First International event

The Singapore Stock Exchange FIA Event

This annual financial summit hosts the elite of the financial world (the Ps & VPs of major banks) and I would never forget the short (and funny) exchange we had with the CEO of Singapore Stock Exchange.We had fun after work!

OH something very important, EVERYONE WHO WERE THERE WERE USING BLACKBERRIES HAHAHA

 

9)First International Competition

I joined the audition of a Taiwanese television program. 15 were chosen out of 3000 people who went for the audition.

It was a very interesting experience to stand up on stage and sing to about 5000 participant+audiences and 3 professional judges (they were TV and record producers and song writers).

Though I knew I won't get in (due to the probability and stiff competition) mostly cos I wasn't prepared to go, but I would definitely do this again!

Hopefully more prepared this time!

 

10) First Singapore Flyer experience

The Singapore flyer and the view at the highest point of the ride

The moet cabin ($150 for a 45 min ride+free flow of bubbly) and the interior of a normal cabin

Marina Bay Sands and Clarke Quay at sunset

Nothing compared to The Eye in London but its still the biggest (not a ferris wheel) observation wheel in Asia!

 

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Not-very-awesome-firsts:

- It would also be a first Chinese/Lunar New Year that we would not be celebrating as a big wholesome family (due to some mishaps this year)  , but I'd be in shopping paradise Bangkok so ! (Anyway shopping buddy required, pls sign up. Hotel on me, just pay for your own air ticket and shopping. Any takers?)

- First visit to Singapore General Hospital for Dad's gall stone surgery

- First visit to Raffles Hospital for a friend's surgery

- First long break with no part time job(s)/income. That was from 3rd November to 19th December. Longest break everrrrrrrrrr. Its just eating/playing games/reading/surfing/shopping/anything anytime I want everyday + lotsa waitinggggg and interviews after interviews. Frustrating at times cos I've been working/studying on-stop the past 5 years

 

On a side note...

lost a few friends, gain a few friends who truly loves me for who I am

  

2 interesting scandal candidates to close the year, hopefully more to come next year and a step closer to finding the 'chosen one' (omg so pun intended)

Very much closer to my family this year due to their health issues , new house and basically because I'd loads of time on hand (which is so awesome!!! now that I've started working again )

 

New hopes for the new year ,

- Finally embark on a full-time CAREER (if nothing goes wrong, I'd like to join them in Feb and be able to fly to Dubai, Amsterdam and Europe for work! :D)

- Convocation in August and studio family shoot!

- More 'firsts'!!

- New scandal that actually is true

- First grad trip with the Uni mates (July/Aug)

- First Korea trip with my group of pals (also July/Aug)!!

- New address, newly decorated house

- To be debt free (my student credit card that arrived in Dec 2010 is so not helping )

- As always, everyone to be as healthy and as safe as they can be (especially my family) and more meaningful time with them

- Nothing I want more, than for everyone to be happy

 

I'm very very grateful for everything that has happened in 2010, though it hasn't been a smooth ride.

It has definitely been an exciting one!

 

P.S On 1st January 2010, I got my first gift of 2011! A free MacBook! So hello from my new MacBook!!! Signifies how awesome 2011 is gonna be!!

 

P.P.S Surprisingly I have another post lined up, waiting to put in pictures and it'd be publish

Read this and find some new meaning.

 

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Written by Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.
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I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.



What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.



The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.



I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

 

 

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Just in time. Yesterday was like a dream. Everything just whirl past, still can't believe that was the last paper. Ahhhh. Time to move on to greater things! :D

Nowadays, its just me, the books and a heart of wanderlusts :)

 

Its been a while since I've officially updated. Yes, still highly active on Twitter.

Previously I was toying with the idea of blogging from my Blackberry since Xanga doesn't have an app for it and

with a handful of friends replying to my thread when I casually gave about a truckload of ideas to my BFF on how to create more romance in her love life.

I decided to start a theme blog on Tumblr. It will be updated daily with a different idea to be sweet to your significant other.

So do take a look there if you're interested,

http://lilthingsforlove.tumblr.com

I'd be posting the ideas over (when I've figure out how to)

I hope I do not disappoint those who read since I'm single, this theme doesn't seem to be something I should be writing about.

But who cares!

I have so many ideas and there doesn't seem to be any blog with such a theme (I've googled it) for twosomes.

Do share if you've seen a site specially dedicated to this theme! :)

 

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I've been going through a small roller coaster as once again, I've reached another cross road in my life.

In another 2 months, I will be able to apply for my first official 'full-time' job to kick off my career as ________.

Heres the thing, I'VE YET TO DECIDE WHICH FIELD THAT WOULD BE.

So, I've been actively (well sort of, amidst 5 modules workload and 4 days work week) been asking around for advice.

The 3 things that I've decided to

1. Talk to people my age who has started working full time in a position/industry I'm interested in
2. Read up more about positions I'm interested in
3. Start my job search early, expect to go on a dozen interviews and fail it before securing a position (hopefully much earlier than my classmates)

I will be graduating with a Bachelor in Business Management, majoring in Entrepreneurship minor in Marketing.

I've a previous Diploma in Logistics and Operations Management, experience in finance, sales, training so basically I'm all over the place with so many choices.

Positions that I'm interested in are mainly marketing and communications, corporate training and business development.

At this point, don't really want to limit myself so I'm going to try everything hehehe!

Yup, so that's what I've been busy and fretting over. Some advice would be nice :)

 

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Today is the 4th of September 2010, in a few days, one of my closet (of the very little) friends I've in Xanga is leaving our country, Singapore to study at Warwick.

I wish her all the best and hope she takes very good care of herself. I will miss her so much and will always be here (and Facebook and Twitter) for whatever support she might need from me.

Take care Sam! *hugs*

After the previous not-so-me entries, I made a bet with the rest of my friends to find another Scandalboy by the end of year or the Christmas log cake is on me.

Thank you previous Scandalboy, 

*Borrowed this from Borntolove_you*

 

I hope to *beams brightly* once again!

Hello to future Scandalboy!

 

Heres a quick update! I'm starting to get a hang of blogging again cos I'm bored when I on my Mac, ever since everything is done with my Blackberry.

 

Strangely, I did meet someone recently at the most unexpected situation.

Walking list of awesome qualities but am hoping to know him more "personally". 

To begin with, we have similar intellectual level and not many awkward silences!

 

I did something to my hair again!

 

Snipped my own fringe! *gasps* No idea where my courage came from!

 

Now now, this NEVER fails to make me happy again!

HEELS EXPERIMENTING AT NEW LOOK! 

 

Reminds me of Peter Pan. So "pirate" looking?

 

Uber sexay Burberry knockoffs.

 

These are the 5/20+ we tried that day. LOL.

 

My friend bought the pale mary-jane while I got the slutty duper high heels (partially sponsored by her for my very very belated birthday, thank you love!)

*End of happy entry*

Off to watch Drop Dead Diva!