you found me.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

10:32 PM

just returned from the one-night stay at my grandmother's house, and i have to say, i would like to do this at least once a month. it's so fun!

well, went to her house at around 3, reached at 3.30. nick, jia and yang went out, so they'd be arriving later. so i was just walking around and chatting. only at 4.30 did they arrive there. so we played the xbox for quite a long time, then went to play soccer at the mount faber safra thingy.

went there, played with a bunch of adults, and got owned. shall not reveal the score, but i guess it's just because of our lousy defence, and that was like, the first time we played soccer against another team. anyway, how're you supposed to defend a big goalpost as a defender? can't use hands, and whatever. out of the five of us, 4 of us have CCAs that train the hands and arms. yang plays chuteball(dunno how to explain, it's new to me too), i was in volleyball (pri sch), daniel was volleyball and basketball in primary sch, volleyball in PRSS, and nick was air rifle. jia is in athletics, so it realy does not help in soccer. it's no wonder.

got back home at 7, and i ate the leftovers. bathed, and talked. played xbox for a lot more, and did really retarded things in the living room. jia was the first to sleep, at 10.30. yang was next, at 11.45. then nick, at 12.30. i finally slept at 1, because i was eating milo powder, and it kept me awake. daniel was the best. he slept at 3, only because his hp ran out of battery. he didn't know i brought the charger. stupid person, haha.

i woke up at 4.30, just to see jia switch on the xbox and play. slept again, then woke at 5.30. slept again. woke at 7, and lay in till 7.20-30, then played halo 2 again.

we went to the market with my grandmother, and met my ergu zhang on the way. he qing all of us breakfast. what a nice man. yes, and on the way my grandmother must've met her friends, because they're asking her if the 5 of us were her grandsons. she said yes, then they say "wah! ani zui hor, ani dua hor, ani....." damn funny. it's just the 5 of us. in all there're supposed to be 14 grandchildren, and sandy's pregnant, so she's going to be a great-grandmother. nice. then i'll have a nephew, sort of.

i ate century egg porridge. damn nice. a lot of pepper, shallots, sesame oil, and i was like, very good. the 3 dollars spent by my ergu zhang was worth it, sia.

after going back, played halo 2 AGAIN till 11, then me and daniel went back home.
went to harbour front mrt, took it to outram park, then all the way to tampines, just because my brother wanted to buy starbucks. then we went home. reached home at like, 1. that was damn long.

all right, shall end here.

~BenjaminTAN

Friday, August 29, 2008

4:41 AM

lmao at kenneth. he's one of a kind. the biggest joker, anytime, anywhere.

example: he humps people in the damn toilet. as in the action, but not too close, and yet not too far. it's damn funny, if you ask me.
i have a video of him doing it on some einstein sec 1 for 3 seconds (in the vid) but if i had anticipated the action any earlier i'd have taken at least 10 seconds.

but enough of that.
today was some teacher's day celebrations. i think it was boring, not original, and what ever. i think it's just...
droll.
i also dunno why i blogged about this.
i'm just bored.
ok, BACK TO STUDY

~BenjaminTAN

Thursday, August 28, 2008

10:26 PM

just had a random thought yesterday, and yes. i find it very painful. let me summarise this into a few lines (i hope). elise, it's not your fault, what ever it is. i'm sorry i made you feel so bad.

when i was sec 2, i had outdoor, so every saturday i couldn't find the time to go to my grandmother's house. after outdoor was preparation of concert, so more weeks down for band, so i still cannot visit. when band step down for breaks for exams or stuff, they're not at home, they're usually on holidays, so i never saw them. even till december, after concert, they went for holiday so i (in short) didn't see my grandfather and grandmother for 6++, maybe 7 whole months, because i just asked to be dismissed one saturday afternoon to visit my grandparents.

when i was sec 3, my mind was filled with sorrow. ppl who know about it should know why. maybe if you read it closely you should know why.

now, as i'm secondary 4, and band is officially over for me, i have all the time on saturdays, but i just cannot see him again. it's heart-wrenching.

it used to be all right last time, when i was in primary school. everything was still okay then. i spent time with my extended family on my father's side EVERY saturday, so i would be able to see my cousins, aunts, uncles and everybody else.
however, now, it's different. everything has changed. the big leather chair and stool is still there, but now nobody's resting on it. one of the rooms there may have a queen-sized bed, but only one person rests on it. there would be one cup in the kitchen that nobody was allowed to use, and it still cannot be used. it will never be used.
just like how my grandfather cannot come back.

insight into the hospital, a few days before he passed (as narrated by my mum):
he would always complain of fatigue, and kept saying that he was a burden to us all. every time my grandmother entered the ward, he'd ask her to leave. however, every time he woke up from his naps, his eyes would scan the room for her, and once he saw her, he would continue staring. then he'd ask her to leave. it probably would have made her hate him, so his passing would not have been so painful to her.
only when everybody left the ward on the saturday morning 1am plusplus because he said he'd be alright, did he leave us.

when my brother reveive the call from my aunt when my parents were still sleeping, did he know. he was the first in my family to receive the news.
i only got it at 9 am in the morning, and still could not believe it.
only when i got to the funeral at around 10 with my family did i know it. i had that fearful feeling, that sense of apprehension, but i had to go in.
it was only at that time when i saw the altar, did i start to take the news in full force.

i've been trying to live on, to get on with life, to move on to greater heights, but this hateful thought cannot leave my mind.
i never should have entered band.
i never should have entered tkss by appeal through band.
i never should have slacked during the PSLE period, and gotten such a score (230)
i never should have lived.

i can never forgive myself for what i've done, why i'm just so lazy, why i'm such a coward, why i still deserve to live, why i couldn't have forseen the fact that some things will take more out of your life than others. just like life in 2007, the time when i lost almost everything, my sanity, my results, everything good in me was lost to the world. i lived my sec 3 life with a mask over me, just to hide my pain, to take my mind off things. for one, i do not forget easily. i still am thinking about him, more than before, and it's painful. i feel blank. i feel lost, and i feel that i'm losing my touch with the world around me.

it'd be better to just end it here and now, but i feel that things in life are more pleasant than others. i'd not be so selfish as to end my life, and let others lose more. they've lost enough. i have friends, and a family.

i just hope somebody'd salvage me from this seemingly irreversible situation.

bye for now.

~BenjaminTAN

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

4:24 AM

wow. maybe i've measured it wrongly. now it's 4cm. for some reason or another.

anyway, prelims (english) starts tomorrow! finally. i'm just feeling a bit scared for my section 2 and compre. just don't get one like the VS prelim paper, and i'd be fine.

current results put me at about 20 points now, with 5 for english, 2 for both chem and physics, 1 for both maths, and a 9 for CH. still sucky=.= but hopefully i can sustain the grade for my prelims. and do better for o levels.

shall stop here. bye

~BenjaminTAN

Saturday, August 23, 2008

11:19 PM

damned mimosa thorn. scratched(you could say SLICED) my right heel when i was playing soccer in a field. shall elaborate later.

went for social studies lesson yesterday, supposedly from 8 to 10, but mdm rosy had to leave for something urgent to be settled in school at about 9.30. left us to play basketball for 30 minutes. and then. she returned back to class at exactly 10 am. damn accurate, i'd say. to send us off? i think not. she was wanting to finish another SBQ question about reliability. Surprisingly, i (kinda) understood what was being taught. oh, well. it's SS, remember?

reached home at about 11.30, then slacked. as we went to my grandmother's house, it rained. it's actually quite surprising too. it usually NEVER rains when i go to my grandmother's house. notice i use the word USUALLY. it's because of this exception, that i used the word. so i really slept through the 30-minute ride to telok blangah (not banglah. my cousins, my bro and i were using the word accidentally while deciding on something).
So, i was pretty tired when we reached her house. might as well. the television that was connected to the Xbox was spoilt. cathode-ray tube must've gone haywire. oh, well. we're using the television for 4 hours a week. as in every saturday we'd use the television for playing xbox. 4 hours straight. it's no wonder it spoiled. watched the Olympics for some cycling thing. that Julien Absalon from France ruled. had the whole track to himself. he had a 48-second lead on the chase group, and maintained it for quite a long time. did i tell you one lap was approximately 18 minutes for Absalon? another fun fact: his number tag was 1. very fitting for a champion. the second was another French. altho his was 11. and the chase group was (i think) about 2 minutes away from the champion when he completed the 8-lap race.

i actually went to sleep for a while. it's another surprising thing. i usually NEVER sleep in the afternoon. only when i'm ill. and i can tell you i'm not ill, sick, or whatever. i had only an allergy for dust, and it never acted up since last month. I'll blame the weather. and the lesson that morning.

so (i think) 15 minutes into my sleep, Jia and Yang started making noise. so i had to wake up. and i was fresh, so it meant 'bye-bye' to my sleep. in the end, we decided to play soccer downstairs, altho the location wasn't decided yet. the 6 of us (jia, yang, me, my bro, lewis and matthew) went down. we were deciding where to play. and the blangah rise primary school field was locked, damn. so we went to some field with a proper fence to play soccer. to think i actually wore slippers, three-quarter jeans, and a shirt that was obviously not meant to be worn while perspiring downstairs. with my handphone, wallet, watch, and earpieces for my handphone while listening to music. blame me for thinking that there would be a bench for us to put all our stuff.

so we went onto the field. i had to take off my slippers, take off my shirt, and pull my pants really high to avoid the mud and all. i guess i really failed at those measures. as matthew kicked the ball high up, i tried to receive it. it landed in a huge puddle of mud. my pants were dirty. as i tried to get the ball into the goalpost from a corner kick taken by lewis, it hit my chest. as i tried to run for the ball, i got scratched by the damn mimosa thorns. Damn them! it stung for a while. although the thorn didn't stay there, the wound sure hurt as hell. as i measure it now, it's like, 5 cm long. down my right heel, while about 2 cm of it's actually an open wound. and there's sone black thing in the open wound. i wonder what it is. it's like ink. it wouldn't come off when i try to scratch it out. but enough of that.

it rained really heavily after that (it actually was showering/sprinkling when we got there. now it really was pouring. so we decided to go back to my grandmother's house. when we got back, we bathed, ate and talked. somehow, our topic got to the olympics. and we were actually debating whether Usain Bolt could've gotten the gold medal for the 400m men if he participated. then it got to schoolwork applications to work life. then my aunt was like "i know vectors quite well, as i know it's the ideal angle to the ground to throw a javelin. i also know my permutations very well, so i can apply it to 4D" then she went "calculus such as differentiation and integration is useless to me. it's more for those who do enginnering than for doctors"

well, it's all i remembered during there. did i mention my wallet was soaked, my earpieces were waterlogged, and my handphone was wet? well, they're relatively dry when i left the place. my da gu was telling us that our 'lam pah kiu zui' or something like that. it meant that our balls would shrink/waterlogged. damn funny sia.

i'm guessing it'd be a huge post by now, so i'd just stop here.

~BenjaminTAN

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

4:37 AM

finally, i haven't ranted at the whole world for a long time yet. come to think of it, maybe not at all. Thus. i shall make this my first one.

this section of the post is actually dedicated to this one person who hmm... left a tag on my tagboard. the name is anon(ymous). you all should go and read it. in that good six words, he tried to insult me, tried to anger me, tried to force whatever that's on the other side of ME come out. and i shall. part of it. With a full stomach, feeling contented, slouching in the chair that sits me before this computer, i shall see how i react with that tag. like others say, one good turn deserves another.

Before eating my dinner, i can't say i wasn't insulted. anyway, since when didn't vulgar words insult? okay, i shall put this across quite straight.

first things first, people who tag, please use a name. ESPECIALLY those who flame and stuff. For the simple reason that i want to know who in this world doesn't like me, so i can return the action. (care of newton's third law) However, those who don't use their REAL NAMES that their parents gave them to flame on my tagboard, there's just this one simple, commonly-used word to describe them.

Cowards.

For the fact that you don't want me to know who you are. you are scared, you are afraid, of what's going to happen to you if i know your identity. I may just meet you someday, confront you and let loose all wrath of my voicebox and respiratory system upon your puny faces, amylase included. Hide your puny faces for all you want, cowards, but i'm telling you in your faces, even as it's deep into the dirt, to run. because if i just try building sandcastles at the beach, and try to dig a mound of sand and find you there, i'll recognise you. and you wouldn't want to know what's going to happen. i wouldn't want to know what's going to happen. maybe some kind of respect for you may form, maybe we could be friends. but i tell you, it's not going to happen that easily. Especially if i'm the one who gets flamed by a nameless coward.

now, directed at this anon guy, i've got a few words to share with you.
first, i can deduce that you may not have been brought up by your biological parents. you don't have the proper parent love that my dad and mum showers me all the time. From this: in those 6 words you used 2 offending statements, both of which contains vulgar language. the f-word may have been censored off, but i sure know what lies beneath the mask of the 4 asterisks. Sure, i may have influenced by my vulgar father, but my mother keeps it in check. So in my previous 70 posts i've only ranted with vulgar language once. which makes my probability of using vulgar language one out of seventy, maybe twice out of seventy-one(you just wait and see). at least it's better than you, who uses it once in the one tag that you put in. at least i have a complete family. unlike some nameless coward who puts sexual taunts in some tagboard that i have.

by the way, touching on sexual taunts, i'm a male, and a darn straight one at that. don't come looking for me. look for others. you've come to the wrong blog, wrong tagboard, wrong country, wrong world. even if Singapore allows gay marriages (i wouldn't think so, Singapore's a progressing country), and if i'm gay (not that probable, because i don't blow guys on principle), i'd marry a person with a proper name and initials who has a complete family. i'm that sort of person. But it's going to be delta x near zero, simply because, like i said, i'm straight.

Think i'm long-winded? Want to leave? Either way, just listen to me, it's going to end pretty soon.

go to hell, whoever the hell you are. the society doesn't need people like you. the society doesn't need you.

so i still stay at 1 vulgar post in 71.

now. on a separate note, hmm.
i just recalled, and realised, like, my last band practice was the 26/07. the parent's showcase. I really can't believe the secondary 4's of the 2008 batch would step down so quietly.
it's really unbelievable. we don't deserve it. maybe not me, but the Sec 4's who sacrificed a fraction of their studies to go for the KL WMBC put in a hell lot of work. and pain. they sacrificed a hell load of things, they gave so much for the band, and in the end they get nothing but just a Silver, world standard, and "that's it! go back and study hard. all the best for your prelims!" WTF. i'm actually contemplating NOT to go back to help the band. it's a mess. it's so bloody disorganised.

ending on a disappointed note,
~BenjaminTAN

Saturday, August 16, 2008

4:51 AM

Michael Phelps is the legend.

anyone who just turned on the television at around 10.10 am and switched to the olympics swimming channel would see the 100m butterfly men round. and if you watched the first fifty metres, you'd see that michael phelps couldn't win the gold for the round.

i thought that way too, because he wasn't even in the top 3 during the point in time when he turned back and swam.

Cavic, it seemed, would win the butterfly 100m.

until, when the last few strokes, my dad was like "look, he's catching up!" and then the gold was given to phelps. Cavic had lost to him by a hundredth of a second. Sucks when you could have won with another stroke. Cavic would have won if he didn't drift to the finish. Cavic would have won if phelps didn't make that last finishing stroke which propelled him to the line first, ahead of cavic. Still, he really is the legend. In such an intense 50 metres, he fought to the finish, and actually won the damn race. that's what i call an olympic champion. Good luck for that eighth gold medal, phelps! i'd be cheering for him.

So today wasn't just about the astonishing finish by michael phelps. i went to my grandmother's house in the afternoon. didn't go band, because i really didn't see the point of it. shouldn't we be stepping down soon? but no matter. i didn't really have a great time there anyways. Made me feel like going for band. it just sucked BIG TIME. my brother didn't go ("i'd rather stay at home"), my jie didn't go ("..." i think she needed to study.) so i went with my father. it contributed to the reasons why i didn't really enjoy my time there. not because of my dad, but because i was like, alone.

Although the time there was not-so-enjoyable, the ride there was superb. my dad just bought a new car, a Mazda MX5, and could only hold 2 people in there. my dad drove us there with that car, and i have to say, it really was an experience. the car is so low, it actually feels like your feet are nearing the ground. the speed seems faster too, maybe because you're nearer to the ground.

and when we went back home, he retracted the roof of the car, and made the windows go down. it really was shiok. the wind's slapping you on your face, and what ever. your hair would get messed up if you didn't gel it/tie it. my hair was short, so it didn't really get messed up =)

pictures, plus a few others i took this month.

my dad's car, at the multi-storey carpark near my grandmother's house.

another picture, similar to the one taked above, just that my father shifted it a bit more inside.

now, for random pictures:

the front of my house. for those who're wondering, it's actually the one which has a window open. Two windows open, to be exact. it's similar to kangwei's house too. Very similar.

i was bored. so i decided to take a picture of the bus-stop outside of my window. that is the side which i take a bus to school. in most cases, 2 buses.

that's some national flag. taken when i was on bus 2, at belinda/vinnie's house. they should know about it. altho i dunno if it's still there.

and for the final one, a stupid piano piece.

i took it for fun. shows how bored i am at home. i can even walk about the sidewalk of my house, wasting time. try playing the piece, it's actually the only piano piece i find really stupid yet i like playing it. maybe to irritate people, maybe to mask my actual grade.

oh, well. maybe i should stop here.

~BenjaminTAN

Thursday, August 14, 2008

6:29 AM

NH3
C3H7COOH

spot the similarity?
if not, it's alright.
it's really an experience, to spill aqueous ammonia (the former) onto your hand, let it smell for a while, before it goes off in 5 minutes.

it's really another experience to try to get butanoic acid (the latter) into a test-tube, accidentally spill some on your hand (one drop, for me) and smell for one whole day. in this case, butanoic acid reeks of vomit. i accidentally got it on my thumb, my RIGHT THUMB. chemistry was the second period of the day. the smell hasn't even gone after more than 12 hours, god dammit. my jie's now complaining about the smell.

Something to add to my hate list too, i hope.

studying organic chem is one thing. Hands-on practical is another thing. Screwing-up the transferring of liquids is also another thing. When the liquid's butanoic acid,

good luck.
you'll be avoided for the day just like Rahul.

~BenjaminTan

Monday, August 11, 2008

5:53 AM

i'm... bored. thank god there's school tomorrow.

my family needs to get a life. esp. jie and mum. damn suggestive, if you ask me.

~BenjaminTAN

Sunday, August 10, 2008

6:24 AM

hais, i'm still rotting
someone PLEASE rescue me from the madness.

went to parkway just now.
ate dinner. wah, jim ba. sushi FTW! got me really full. fish, rice, wasabi, and light sauce. the PERFECT combination for someone who needs a full stomach.
plus drinks, of course. my dad was like super hungry, and ate a lot. even my brother commented that he ate a lot

and my cousin just said. "you're so stupid, when you tried to throw a stone on the ground, you missed"

...

never mind. shall end here.

~BenjaminTAN

12:53 AM

i'm rotting at homeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
if only I can go out tomorrowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

byebye.
dun disturb me while decomposing is in progress.

~BenjaminTAN

Saturday, August 9, 2008

5:50 AM

HAPPY birthday Singapore!
and to those who celebrated it today, happy national day!
and yay to no school next monday.

so today was kinda interesting in the sense that...
hmm.
beijing olympics, national day. kinda coincidental huh?

and the opening of the Beijing olympics was super cool. the chinese history was displayed in just one performance, too bad i went up to my room when the chinese opera started in that stadium. i found it boring.
but who cares, it was really nice, if i could watch it again, i would. it's spectacular.

so today was like, woke up late, later than my bro who actually went for barbecue with his primary school friends, came back really late, and was complaining of fatigue in the afternoon.
i woke up at noon (somewhere around that time) and someone's jealous because i could catch so much sleep. lol

went to my grandmother's house in the afternoon, played xbox there, talked and talked. sent songs here and there to my cousins.
had a fun time there, till we had to go home around 7.15.
got back home, watched the ndp '08 till it ended, then i walked up to the third floor, to my corner of heaven, and became the blogger behind this post.

played Gears of War yesterday afternoon, and i'm enjoying it in a long while. it was, come to think of it, it was actually a month of me not sitting down and playing it. and i'm serious. i didn't know how i lost interest in halo 3, and started playing other xbox games. my interest now is with gears of war, but i'm not having an addiction over the game. seriously speaking, i'm not exactly interested in gaming right now, due to my tight schedule of work, tuition and sleep. it was boring when i had the whole afternoon to myself yesterday, with no one at home.

so, ya.
maybe i should end here.

~BenjaminTAN

Thursday, August 7, 2008

5:47 AM

rained really heavily today, at tampines. roads were flooded to the kerbs, and temperature outside went down to as low as 23 degrees (Celsius)

really cold, and VERY wet, but hey, we don't see flash floods (much) in Singapore, neither do we have the luxury of cool weather, so today (afternoon-evening) was much of an experience for those who live in the eastern side of Singapore.

damn, a-maths mock paper was easy. i hope i don't screw it like my MYEs, bcos now my calculator isn't spoilt. if i screw it, i'm pretty much screwed myself. because it's the specimen paper for this year's O' level exam.

haven't got much plans for tomorrow, how i'm going to spend it. just heard from elise we have to report to school at 6.30. in full band uniform. DAMMIT, that means i need to catch the 5.45 bus.

yeah, talking about band, they got a Silver for the KLWMBC. pretty good, seeing it's an international competition. at least we know where we stand.

right, running out of things to say, shall post tomorrow.
bye for now

~BenjaminTAN

Friday, August 1, 2008

12:37 AM

whatever i did, the choice between studies and band, was it worth it?
would it have been better to settle for my O's early, or later, after the competition in KL?

i made the studies choice, but i gave up so much of my life just to pursue a good grade. Was it really worth it?
i reached school at 6.30. saw the band get their stuff from upstairs to bring down to the assembly plaza, and at the same time some sad song called "Terms of Endearment" by Danny Wright started playing on my phone. it's a great piano song to hear. it relaxes the mood. However, all i felt like doing was crying. Recalling what happened earlier this year, how we lost to the Deyi Band, how the alumni chose to see the KLWMBC, as the Sec 4's last competition to show our best, for the rest, just some international exposure, for some juniors even, a chance to get a place in the block should some sec 4's refuse/be refused by their parents to join the band for that last competition, i could not stop the wave of emotions that surged through my heart.

the TK Band meant everything to me, yet i had to give it up while others see it go forth and fly towards and beyond the Excellence peak. school now meant nothing to me, not without at least 15% of the population gone overseas for 4 days. i now had no real friends in school, not when the band is gone. everytime i see those empty spaces in the classrooms, during my English lessons in the auditorium, i felt i really had no one to talk to. Gone, i'd say. My form, my shell of existence may be in the school, but where my spirit should be, is where the band is. Where music lies. Where the magic, the awe, and the wonder of the TK Band currently is, is where my heart and soul is. Even during my lunch with my mum at home, i just randomly started a conversation with "i wonder what the band is doing now." she looked at me, and answered it, what she think the band'd be doing currently, then asked me if i regretted not going for the competition.

I never regretted missing the competition. Looking at the band as a spectator as they worked their magic was good enough for me. but after remembering bong told me that i'd "miss it all" and when mdm nora said that she'd "love to bring me out of Singapore" i had a change of heart. maybe, i really would regret it.

As weirui hugged me before they left, i teared. it was april 12 all over again, when glenn put a consoling hand on my shoulders and rubbed my back. when i stood in front of the general office, mdm rosy joined me, and said "don't worry, i'm here with you". it really was heart-wrenching. every engine noise the buses made seem to be squeezing all the life out of me, until one bus left the school. as i waved at all of them, at every single one in the bus that i could not see, tears welled up in my eyes. until all of them left, i stood motionless, and a single drop of tear left my eyes for the ground. i stared at the empty space where the buses were, then at last, left for the assembly plaza.

All i ask of my section is to do what they were meant to do on the field, to contribute to the band's slickness, to add colour to the music that the band plays, and at last, to really enjoy the competition.

I have a good feeling about the KLWMBC, that we'll be one of the top, if not the first. we will show everybody from across the globe to know how we pride ourselves as TK Band members, the best band in the land.

For now, as i'm sitting at the computer,

Godspeed, TK Band.
Anoneh Pakuke.

~BenjaminTAN