rok rok rok mat rok

tzerruph (zirh-roof) will groove man. we will have a good time as an og and theresa and myself, we'll be the coolest ogls around. hah. aiiiiiggghhhtt. izzat turns seventeen today. we gave him a doggie tagg.sweet. today we wore our mat dogggiee tags for first time man, sure looking the part. Oteam takes up a lot of time, even for pumping, so much so that im feeling the drain at not being able to pump as normal. tmr will be hectic again, its our last working day in school. we (ther and me) gotta plan plan plan our og bonding time and she's gonna buy our k'lams and gifts before her thanksgiving dinner and service. and i will get the henna soon and get a blog running soon. ooohh we've got wonderful plans for our amazing race day. shhhhh not telling you! we can't wait to see who the people in our og look like! their names don't ring a bell. so in around 2 days or so, after Singapore hopefully defeats Myanmar, we will finally get to meet our peeps. wooohhoooohoooo. and Mat Table is chopped. First table that you meet when you enter the canteen from the main entrance of the canteen. Its already labelled so if you are not mat, you better scram.

3 points

Match: JJC 1-3 RJC (scorers: Fairuz, then an own goal, then Peiqian) Lineup: Mark, Adzfar, Kinyip, Weifan, Chun Yat, Soo Tet, Geoffrey, Zhihao, Chang Wen, Fairuz, Peiqian Goal no.1 (5 mins) A powerful Geoffrey shot that towards the bottom right hand corner could only be palmed towards me, so I was left with a simple header into an unguarded net. That was my first goal with my head. The celebration afterwards was nice, but Team! We must work on celebration! Goal no.2 (10 mins) We had won a corner i think. Our set-pieces leave much to be desired. But anyway, they failed to clear. Geoffrey picked up a loose ball on the edge of the box. He had 2 or 3 shots. The last one, that shot was pushed away by the keeper onto the leg of his last man, who inadvertently back-heeled into his own goal. Cheers Goal no.3 (70 mins) Geoffrey was on the charge through the middle, sensing that Peiqian was on the heels of their last man, he gave a simple through pass down the centre. Peiqian needed no further invitation. He blasted a solid grounder past the hapless keeper. That was the most beautiful goal today. Yeehah :)

metro cip

Metro CIP Oh well people have come to lament on how others don't wanna donate, or will tend to donate to people of the same race. I don't feel I have anything to add to that. I think what's more important is that I shed some light on 2 completely different points that I have encountered during my brief spell at woodlands metro today. Actually, to say that it was brief was a major understatement. 1. This was superbly enriching. A man in his thirties, maybe even forties, but I suppose the richness of the religion makes him look forever young. He started first by generously donating a healthy sum. Then i was stupid to tell him that he could participate in the lucky draw and get a booklet of vouchers and what not. I should have read the situation better. He clearly was not there to get into some lucky draw. He doesn't believe in luck at all. It must all be achieved thru work. Not just work i suppose, but hard work! He went on to start telling us what is Samawi, that is religion that comes truly from God. There are three: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The religions arrived on Earth in that order. The other forms of "religion" are actually not actually a religion, as studied by western scholars, not just islamic scholars. They are a form of Ideology (Buddhism, Taoism) and Mythology (Hinduism). Intellectual people of all races have even led their lives with the Ideology and Mythology. He went on to say that we are bestowed with knowledge, but that is the easy part. In this current chapter in our lives, we should strive to learn as much knowledge as possible. Understand the Quran! Thats what even my religious teacher says. Then after acquiring knowledge, what we must seek out to do with the intellectual that we have is to develop. That is the ultimate form of learning, he says. Develop, so that you become closer to God and you help mankind out. For the betterment of humanity. He says that only discovery will lead to the betterment of humanity, but invention and innovation (tweaking of systems by mankind), will not necessarily lead to the betterment of humanity, in fact it is almost something of a self-destructing mechanism. For Muslims, he had this to say just before he left. He was a bit impressed that we are all involved in community service. But he says when there is oppurtunity, you don't care who you help, whatever the race or religion, if you can help, then you should help. But when it comes to priority, of course, you should help out your Muslim brothers and sisters first. See the difference between Oppurtunity and Priority? And before that, the difference between Knowledge and Development? Priceless :) No amount of CIP hours would make up for this i tell you. The man salam us, that is he shook hands lik all Muslims do with us, and asked for our names (Iylia and mine). Then immediately he told us the meaning of our names. Mine is correct :) 2. The people who were supposed to come for the second shift turned up really late. Its like Iylia, Hafiz and me had to wait a whopping 2hours for one person to come. Our shift ended at 4pm, but because of this, we couldn't be released because of the agreement with RJ and so had to wait til the next person turned up. Thanks alot and merry xmas you hos.

tzerruph

plenty of work to do. What with 2005 coming so close! Oteam and Oprep are coming on fast and furious. Soccer, we had a lousy game this morning, maybe the one on thursday will be better. MLDCS, yeah! Medfac also! Oh oh oh, lets relax and not get so worked up! If not, what if i burn out and die? Die!! TZERRUPH wont die though!

guess who's back?

Finally, the soccer guys are back in town. Yeah! Heard loads about the trip from Adz my man. He lost weight man, coz of the lack of meat there. They must be really protective about their cows. But i wondered why they never bothered looking for chicken...? Oh well. Pumping session today was smooth, coz all the weights were lighter, not bad after 1.5 weeks lay off. Not cutting hair yet, although its gonna get bushy. Izzat thinned his like 3 times oredi in the past month. He will look bald soon. Good luck to him. RONALD YOUR BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW! Hahahahahahahaha

merhaba?

SwooshHeyheyhey~ Merhaba? Turkey's been fun...the food and the ladies especially. Hot and crispy (yes for both). :) Oh well, here's a list of things that i would just like to post on the world wide web. 1. Eggs+ColdWeather = Big Appetite + Hardly any urge to pass motion = Very smelly farts. Thats my brother :) for countless times thruout the journey in the van, thats what keeping us awake. The very smelly bomb. The turkish driver couldnt take it, the tour guide couldnt. Anyway, who can? Its so smelly, he hardly shits over there. Except for one time, after lunch, when we were visiting some site, and others were busy browsing at glassware. He was in desperate need of a toilet, but the best he could find was a watercloset without water. At least, there was toilet paper, but the stuff came out so fast, he couldnt really keep it in check, in the end he had to leave his underwear there. It was quite comical really, him coming out of the WC, looked at his hands, saw some brown stuff and said,"Oh-Oh!"... LoL 2. My tourist guide, his name is Murat Sen. A handsome tall gentleman who loves his job, which incidentally carries the very-peculiar-if-it-was-in-singapore-name of 'Professional Tourist Guide - In English'. Lol. I still loved the way he pronounced Mevlana (pronounced as Maulana, as in Ivan Maulana) and Mehmet and Ataturk. Hey feel free to contact him at muratsen@hotmail.com :) 3. I went to a freaking disco for the first time. haha and we watched belly dancing. shoots man, the belly dancer looked a bit like a trannie. Plus the dancing wasnt what i had previously envisaged, its a tad amateurish. Anyhow, we went to dance, Murat danced funny. But there were many French tourists who really took centrestage with no-holds-barred dancing. And i liked this couple who could dance with flawless footwork. Really nice, I must learn it someday, soon i hope. 4. Left hand drive is quite crazy. It makes u feel as though u are heading in the opposite direction as traffic. Turkish roads are messy, especially in Istanbul. There are too many streets. The highways are much easier to follow. 5. In one hotel, i stayed up to watch Fenerbahce beat Manchester United's second stringers 3-0. What a dumbjack. Shouldnt have done it. Ah. Tuncay Sanli's bloody clinical. Anyway, Turkey's big with football. Thats why they were third at the last World Cup. Theres coverage everday. Everynight theres a panel to highlight the matches in great details. The Galatasaray-Fenerbahce league match was so hyped up weeks before the match itself, in newspapers and tvs and radios. 6. In turkey i didnt bother shaving coz i hated the shaving razor that my mum packed for me. Its old. Ek. So i grew a stubble 7. Izzat i got you a birthday present and Ronald you too. But its nothing much, as usual :p 8. Bargaining becomes really fun, especially when you are not buying at all. You can cut the price into less than half. And in the end u end up paying less than the cost price. Wah tamam thats it aight. Photos coming up once the laundry is settled. :)

leaving on a jet plane ~!

Hail the Singapore Idol, Taufik Batisah. A Malay young man. Okiedoks, ManUtd beat Arsenal 1-0 in the League Cup Quarters. Wahaha, take that Monsieur Arsene Wenger. Pumping feels great, hope to get another session tmr. OH! Please note that I'll be away on holiday at Istanbul from Fri 3 Dec nite to 13 Dec. Okay, so email me, or sms me. I think i would try to contact cust service to get the pay-as-you-roam service. Woh... Yeah :) Wah, today i'll get to know my fellow K'Czar. Who Who Who? I dunno yet.

THERe!

Zooommm...Went to school in the morning for OGL Pairing. Oteam stuff there. Put down 12 choices. Haha it was quite funny, they separated the guys and the girls into separate LTs where they put down all the names on the board. So it was weird trying to match names for faces. I hardly know anyone in Oteam, so I just put down names that I could match their faces with. Haha, but I really do hope i get my first choice. *please please please* :) shan't tell you who. Ahhhhh, then I think there's gonna be some stuff going on this Thursday afternoon, should be storyline stuff, which should be fun to watch, then followed by dinner and results of the pairing! Haha, so exciting isn't it. Then i just zipped home with Kevin who was really quite distraught at how 'unconfirmed' his choices were, its like he was 'ditched' at the last second, then tried to act alright by saying things lik 'its ok, thats life, life is full of surprises...' woah, sure hope he doesn't end up getting people that he doesn't know. Oh well, finally it occured to me that I need to run. If not, I won't be able to last a match. But I was too lazy to do it immediately in the afternoon, so i slept first, woke up to eat a real heavy lunch. Then about an hour later, which i dun think is enough time for food to be digested, I ran at the nature reserve. Bumped into yeemeng at the busstop. Haha, had I still been in rugby, i would be doing what yeemeng was doing, that is, hopping on a bus to school for training. Waaaahhhh. So i ran a bit and did steps-running. It rained a bit but it was still good, not too hot to run. But the place is probably infested with mosquitoes, coz it got reallly itchy the moment i went there. Maybe next time i should cover more legs. Hahahahaha... Doood. Anyway, tis getting late, better wake up early for pumping and swimming tmr with my mat bros, Izzat and Jau. VEE!

sunday power

Sunday was power power power. First up, early in the morning, was the last exam for my religious class(which is called madrasah). It was the Arabic paper. A foreign language that I speak in my prayers everyday but not necessarily understanding word-for-word. BUt anyhooos, after one whole week of holidays which was meant for revision, I left it till the final hour, the train ride to class. That's when I first took out my Arabic books to read up. And guess what? I only read the exact pages that were relevant and necessary. So Arab exam went smooth, im more confident in that subject now. Ahah...:) Then I met up with Izzat and Jau to go to Cikgu Saripah's house! That was funny. We wanted to get sth for her, our first time going to her house. We decided to drop off at Coro along the bus route to Dairy Farm. Then we bought her chocolates. But we didn't have ribbons. So we just ripped it off something nice that we saw and voila, our chocolates now have ribbons. !!! Shhhhhh :p Dairy Farm is very near to my house, like 10mins away. Her house was nice, cosy and quiet, except when her son Imam starts scaring us with his Mask! woohoo, and his collection of toys. Great food, a tad spicy but wholesome meat always makes me wanna. Yeah! Then the sec4s came and it was quite nice. Cikgu told me quite a bit about her trip to Turkey, her experience there, speaking Turkish all that, her husband even talked on the phone in Turkish and wrote a letter in Turkish! Wooohooo. Then we left around 1. Cos i gotta go do my CIP, which all the other mats pangseh-ed me. So they were kind enough to take cab with me to Malay Village. But wait, u see, i mistook Malay Village for Malay Heritage Centre, which was the actual venue of the Mendaki CIP. I saw lots of people at Malay Village so I thought i was right, only to realise that it was actually a Malay Wedding. Shoot. Then i made a desperate call to Atiqah Fairuz (my namesake in RGs), and her brother drove to fetch me from there to take us to Malay Heritage Centre. It was still a heavy downpour la. But but but! That was not too bad. Coz i saw the real ultimate crips then. Really really really crips to me. She was fair skinned, really fair for a Malay lady, she looks a tad angmoh, mixed blood maybe, she has great hair, great smile and great bubbly personality! I think on that day at that time and given that kind of condition, she was perfect. She prances and prances and prances and makes cute noises which I like. Hahahaha, this does not sound correct. Pardon my limited English. BUt she is so hot i tell you. She was introduced to me as Fairuz by Atiqah Fairuz. That was weird. BUt it was okay, too bad she's in her twenties. Oh my oh my, i wanna get to see her again. Oh well, the CIP was wonderful. I was put in charge of lik the Shooting Game. Where we stack cans and then u must solve a maths quiz and must shoot down the correct answer using a water gun. That was fun. That was when i got wet the most, and so wet that my undies feel as though they are no longer there. Then i left at around 6ish, to go to Iylia's new house. Its relly nice man, very nice to have space. Haha, i wish i can have them too. Space! Aiwah, then prayed together, had really good food where we whacked the meat again. Then Isty and her family came! Finally saw ikhsan her twin. Wah he's bigg. Her dad is iylia's dad colleague. Woah. Havent seen all of his house, but im quite sure we are gonna hang out thhere soon enough. POool!! Here we come... Then we went to Abu Suffyan's house! At like 9plus pm. It was like filled with all the ex-RI ppl..So many of them, so many that i don recognize. Anyways, it was fun to catch up and see old people... Haha, i guesss thigns like this will never change. Then after a whole day of foood...I went home. Got a really good night sleep before waking up early to pump! Yeah man, pumping is my new hobby and noone's gonna change that. :)

it all started sane...at my house in the morning :)

in clockwise direction from top, Izzat, me, Alfian, Iylia and Jauhari. Hari Raya is so much fun :)

how retro! oh my, thats iylia my mat bro and me on our jalan raya this year. the photos will be up soon soon soon. :)

bowwow

who's bowwow? oh i'll tell ya. he freaking must put in his 2 cents worth every time somebody says something. he will come up with highly-amusing one-liners. i cant stand it. no need to show who's smart. kevin also doesn't like him. hope the person who ends up with him next year can punch him in the knickers in front of everyone. its like he will confirm hover around the important people, he must be among the important people, and the fact that he's tall doesn't help. it makes him even more visible. sorely visible i must say. then he will be the comic man, the clown, where all the jokes come from, oh wtv man. its damn irritating. whole day walk around as though he's super important. gay fagg. wear a gay necklace somemore. wtv la. then he feels even more important when he becomes like the leader, which super boosts all his rubbish oneliners, ego and his small balls. who the hell cares anyway. bowwow u are a dog. u deserve to be shot. in the balls.here's sth for ya ....

monkeys

i found this somewhere.... 260504: The only date you must remember.

the good ol' days back then in ri... the big guy in front is obviously too big to be a student, he's our coach Mr How...Of coz u know that. Dumbjack testimonial match where we thrashed the daylights out of teh juniors. Cheers

dead slow

Aper dah Jau, give us wrong directions to tpjc. End up taking cab instead, sucked up my money dry. Not just any money, but my hari raya money. Then when we reached tpjc, we saw this really funny sign, 'DEAD SLOW'. near the school foyer. Nvr ever saw tt before. Match: TPJC 1-1 RJC Scorers: Mat with the yellow band and silver Pulse boots (TP), Geoffrey (RJ) Starting Line up: Mark, WenJuin, Kinyip, Weifan, Joseph, Adzfar, Zhihao, Geoffrey, Sootet, Fairuz, Peiqian The match started evenly, with them making some dangerous forays into our half. Particularly threatening were their main playmaker, Khairul Amri, who was positioned on left midfield, but constantly drifted into the middle to craft out openings for their forwards, and the other player is th tall forward with the puma socks. He could hold the ball well and had the nifty footwork and pace to put our defence on the backpedal countless times. However, the chances soon came for both sides. TPJC burst through the middle after good passing in front of our box. They pushed the ball all the way to the touchline and crossed; the header was blocked by a despairing slide by Kinyip, but the rebound fell to the 'puma-socked' forwards, who chested the ball but volleyed his kick way over the bar. Another chance for them, saw the striker outsprinting Wenjuin our right back. He was one-on-one with Mark our keeper, but his sidefooted shot was centimetres away off target. The next chance for them came when that same striker made some fancy stepovers and crossed at the byeline. His curling cross was met by the head of the golden-boot striker, who headed high and wide, but narrowly wide. Then, we also had our chances. Numerous throughballs were met by Adzfar, our rightmid who keeps bursting forward. All 3 of those throughballs were wrongly judged offside. But we can see where we want the ball to be moving into space now. Then Zhihao our captain also had one chance to score. He was breaking away off a tpjc corner, he intended to throughpass to me, but i was offside. But the ball fell short, it ended up with him again, so he dribbled past the last man for a one-on-one only to sidefoot the ball wide wide off the upright. Another play saw SooTet taking on their rightback to send in a cross to the top of the penalty box. I cushioned a header through for PeiQian who went for the farpost with a grounder that was inches off the post. Play died down even more in second half, what with the countless subs and even hotter whether. ChangWen had 3 chances to score. One, our persistent harassing of the ball caused them to lose possession, then changwen beat 3 defenders, then oliver through pass for chang wen despite desperate pleas for offside. He tried to clip it over the keeper, but he's too big so he blocked the shot. Zhihao also had one chance, almost similar to the first one, but his attempted chip was again foiled by the big keeper. My only chance of the match was late in the half, when a Sootet outswinger from a corner found me umarked. My header was high and wide, but not too wide I think. The goals did come. The first match we ever took a lead. Somebody was felled, should be Chang Wen, just outside their penalty area. Geoffrey stepped up to take a left foot curler that sailed over the keeper and into the roof of the net. Nice! 1-0 to RJ! Then around 10 mins later, their centreback muscled Chunyat off the ball, and dribbled right in the middle before a nice slide-rule pass to their nippy forward who broke our offside trap. He took his time before placing the ball into the far corner, beyond Peiqian (ourstand-in keeper) 's reach. 1-1. That was how it ended. Today, again I was put into starting lineup. Not good for the team because of India trip, but gives me some reassurance. But no point having that when I don't deliver. So must make full use of this break to train hard myself. Give them a good impression of me again when they return. I also gotta return to my old-old-old position at right back because Adzfar pulled his calf muscle after a throw in. Haha, I really don't like tt position. Made a fool of myself trying to collect an aerial ball which i completely missed. Then moved into Attacking Mid. But really had not enough stamina to last that position, and didn't have a complete sense of my whereabouts playing there. Really love only one position: Striker! An out and out striker. Thing I did good today: 1. Set up teammates - The cushion header for peiqian. The constant being offside to distract my marker to allow teammates to run onto throug balls. But need to push deeper to collect more passes to lay-off or connect for one-twos Things that I need to improve: 1. Diagonal runs - to collect through balls, definitely the more direct route to scoring 2. Timing my run - to collect through balls 3. Harassing the defenders - even when chances are low that i will get the ball i wished they had passed more to me. urgh :(

goo

Selamat hari Raya. Minal Aidil WalFaizin, WalMakbulin. Eid Mubarak to all Muslims and non-Muslims who celebrate this superb festive season too! Things to make you saliva: Rendang, Ketupat, Lontong, Lodeh, Sambal Satay, Sambal tumis udang, Satay goreng, Ayam masak merah, Sambal tumis kerang,... Thank you GoodFood, now i'm falling sick. enough of soft drinks. final training before squad leaves for India today. final prep match this fri. Sat early morning they're all leaving for India. wah, imagine! The holy cows! The Taj! The Curry! They must have the time of their lives man over there! If only I had made up my mind much earleir...

qiam

this happened around 2 nights ago. my blog likes to lag nowadays. i wanna slow down time. so that we don't have to enter J2 so fast. don't have to face common tests, this test and that, A Levels, then NS! Wahkau NS! Die confirm die. How? Must do how many million pull ups ah? aiyoh wtv. we were so excited about going to qiam. but in the end, due to unforeseen circumstances, only 4 gay souls turned up for our 3rd consecutive qiam. The honour of being gay goes out to Izzat, Iylia, Adzfar and myself. Yay Gay! Took damn long to get out sorry tired bums there. When i finally came, there the 2 gays, Izzat and Iylia, waiting outside the mosque. Joined them there, waited for another hour before Adz came along. Then we gayed for another hour before deciding that we are all hungry boys who should go out to find something to eat. What on earth is open in town at eleven plus plus that is also Halal? SilverTortoise? I bet! Haha no we didn't go there, we walked to 7-11 at Lucky Plaza to buy one tub of ice cream, and some microwave food. Cheap, reasonably priced...and as usual, we went dutch. Sat outside Alfalah to gorge them down. We realised that even the four of us could not really finish that Walls ice cream, so we waited and waited and slowed it down. And all the while, we talked about stuff... Haha, really funny. Like how Jau's face will look like after (.......) and how (........) and this (......) hehehe the reason i have them in dots and brackets is because i can't remember. ..l.. we then decided that at 1plus am, its late enough. so we tried to catch some sleep. It was bad. I kept hearing that dumbjack door slamming sound, so i didnt sleep til 4am. Then we had early morning prayers (Tahajud), followed by nasi lemak for sahur. Wha the fried chicken wing was shiok stuff. Before subuh, we met some nice ppl from SAFF, the youth wing of PERDAUS. Nice chaps really, they just wanted to hear what we have to say. We listened to the stuff that they do too, like with the Muslim Society with Nanyang Poly is it? One of them is from Temasek Poly. Others have finished NS. Wah, so varied. Some are serving their final yr with their work attachment. Then after Subuh, adz entertained us with all his soccer stories, while izzat and iylia were gettting bored to death. We all continued sleeping soundly til 11am. Woohoo. The only minus point - its a bloody weekday, so there is no midnight movie! wtv. next time, next year. we'll raid the cineplexes!

superrjc

Match: SRJC 1-1 RJC Scorers: Golden Boot (SRJC), Soo Tet (RJC) Lineup: Kaixiang (Mark), WenJuin(Joseph), Kin Yip, WeiFan, Joseph (Ben), Adzfar (Oliver), Zhihao, Geoffrey (Peiqian), Soo Tet, Fairuz (Chang Wen), Peiqian (Chun Yat, Randy) Nvm, the lineup looks confusing, it does not matter. What happened was I hated the trip to serangoon. Its so far away, from where i live, and naturally I get more lethargic, what with no food no water. Then aiyoh, Jiho did the warm up drill, whole length! Mad! I really cannot take it. Next time, i will not follow the warm up drill, i shall do my own routine, gives me more confidence. Aiyoh, shall see about that. Then, Mr Low made it even more shocking. Why did he put me in starting eleven??? I really really thought that he said he would only slowly put it and I must prove my worth first. Wah I really thought that, and that irritating red shin pads, got me off to a poor start yesterday. Pancit. That's the word. Our passing improved. Through ball was our target towards finding goals. So, we kept trying and trying but really after 5 or 6 tries, it gets damn tiring to chase after balls that are threaded too strongly. So really, i could not take it. That was why i got subbed at half time. SRJC drew first blood. Their midfield interplay was halted just outside our penalty area, which was deemed as an offence by the ref (who scolded me twice for not tucking in my shirt). It doesn't matter. Golden Boot Mat stepped up for a left foot bender. He curled it over the wall, over Peiqian's face, and into the bottom left corner. Good goal la. It took that goal for us to start dominating the first half. We forced throw ins and throw ins (and more foul throws from our side). Then we got a corner. Soo Tet bended it in directly from the corner flag. Sui Sui la. His second 'Roberto Baggio'. Power. 1-1. We got off to better passing. BUt too difficult to break their last man, playing sweeper and their left back is solid on the ball. Their attack cuts left and right but Weifan and Kinyip were commanding. But this match...wtv. Things I need to improve: 1. Getting off the mark. To position myself away from defenders. Change angles in runs. Diagonal runs towards through passes. 2. Left foot shot. Train accuracy by taking more shots with left foot.

Hey everyone, read this. Don't think that anyone can put it in better than the gifted young man, Alfian Saat. The Racist's Apology - Alfian Saat I walked out of the house this morning and feared I had become a racist. I passed by a newsstand and a magazine tells me about 50% of the world's most beautiful people are from the West, 10% from Singapore, 45% from Hong Kong and Taiwan and 5% from India and Malaysia. A JC Decaux billboard says that a lot of people read their ads and they have faces to prove it: Chinese people of various ages and occupations and genders. There are some which show non-Chinese people but they don't have the dignity of individual names, and they are put under the heading 'The Changing Face of Singapore'. This can mean that perhaps the media is using more non-Chinese people in their ads (which I don't see) or that Singapore's demographic makeup is being altered by the arrival of other races (which I am not aware of, historically). I take a bus and TV Mobile is screening a Taiwanese variety programme. A Singaporean beauty contestant wears a cheongsam as her national costume and asks for an interpreter to translate her replies from Mandarin. The Speak Mandarin campaign informs me of what assets are missing from my life. Tanya Chua's music video comes on and I unconsciously tally the number of Malay people that appear; I have been doing this for some time now, when I was in JC there was a 'My Singapore' music video which showed images of corporate-looking Chinese women walking through the CBD and Malay women in factory uniforms walking through a bus interchange. Tanya Chua's 'Where I Belong' shows three instances of Malay people populating the landcsape: a husband and wife riding a scooter; a father and son on a bicycle, the son carrying a box one presumes is filled with curry puffs or goreng pisang, and a group of Malay youths playing soccer in a housing estate ghetto so run down, it looks like an opposition ward being denied of upgrading, or one of those satellite towns built when Jurong swamps were still being filled. But perhaps this is an improvement over other images: the satay man, the songbird owner, the mee rebus Makcik, the Malay bride and groom getting married in gold-embroidered finery (and situated on a dais, we Malays like to call them 'royalty for a day', playing the illusion of being king and queen in a country where the royal bloodline has been evicted from their home and told that the ruins of their palace will be converted into a museum). I think about what Sang Nila Utama really did when he threw his crown into the sea to calm the raging storm; whether the gales spoke to his inner ear: 'if you want to live on the island you must surrender all memory of having once been a prince'. At the Sentosa Merlion there are signs that say that Sang Nila himself saw the Merlion rising from the waters, a fact that the Sejarah Melayu, the Malay Annals, failed to mention. Evidently there is someone called 'Sang Nila' somewhere in the executive committee of the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. At the foot of the Raffles statue in Boat Quay there is an inscription that says the man's genius transformed a 'sleepy fishing village' into the modern metropolis it is today, this at the foot of a man who recorded in his journals how he saw the tombs of the Malay kings, and inscriptions on a fortress wall, when he first landed: evidence of an empire, of civilisation. In an interview a doyenne of Singapore theatre laments that all Singaporeans are 'cultural orphans', including the Malays, because they migrated from Malaysia and Indonesia, and that makes them immigrants too, no matter that one can take a sampan from Johor to Singapore. I walk through a park in Tampines and see Chinese boys playing basketball at the court and Malay boys playing soccer on the field; I am comforted that my complete uselessness at ball games has prevented me from taking either side, has by default made me a conscientious objector to such disturbing polarities. In the army a sergeant major never called be by my name; I was called 'Melayu', which I suppose was better than 'Ah-Neh', used to address the Indians in the platoon. I remember a fellow Malay platoon mate who told me to give it my all when I was fasting, this was to prevent anyone from saying that we could use religion as an excuse for our weakness. He was eventually posted to the infantry (not logistics or engineers, much less the Navy or Airforce) and I used to imagine him burning up his pre-fasting morning meal to be the first to charge up the hill, yelling the pain of hunger and the pain of being different. The Malay staff sergeant in Officer Cadet School gave me a lot of **** just to overcompensate, to show everyone that he was not into any form of racial favouritism. I became a victim of the sidelong glances he made as he watched me doing my pushups, those eyes constantly seeking approval from the eyes of the majority. I see a schoolgirl from a madrasah wearing a tudung on the MRT and she is filling in the pictures in her colouring book. There are many choices among her colour pencils which she can use for skin, but she will use orange, and colour lightly, not brown or black. I have seen her schoolmates before, eyeing branded scoolbags at pasar malams, wearing branded sports shoes, like every other kid. I want to go up to her and hug her, and tell her how her tudung is not just a symbol of modesty, but a symbol of inscrutability. That layer of cloth makes her suspicious to others, it can be used to smuggle in a grenade or an agenda, so she will never get a frontline desk job, she will be expected to hang around with other tudung-wearing women in the university. I think about the fathers who sent their daughters to schools in tudung and reflect on how the media has framed them as ****-stirrers rather than citizens who practised their right to civil disobedience, the same way Gandhi fasted, or Rosa Parks refused to sit at her negroes-only seat on the segregated bus. If I can tell the girl one thing, it is 'integration is not assimilation', or 'tolerance is a failure in understanding' even though it is something she will take time to understand. I think also of the men who filmed different locations in Singapore with the heinous intent of planting bombs. Did they not consider the various innocent Singaporean lives that could have been claimed by what they were about to do? And I wonder if they had already chosen another country to live in; a country in which they do not have to face a creeping sense of alienation, of redundancy. And I am not talking about an Islamic country, not Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, but an afterlife paradise, where everyone is equal in the eyes of God, where wearing a sarong or having a beard does not immediately make you a proto-terrorist. Or perhaps a country that exists in their minds, nurtured by a growing sense of insularity and isolation, where they walk the streets and everyone else is just a ghost, in whose dead eyes they cannot find any light of empathy or understanding. Once someone told me: 'But the government is bending over backwards to accommodate you Malays.' I smiled and wanted to ask him if it wasn't the other way round, that the Malays are made to bend forward to be ****ed senseless. Another time a journalist asked if the statistical evidence of 'progress' shows that Malays are being given the same opportunities as everyone else. I told her that statistics don't do **** for me, as someone who has to live day by day as a Malay person in this country. I told her one Malay Air Force pilot poster boy, and a few bar charts and graphs, don't make me feel more at home. The only thing they do is to convince non-Malays that the country they live in is truly multiracial, that there are no tensions beneath the veneer of newsprint and newscasts and the rosy speeches of Malay MP's. I have always believed in multi-racialism. I can say with utmost confidence that I have more friends who are non-Malay than those who are. And I mean real friends, who I confide in, who I've shared many things with, who I do love dearly. And yet, of late, I have the feeling that a lot of the things I'm saying, a lot of this talk about alienation and marginalisation, only feeds subconsciously into their sense of how fortunate they are to be born into the status quo. I have written a poem before where I say, 'But more than that we prayed for ourselves,/treading the rosary of our blessings,/for what is pity without thanks for/the opportunity for such pity?' And sometimes I feel as if the more my voice is raised on the fast-eclipsing fate of the minority, the more it feeds into the majority's smugness and arrogance about their assured place in the sun. And this only makes me feel more powerless than if I had kept silent. So I say now, forgive me if you think my desire to work with my own people marks me out as a racist. Forgive me if you think that my preferences are actually prejudices. Forgive me for retreating into something one can so easily call 'cultural chauvinism'. And I will forgive you for thinking that this person writing this isn't the Alfian that you know, that he has always been moderate and liberal, and I will forgive you if you look at me differently the next time I meet you. For some time already I have felt that as a Malay writer writing in English I have had to carry the burden of articulating so many unvoiced concerns. And the responsibilities associated with this are frightening. I just think it is time I pass on whatever skills I have to other Malay people, so we may tell our stories to those who want to hear them, even though they are stories of loss and loneliness and accidents of birth. Alfian. : )

songforhariraya

Sepasang kurung biru Tiada bisikan lembut yang dengar, Hanya suara azan sayup bergema. Masih kurasakan hangat tanganmu, Di pagi raya bersalam dengan ku...

slowwllyy lar...

Match: NJC 1-1 RJC Scorers: Aziz (NJC), Fairuz (RJC) Venue: NJC Line-up: 1) Kaixiang, Adzfar, Weifan, Kinyip, Joseph, Soo Tet, Zhihao, Chun Yat (Oliver), Geoffrey, Chang Wen, Peiqian 2) Mark, Wenjuin, Weifan, Kinyip, Joseph, Oliver, Zhihao, Peiqian, Geoffrey (Soo Tet), Chun Yat, Randy (Fairuz) The weather was very scary. Sometimes it was drizzling, so we went out to warm up. Then suddenly, there was lightning so we had to scamper back to shelter. Then when we went out to warm up again, again a lightning struck. Finally, the rain subsided and the match could go on. First half. NJ had more of the ball possession, their defence could cut out our passes quite efficiently and would often spread the play out wide. But they didn't trouble us with aerial balls which they should have, given that both their strikers are head and shoulders talller than all of our defenders. It was very scrappy. We didn't really play to a passing rhythm, which was our target objective of the day. Our play was too cramped in the middle, with our widemen preferring to come inside rather than stretching play out wide. This was probably due to a lack of movement off the ball, which could have seen more dynamic passing play. We also seem to break down too easily in the middle of the park, because we hesitate on the ball, fail to look up to consider our options. We probably should call for the ball more often. We didn't even practise that drill to get the ball out of defence, preferring to pump instead. A lot of foul throws too. Not good. And for some rough challenges, Zhihao and Adzfar were booked. But the tackles were fair. Its alright. Some good passages of play though. A throw in down the right by Adzfar saw good swapping movement between Chang Wen and Geoffrey that left the NJ defenders dumbstruck as to who was getting the ball. We won a corner off that play. Also, Joseph battled hard to win the ball on the half-line, then threaded a through pass in the between their defence. That put Peiqian through but his shot from a tight angle managed to hit the side of the net. Also, Soo Tet and Chang Wen played a nice overlap down the right, off an Adzfar throw in. Second half saw some changes. But I think NJ were having a fatter share of possession. The mud-filled pitch only made our legs even heavier when we run. Balls always got stuck in between a pass. Our passing gameplan seemed to be abandoned altogether, as we got more tired. They became more menacing with their passing as our midfield sat deeper and deeper, giving them more space to exploit. Chun Yat found space on the left and he sent a decent cross into the box, right at the feet of Randy, but the latter couldn't control the slippery ball. It rolled to Oliver on the right, but his attempted layoff to Peiqian who was screaming for the ball fell short when he slipped and fell. They could have gone in front with a free kick just a few minutes after I came on. A deep cross was only cleared off the goal thanks to the alert head of Soo Tet, with 2 or 3 players puffing down his neck. Then, they won a corner. We failed to clear the ball completely and failed to push up. They sent back a right wing cross deep and hard and found the outstretched legs of Aziz (who's their star goalie, but playing upfront for fun) and into the opposite corner of the net. Beautiful! 1-0 to NJ. Only about 10 mins left and we knew we had to pour forward to salvage something from the game. Joseph intercepted their ball on the left channel and threaded a forward pass to Soo Tet, who was in space. He chipped brilliantly over the backpedalling defence. I wanted to volley it but the bounce was too high. Instead, the ball cannonned off their 2 centrebacks and I sneaked in between to smack it to the roof of the net. Phew. 1-1. Soon, we were attacking but both sides seem contented with a draw. And so it ended. 1-1. Penalty shoot out followed, for practice purposes and for fun also. We missed our first 2 as they slotted home their first 2. But we scored all our last 5 while they could only hit 3 in, thus we edged them out on penalties. All in all, a nightmare in terms of passing. But still there's time for improvement. Cheerios~ Things i need improvement on: 1) Looking up when the ball's on my feet. That will allow me to assess my passing options and the free space around me. Ball skills must improve so i will have more confidence on the ball. 2) Linking back with midfield. I tend to only think about going forward, but sometimes, the midfielders are better positioned to either have a crack at goal or to spread play. I must communicate and learn to keep possession better, which means i need strength to shield the ball. Weights! 3) Taking the ball past defenders. Need to work on pace, which means short sprints. First touch must be good too, and must always have off the ball running to create free space for myself.

bigggg

Zipped on a trip to new campus yesterday afternoon. It was pouring i tell you, non-stop for 3 plus plus hours. The new campus looks not so huge from outside, but inside, i think you will get lost very easily. 7 storeys of rooms, rooms and more rooms. The LTs are huge. There will be seminar rooms and discussion rooms (or as matin puts it, quickie rooms! haha). The assembly area is still not sheltered, meaning we will die under the hot sun again. There will be new tennis courts, squash courts, this and that courts, new field with imposing floodlights! And even talks of an indoor basketball court! Ah, wonderful news for bballers. There will be a building dedicated to the science labs. A building for the auditorium! Wah, even more wonderful news for the performing groups. But one big problem i see will be: HUMAN CONGESTION. not just traffic congestion or road congestion. imagine Bishan MRT and Lornie Road in the morning rush hours. Oh god, save us! Hopped on a visit to Geylang Serai Bazaar. Sole purpose, to find Hari Raya costumes! haha, after wearing my father's costumes for like 2 or 3 years, its time for new ones of my own. Found 2 pairs all on one shelf. Not very choosy, just picked those of colours which I haven't had before. Wah, cannot wait to try them on during Hari Raya! Geylang si paku geylang... Its really getting from bad to worse. In recent years, newspapers, especially Malay newspapers, have shown the incredible drop in modesty levels. From teenage girls sporting micro skirts, ultra tight singlets, revealing outfits to teenage boys sporting the flashiest of hair colours, dozens or so piercings and tattoos. And chances are many of them smoke. They mix around as freely as though they have no religion. Yet when you ask them, they will say they are Muslims. Why then do they still behave as such? Don't their parents even say anything? Or do their parents also sport the same attitude towards religion? They behave as though they are rich and cool, but in actual case, they are very poor, both in terms of money and in terms of iman. Why is this happening? Malays are always like that, this time its just getting worse. Its very shameful to even talk about but if people like me and you do not realize about this aspect of society, then who will? We cannot expect others but ourselves to change this attitude. Saying 'nevermind' is never going to work. What will? God pls tell us what will? :(

oohhvvverrrrrrrrrrr

Yikes. Pw OP is finally over. Thought that my group did quite well, given the fact that we only rehearsed once before our real OP today and that HPF was all out to screw our group by taking so super long to clear our project file. Nvm, i'm just happy that we managed to say out our lines clearly and answer our questions during Q&A with aplomb. I thought that since our group had only 4 members, that could be one reason why other groups could expland the contents of their presentation. I liked JiaWen's grp idea of going to a pirated CD shop to observe. Maybe we should have set at the rubbish dump and count the different things that people throw. Haha that would be fun but absolutely disgusting! Anyhoos, HPF was retarded beyond retarded. She took more than 2 hours to settle our PW file. Yes it is think and troublesome. But its like, she had just settled 'Collaboration' form, for e.g., then the next second, she will ask us, where is your collaboration form? She wants the originals, but she kept the originals. We have been faithfully photocopying the originals the moment she gave out those feedback forms so it is she who must have misplaced the forms. E.g: Hong Yong's (who's in my group) article review feedback form was found in Woon Yang's group file that she kept. HPF you better wake up your ideas, we are doing so much to try and make your life easier yet nothing's working bcoz of...well, you. And HY is another fella that gets on me and Steph's and Edwin's nerves time and time again. Why does he keep hovering around without any real purpose? And he's also one year older than us some more! WTH man. He came early, around 9am, yet he sat at the concourse depression fiddling with his laptop without bothering to call us or sms us to find out where we are. Hello! We are supposed to settle our file a.s.a.p so that we can start rehearsing for our OP! Instead, when he came, he was twiddling with his pen and took his own bloody sweet time to get his arse to Rm 2-2 where he just sat there doing nothing particularly useful. Like when HPF asks us about certain missing things, he was clueless and dumbstruck. He clearly has no idea what is in the file, he did not contribute to filing much, if any at all! Argh, you just want to punch him in the face. Then his laptop is so pro that there isnt any Powerpoint inside! I mean, you are a freaking student, why is there no powerpoint?! How are you going to prepare your presentation? You should see him present man. The way he skips around like a gay fagg. And his unkempt hair. And his dropping glasses. And his coughs! Man, his coughs are bloody irritating!! Each time he's stuck, he just coughs, which is so bloody fake! He already talks so softly, his pronounciation is so freaking weird it doesnt sound English at times. Are you feeling my anger? Are you feeling it? At least his Digicam was useful, it captured our video which finally worked! Hahah thanks anyway HY. We love you... ..I.. But at least i liked training today. So much so, i slept in my bus all the way to the interchange. Whee.....And i liked our contents page and our front covers!! Wahahaha... ..I..

wah wah wah cannot wait

You know what? Goodbye lineouts, hello throw-ins. Goodbye penalties, hello free kicks. Goodbye tries, hello goals. Viva la futbal!

i want EE

Goobz! I start entries with monosyllabic sounds. Woohoo. Anyhoos, went to Steph's house this morning to touch up OP. Was surprisingly first there, I thought the rest would be there earlier than me since they all live nearer. I woke up just on time, I juz slept on the prayer mat after the early morning prayers, so nice soft and shiok. Oh wells, we really reorganized our structure. HPF went to see us for another rehearsal again, this time we showed a marked improvement and I am quite happy. But still, need to grab that elusive EE! Wah, Ah Foot's group is impressive, very streamlined and easy to follow so that's why his group gets EE! Aiseyman, wa caya sama lu. Yep, then after the presentation, I siam home in the rain. Paul actually asked me to play pool with him and Daryl at around 5, aiyah no fulus ($) man. :( Oh ok, finally my mother spoke to me about my Hari Raya Baju Kurung. Wah, the most last minute baju kurung in my life. Anyway, she wants me to go wit her to Geylang Serai this friday to have a look. I want a plain set, so I can wear and wear and wear for watever occasions. Oh Mat brothers, this Friday, we shall all go to AlFalah for Qiamullail. Abang and Izzat, u r invited too. And Akrab. Yes. If they even read this... Anw, we shall hitch a camp if they are having one, if not, its midnite movie!! Haha. And Adzfar, protein!! Mine has finished. My father won't allow me to buy until after Hari Raya. And i think i wanna get TwinLab Gainers Fuel 1000 Chocolate flavour 4.31lbs. It costs $57 or 2 for $96.90. Amacam? Want to share lik theother time? :)

bek in biznez

Hoot! Today's arab lesson at madrasah was fun. Ustaz Ali had nothing better to do after telling us which parts are important for the exams. So we all started reading the long list of Hari Raya kuihs and started teasing each other. Quraizah kena the most. haha kurang asam. Anw, feeling empty so followed Shafiee and Muhammad to pool at Lucky Plaza. haha, after like 3 months not playing, not bad lah today, won everything except once. Holy cow, I would love to play again with my own cue, next time lah i bring. Hehe. And then, it was terrible, because there was not a single slipper that looks decent for me. Its all too expensive. In the end, after 1 hour of walking and wandering which one to buy, I got a pair of Reef slip ons that look plain, simple yet slick. Okay, exaggerated. Its just plain and simple. Oh well, the price not too good. But im desperate la, i keep slipping and falling in my current pair. Went back to ArRaudhah today for Tarawih, after quite a long time. Feels good again, i was humming Quranic verses all the way home. Woah, i can't wait to get the Quran in my hands and read them again! Woohoo. I must memorise Al-waqiah soon, in one week. I can do it! yah insyaAllah. :)

how'd u wake up today?

I want to see photos photos photos! yes photos of yesterday's good good fun. anw, guess who woke me up today? HO POH FUN! At around 9 am, she called to confirm whether my group wanted to see her today. Actually i didn't pick up the phone when it rang. I listened to her voice message. It was scary to think that yesterday night at the get-together, we actually thought about prank calling her at around 745pm, but then decided against it coz it's already past her bedtime. Haha, ok bad, don't do this anymore please. I forwarded her msg to Steph then went back to sleep til 12. Woke up and went to Rave, got a little snip and trim. Met Peiqian at Far East, haha he just had a little snip and trim too. He was from soccer training, apparently tired, but still had some energy left to meet his friend, his u-noe-who. And i need to buy a new pair of slippers, because the one i have, the soles have worn out. I keep slipping and sliding everytime i walk on wet surfaces. Not safe, i shan't sacrifice my safety or my shame. Tomorrow, i still have madrasah to go to. I shall go after accidentally oversleeping last week.

Remunerations, they are coming again. I know it this time, I am very sure of it. I cannot let this slip, let this pass by me like it did. This time, I shall not regret my decision. I shall do it next week, yes I will. And no one will stop me. No one.

1S03B's Nite of Fun

Finally, after 1 bloody long year, we managed to get our entire class down for a gathering. Thank goodness it happened. So happy that it did. What a day, the very last day of school.... Ronald was so kind to let us use his house, even though he had to go off for a floorball match at 5pm and got injured and gotta leave halfway and all that. Somemore, this was only planned early this week, like Monday, and very surprisingly, everyone was keen. Except for one (u know who!). Thank you so my much bro. :) For causing so much trouble to him and his family, especially his Mum, she's so kind, she helped us cook all the way and helped negotiate with the security guards and all that. Really owe it to Ronald and his family. Anw, Let's recollect how this whole fun came about. Adzfar and I were damn bored, and as promised, Adz would bake delicious chocorgasmic brownies for today. So during phy lecture, we both siam to Jelita Cold Storage and bought Betty Crocker (is it?). So after Fri prayers, the 2 of us Mats went to my house to rest coz we all were so damn tired from the previous day's training and lack of sleep. Haha, Adz fell asleep and was into dreamy world when he was lying down on my carpet! We left for Ronald's place at 3pm. Reached there at 3plus, then helped him prepare the function room. Started calling the people whether they are coming or not and what they are bringing all that. Then Adz started baking the brownies until his hands crammed. Woon Yang came after Ronald left for Floorball, and Woon Yang started marinating the chickens and making his own sauce. Haha woon yang is very domesticated. Then Matin, Bert, Dex came and brought all the stuff that we told Isky to buy. Haha I guess from there the party started!! Actually, it was meant to be a Halloween Party, with costumes and all. Somehow, noone could find a decent costume, in the end, we just came in cvs. haha, screwed up. Eunice though had a Black Witch ensemble, complete with the witch hat and wand. Haha funkeh.. But poor thing she had to wait for Ronald to come back in his black ghoul robe with devil's fork. Haha, they both look super scary la from afar. Woon Yang, Gimmy, Jensen and Ronald's mum were the main cooks today. The deep-fried chicken was amazing, so sweet and juicy. I loved the crab stick too, and the seeweed wrap dunoo wad, and of coz the brownie with ice cream! I didnt taste the fish but it smelled superb. They said the potato salad was delicious too, and the konyaku jellies was just nice and sweet. At a point, we were quite worried that at the rate the food is being cooked and how hungry we are, we would finish up all the food before Ronald comes back from floorball and Chang Wen could come. Haha, but somehow, there were still a lot of food left. Basically the rule was: cook if u wanna eat. Haha dumb but effective. That's wad Chang Wen did when he came. Oh!! we took loads of photos! I hope somebody with the camera post them real soon! Then we went upstairs to watch the Results show of S'pore Idols! Haha, so drama la, everyone was rooting for Taufik! Anw, he's got some style la, i hope he wins too. Then we all went downstairs again to go for seconds. Some were still hogging the X Box, like Bert and Jensen and Gimmy. Then, at around 9.15 like that, Adz and me went to change and dived into the pool. Haha that was fun. After that, Chnag Wen, Jia Wen, Madan, Jensen and Gimmy also joined in. They just kept splashing water and diving in and out and making loads of noise. Really a nuisance to the public. Then later on, Geri, Aisyah, Shiying and Eunice sat around the edge of the pool, only to be splashed at by our wild divings. haha, then wat the heck they all say, we just kept splashing at each other. Ronald was damn poor thing..in his robe and all, we pushed him in. His HP is now wet, hopefully it still works! Oh no, i feel so bad. :( But we got a plan for him, i discussed with Shiying, Karthick and Jensen already.So hopefully it all goes well. :) Haha, then had to get out of the pool at ten. Changed up and took some last photos in Ronald's living room. Then we took our leave, it was so nice. The group of us walking in the night together, having had a thoroughly excellent time having fun! Hahaha... Went home with Shiying Jensen and Karthick, and the consensus was that we should have more of this! Let's have one in December!

hat trick

Match: RJ Soccer Team vs RJ Mix-n-match (M&M) J1 side (10aside v 10) Venue: school field line up: M&M - Mark (Kaixiang), Joseph, Weifan, Libin, Wenjuin, Paul, Desmond, Boxian, (Mingyong), Ruik, Fairuz score: Soccer Team 5 or 6 - 3 M&M scorers: Chang Wen (x2), Kin Yip, Chun Yat, Geoffrey + 1 more fella.....& Fairuz (x3) Actually, there was supposed to be more people coming, but sadly enough, ppl turned down a real chance to play soccer for...sleep...then when there is so little time after school, they beg to play soccer. Oh well, I'm just grateful for those who turned up today, the non-soccer boys, thank you Ruik, Mingyong, Desmond, Paul and Boxian... Haha, u saved my butt. Clearly we were dominated. It's like around 2 months since i last kick about on the field. And to top that up, its Ramadhan, so i was fasting. So the plan was damage control right from the start. Oh well, since when do I stick to plan? So the Soccer Team were the ones who made the early passes, without any real threat. Soo Tet was always making cunning runs down the right, but i think he needs more support and when a support is there, he should try to release the ball earlier. Zhihao was always commanding in midfield, winning most of the balls, but people around him need to make runs for him to pass to. Chang wen was all alone up front, perhaps plays better with a strike partner, but with all the harrowing, he can perhaps look to layoff to midfielders who surely pack a punch in their shots. Geoffrey penetrates from the left, but I think he just needs a bit of work with the final ball and should not be too afraid to try potshots from the edge of the box. But i think overall, they should not focus on getting high crosses into the box, other JCs definitely have taller defenders. So I think they should look for final balls that can split defences open, for that, they need a strong and speedy striker, maybe in the form of Adzfar, who clearly looks jaded at right back. Pls try him again up front, u really must realise how much pace troubles defences. The full backs made little attacking inroads today, because they were pinned back by our long balls. They surely possess good crosses, so open up space for them to whip in a delicious cross. Chun Yat is strong in midfield, i hear he's playing striker too, he has a sure touch, a good finisher and strong physique too. So clearly a good target man upfront. Kin Yip looks more confident with high balls nowadays, but once u get the ball looping over his head, he needs support from fellow defenders to cut out the long diagonal balls, especially if u have a pacy striker. Enough evaluation, let's talk about the game. Started off alright, our number one instruction was to just apply pressure on the man with the ball. Simply just don't give them space to manouvre. I think they were not used to having so little time on the ball, I think it led to our first goal. An unsure touch from their right hand channel back towards the goalie fell short, so with both last man and keeper stranded in no man's land, i could just toe-poked it into the back of the net. [shoot i can't remember who scored first. was it ur side?] Anyway, with the score tied at 1-1 soon after, a good run down the left by Ruik caught their defence on the back pedal. They failed to clear the diagonal pass and I just placed the ball as far away from Kaixiang as possible, hitting kinyip on the way to goal. But within seconds, they got a series of corners, very well taken by Sootet. This time, Chang wen rose head and shoulders above the rest to plant a firm header to the top left hand corner, a magnificent header. 2-2 at halftime. Clearly they were fired up right after the break, because our pressure play and hitting them on the break really frustrated them. They played better now, with 'triangles' and what not coming into play. Soo Tet again enjoyed freedom on the right with the loose marking from Libin (does he know what's a foul throw?!?!?). A good corner to the middle of the box found Kin Yip whose downward header bounced into the crowded pack and into the goal. It was quite end to end stuff, as our players tire and theirs got hungrier. Still, some confusion at the back saw a floated ball bouncing over Kin Yip for me to blast it past Mark for my hat-trick (my first ever!). Could have passed it to Ruik but was singleminded. Hehe. Then after that, we really became tired. I swithched with Ruik for a while, clearly im not fit enought to play midfield. Desmond then had a stinging shot whacking against the crossbar, it would be a beauty had it gone in. After that, Chang Wen got his second I think, the only goal to have come from outside the box. A long range effort that sailed into the top left hand corner. Chun Yat then added another one from the right edge of the six yard box to seal our misery. I think it ended 5-3 or 6-3 in their favour. Oh well...good game still. Things I need work on: 1) Left Foot Cross: to be able to find a man in the box with an inswinger, or to cut the right back at the byline and deliver a cutback. 2) Headers: to win aerial balls against defenders. to outjump players, to direct headers towards teammate. 3) Beating players: to master more skills to beat players one on one, better ball control, change of pace.

ohana: noone gets left behind or forgotten

OhanaOhanaOhana... For a full week that have seen tremendous work being put in by the students of RJ, especially the crucial planning work by teh councillors, i'm quite happy that it's all over. I dont think our first major batch project got off to a bad start, i think it was quite alright! Yay! Not sure how the many Sec 4s enjoyed themselves here today, in the end, I don't think their choices will have so much to do with open houses as with reality, that is their O level results, their friends, their future prospects, their locales... So it was meant for them to have a lil breather, i suppose, from intensive and extensive revision for their O levels. It was also a good oppurtunity for us the J1s, to let our hair loose after promos. I'm sure we'll have more time for that in the very near future. Did befriender duty today, that is, to bring hordes of Sec 4s around the school to let them have a look and a feel of our software, that is, our people. We're not mechanical, and I really don't think anyone in Singapore even thinks that about us anymore these days. The mats had some fun wearing what we always wear, our mat bands, with a dog tag 'MLDCS..." attached. Simple advertisement, thanks to our ingenious matman, Iylia. Really had to thank the girls today, they stayed and put up really nice touch-ups to our booth at the entrance of the hall. They came real early too, and stayed til the end and put down all the decoration themselves. Most of the mats were doing befriender services, but still really must thank the girls. Cikgu was also always there too, i think she's closer to the girls, cos i heard them talk about some things that the girls were concerned about, something about their cca and future and things like that, but i really like that. U need to have someone who can listen to u and give u quality advice, and I think cikgu is one of them cos she's been here for so long, seen plenty of high-achievers, certainly she has some ideas of what to do. Spent the day shuffling back and forth from Rugby booth at the Specs Gal, where PS2 took centre stage, thanks to Khalrul...then will just wander around canteen and concourse before playing congkak back at out booth. then off to chit chat with iylia at front porch before finding more sec 4s to befriend. Saw some malay hopefuls, more guys than girls actually, but not surprisingly, and they all look keen on coming. So i really think the future malay batch will be more mixed than mine, but i sure hope it's all good. Saw Shaman, a SJI hurdler champ who's also looking forward to soccer, but i think it's best if he sticks to just track. He's sound academically, and I realised that I facilitated his group with Yusrina when he attended Mendaki Camp in sec1. Wahaha, nice guy, i think he'll choose RJ. Saw 3 VS malay guys too, one's a champ tracker, the other 2 are band ppl, and I think they are also academically sound. They're definitely considering RJ, then i think our track team will be quite solid next yr. Retain the title man! Played a lil bit of touch in the afternoon, cos sian la, cos it rained in the mid-afternoon during fri prayers, so it sort of dampened the spirit, then helped pull down the posters and re-arrange the canteen tables. After that, the Ohana comm gave out some real nice drinks and we kop like 14 packets la, for 5 ppl...Woohoo...So we went to shower, prayed asar, and siam to Al-Ameen. Reached there just nice the Azan, so we buka with super duper refreshing drinks. Ordered cheap and good food and ate all we could man... So shiok... then had to quickly take a bus ride to Ar-Raudhah where we did our tarawih too, and then walked the mats to bt batok mrt... Along the way, it was bliss. We saw a group of workers pausing work for a while, sitting at the slope to have their dinner in the dark, with only the street lamps to light the packet food for them. We felt bad looking. I said why not we give them the 3 remainder packets of drinks we have to them, let them share and have the drinks, after all, we took more than we should. Somehow that ties in with Ohana, noone gets left behind or forgotten. Ya, i think it does, God works these miracles, but humans just may not be able to see them. InsyaAllah, God will help these workers for working so hard and being so far away from home and from family. When i reached home finally, i took 1.5 bowls of fried beehoon noodles as i've promised my mother. That felt good, and i'm gonna have a go at the soya bean milk soon. Grow Grow Grow!!! Time to rest, bcoz its gonna be quite a day tomorrow. With a few things in store, let's just have a good night sleep.

beeep!!honk!!

I think Porridge for the Needy Project has plenty of areas to be improved on, especially about the effective utilisation of manpower and time. Shall address that to the Exco at the end of the project. Need to have an Exco meeting because there are some possibilities that can come out from Porridge project, such as the Mass Iftar Day on 9 Nov 2004. Also need to address some expectation on them. Because surely events are flying in fast and furious. Hakeem is so jiwang! Burnt an entire collection onto a CD and called it "Jiwang: Vol 1". Full of sexay sexay evergreen oldies such as Khayalan by BDB, Suci Dalam Debu (Iklim) and so on. Haha, maybe its the secret behind hurdles success! PW! Today must hand in final draft already! So scary, hope for Exceeding Expectation! How?!! Let's pray for the best.. Ohana! Coming up on fri, sure hope to have a blast! Will be doing spraying, dancing, talking, walking, running, smiling, and............ fasting. Gosh :) Just now I drank coffee, and after a while i saw it bubbling! Guess what? There was actually a real lizard inside! It was struggling to crawl out of the cup, before it gets drowned! Gross man, so i threw out the lizard onto the sink. Then tried to smash it dead with a rolled-up newspaper, but it cunningly hid behind the soap which i could not reach with the newspaper...Eeeewww. yucks... can't imagine actually having the lizard in my mouth... :P

white stuff on nails

Have you ever wondered? I take a look at my fingernails and I see white stuff. U know, its those little white opaque stuff that u see on your nails that you can't possibly scratch out. And when i see these white stuff, i remember what my grandma used to tell me. When I was still small, i used to sit on my grandma's bed and ask her many many things. One of them was what is this white stuff i see on my nails. She said that it's a sign. I asked her, "Of what?". "It's a sign that somebody likes you, there's probably a girl out there who likes you. It's a sign that someone is attracted to you!" I thought hard and talked to myself, "In my kindergarten class, there cannot possibly be any girl who likes me, coz I always beat them for every test. And I look ugly. Hmmm..." So I wondered. If only there was a story or fable or legend to accompany this peculiar happening. But u know what? I think it's true. Coz I saw white stuff on Ronald's fingernails too. So that is one case proven. Now i see them white stuff on my nails. Last time when it happened in primary school, I am quite sure that it happened for the same reason which my grandma explained to me. Coz of course I am in people's attention when i do well for certain things. I told Ronald today and he laughed it off, but maybe he will believe me, and my grandma. So now, i see the white stuff on my nails again, and I am going to believe my grandma's explanation. This time, it's not just on one fingernails. It's found on 6 different spots. Does more white spots means that the feeling is stronger? So who is the one? I dunno..... Merindui Kepastian - Art Fazil Andai kau menjadi pelangi biarku jadi awannya agar kita selalu bersama Andai kau menjadi sang duyung biarku jadi karangnya agar kita sentiasa bersua Andai kau menjadi merpati biarku jadi sang bayu agar kita sering bertemu Andai engkau menjadi puisi biarku jadi melodi bersama kita menyanyi Andai ku menjadi rembulan sudikah engkau menjadi gejora hingga pagi nanti Andai esok aku menjadi tanah sudikah engkau menjadi bunga hiasi dadaku