After several months, my blog gets a new post. Woohoo!

Yeah, blogging never felt rite during those months of bumming/working through a life that tasted a fair slice of independence.

Simple self update:
I'm going NUS business
Gonna be staying at PGP
Stayed at S'pore for over 4 months and am now back at home for some 2 weeks of R&R
Finally spending some cash on new wardrobe
Got a new lappy (hehe)
Learning to play the guitar (really really needs to practice) with hopes of playing at Botanic Gardens some sunny day
Glad that my body is like a wooden board but at the same time am not happy
Currently spoiling my pet cats

That's rite. I'm back.

Its almost been a week since I set foot in singapore as a free man: no more curfew, no more school, no more moe watching vigilantly your every move. Free as I am compared to before, that freedom comes with a price. I now find myself a slave to money.

Unlike before when lazing around in your room for a day doesn't bother me as much any normal student, the same act today just gives me a sense of worthlessness. Yeah that's right. I am now a slave to money. Everyday must be used to garner cash in order to survive in this hellhole i freely threw myself into.

Sure i still have some cash in the bank and hence i can still afford to eat (for a while at least) that delightful symbol of western majesty known by many as the big mac. But i dunt. I eat the meal of the plebs. I eat hawkerfare; the cheaper the better with nasi lemak as the forefront of this plebian struggle for frugality. Eating big macs coz i still can is not the point. The point is that the food that i eat is to be bought by the penny i earn. Hopefully I'd eventually be eating big macs. By then I should have ridden my trainwreck of frustrations from this hellhole into the ass of financial comfort available for my age.
(haha financial comfort of my expectations = being able to afford a big mac??!!)

My happy days in the dream that was the Philippines is over. Still I'm glad I'm awake.

Corolla, Corolla Altis, Vios
These were the cars I've driven in my 20 hr learnin-to-drive learnin span for A1 driving school.

I learned how to drive (no way), maneuver, park and overtake all over the area of Laguna and even Las Pinas at one point.
I swerved thru near hits of my right side mirror (hehe the est distance thing was tricky what can i say).
I panicked at uphill traffic (not anymore says I!).
I got frustrated at those damn jeepneys who act as if they own the road with their sudden stops at the middle of 2 lanes and swervings.
I ventured thru traffic in the Philippines.
I passed the 70 km/h barrier (i make it sound as if it's such a big deal but it is! Eat my dust Yipee-Kayay!)

Yes, I can now officially unofficially drive (my non-pro license can only be taken next week). Haha whoo hoo all the to the 4TH GEAR!!!! (5TH gear reserved for the expressway)



To a totally different topic, I was Shanghaid last week (Jan 26 to 30) with my dad.
We went to 4 cities but heck I'll talk about that some other day too lazy what can I say.
Cold would be the feeling you get when you were me last week.

2 hours. That was how long the orientation lecture was for A1 Driving Inc. (the driving school I enrolled in and supposedly the best driving school around). It was like a long lecture about how to drive a car without actually driving one.

By 2 pm, it was time for the actual driving lesson. My car: Toyota Corolla complete with all the latest tech.  I felt a sense of power and dread by the time I was sitting on the wheel. Power since its finally my high time to learn driving. Dread coz who knows what might happen if I screw up.


VROOOMMM!!!! and out goes the engine. Haha it's not as easy as playin the arcade race cars.

The car has a sensitive gas pedal and I needed to figure out where the freakin working position is for the clutch. I was stucked using gear Primera almost all throughout my first hour. Doing turns was actually easy too bad I can't say the same for the gas. 

Next up was drivin in a real road complete with potholes, road bumps, tricycles, motorcylcles, garbage collectors, those stupid kids who dun't know how to use a freakin sidewalk and, of course, your everyday vehicles with drivers angry at slow moving cars driven by newbies who doesn't know any better aka me. Damn, that was scary. I was afraid that I might screw up and the engine die out at me. Turns out, I did a bit ok. My car drove slowly but heck I'm not complaining. After learning, forward and backward parking, it was time to call it a day.

...... haha 18 more hours to go until I graduate...... 

It's been what a decade? since I last step foot unto Star City. If for some reason you don't know what Star City is, then to counter your first guess, it's not a city filled with stars nor is it a city for that matter at all. Pips who are regular passerbys of Roxas Blvd should know that it's actually the first "grand" amusement park the country ever had. (Or is it? EK?...nah)

Well the place is different from what i could last remember.... Ok actually I couldn't remember a thing from my last visit there save for the fact that I was below 4 ft then. I remember this amidst all the possible memories I could have had of the place because the place dun't allow any kid below that height to have fun hence no good memories???

Still with all the modern attractions, I could really say that the place has changed from the old carnival feel I imagined it to be.  The usual attractions are a given ie. bumper cars, mini coaster rides, ferris wheel, viking rides all sorts of tunnels ranging from time tunnel, mummy tunnel, semi-horror tunnel, horror tunnel, fish massage pools etc. All of these could be found indoors. Outdoors, however, is where the real stuff are. Thank you for not raining =)

I met up with my old schoolmates for a bit o Star City fun rite after new year's day. Ched and Camille organised it though it was originally suppose to be on EK but got transferred to Star City due to the distances involved. Haha these pips sure bring a lot of good memories.  We expect the place to be moderately full coz it was a weekday but it wasn't. A crowd was already building up at the entrance when I got in. Luckily we rode the main attractions early.

They have this ride called the Star Flyer which they claim is the only uhm inclined ? coaster (sorry forgot what it's called) in the country. seeing your legs dangling as the coaster rides on its track is scary if not fun. Next up was the Surf's Up ( not the penguin movie but a modified version of the viking ride in EK). Among all the rides in the place, it was the worst. You sit in a row of 4 along a large cart containing several columns before being swiftly plummet up down in a jerking manner with a seemingly non-center of mass feel. Physics students should now what it means. It means as you go up and down, you experience changing pivots as if the centre of mass varies. Ha! like I said Physics.

It was great at first but it got too much for all of us once the first 30 seconds had gone. Worse I sat on the edge seat where I could feel my limbs seemingly being carried by the momentum of the cart. Haha Jessa just suddenly became quiet and closed her eyes mid-way the ride coz of dizziness which made me really wonder why the heck did we rode this thing? I mean look at it, it even has some rusts? on one of its gears. For any of you pips visiting Star City, I must warn you that Surf's Up is a hell jumper so go ahead and experience it!

For some reason the place also had loads of tunnel attractions and Potato Corners. They also sold CHEESE popcorn to which really kicks Singapore theatre ass since they come in loads, cheap and in cheese!  

Come nightfall, the place was already swarming with hordes of pips. You have to wait in a queue that looped the ride thrice just so you could try the 1 minute Star Flyer coaster. When the only attraction you can go into without a long queue is the Peter Pan tunnel you know that it's high time to leave. Having said that, we left the place with the usual its an OK place feel. EK next?