In Memory of Hinata...

This... This is so unexpected...

And it's... so touching!!

Uh..., Hinata, I will always remember you...

Taken NARUTO manga Chapter 437:

Hinata: This is my own selfish act. I am standing here on my own will.

I was always crying, giving up even before I began, always trying to do the wrong things.

But then Naruto-kun, you showed me the right way to live.

I was always chasing after you, always trying to catch up.

I always wanted to able to walk side by side with you.

You were the one who changed me. It was your smile that saved me.

So, in order to protect you, I'm not afraid to die.

Because, I like you.

What an agonising confession...

Come on, Naruto, you must beat Pain!

Uh...

No Time

Have been really quite busy the past few days. I also don't know why. I just didn't have the time to come and update my blog.

What I was doing? Hmm, mostly going out, going to camp and fixing my com. Oh yeah, my PC is finally fixed now. I still don't know what the problem was but who cares since I can use it already. Now it's running Windows XP instead of Vista. This is to save RAM so that it can run faster and hopefully can last for a few more years (it's quite old now...).

Luckily I still could retrieve back my music and piano scores. These were sort of the most precious things in my com. Oh yeah, and pictures too. And now I can finally continue to put songs and videos in my iPOD. Yay!

I realised these few days that you'll never have the time to do everything you want. Definitely some things have to be sacrificed, or put aside first. If you want to finish everything you can't finish anything. (Actually I realised this long ago but I just realised it again recently...)

7 daze is starting soon. In fact I only have one more weekend left before it starts. I haven't made plans for it, and neither does the camp. It would be a miracle if we could even survive the first week. Plus all the politics and selfish people in the camp I don't know what I can do already. If only I could just press the fast-forward button...

This will be one big hurdle to my ORD...

Friends or Lovers?

I forgot who it was but I remember somebody telling me that Valentine's Day is also International Friendship Day. Immediately I found it weird, that two such contrasting occasion would fall on the same day. I'm lazy to go and check out also, so I randomly found a reason for it myself after some thinking.

My friend also told me that Valentine's Day is more meant for singles. To couples, everyday is Valentine's Day, hence this day won't be any special.

Therefore, I thought that maybe February 14th is meant to differentiate between friends and lovers. For normal friends, they will celebrate International Friendship Day. For lovers, they will celebrate Valentine's Day.

It doesn't matter whether you are single or attached. It applies to everybody.

So, are you a friend, or are you a Valentine?

What about myself?


PS I just did a search and found out that International Friendship Day is on some other day. But since I already wrote this, and it doesn't affect my opinion, I gues it doesn't really matter.

PPS My PC is spoilt... Now there's a lot of things I can't do liao... Need to get it fixed ASAP... I think it's really getting old now.

Prepare for 7 Daze

DISCLAIMER: This post has NOTHING to do with the Army, SAF, Navy, or any other related organisations. All this happens purely in my mind, and I'm NOT describing my present or future life in my unit. Yes, I'm NOT.

Imagine staying in a confined space for 7 days. You cannot go home. Everyday, other than eat and sleep, all you do is go out and stand at the gate. There are some entertainments, but they are not enough for grown-ups like you. You have no PSP, no XBOX, no computer, no internet. iPOD and MP3 players are still allowed. Books also.

The question is: how do you survive?

Now, that's not the end. Imagine having to stand for a total of almost 10 hours a day outside. There are about 20 people suffering with you, but this kind of manpower is not enough. The same old routine continues everyday. And you are not allowed to exercise during your rest time. Whenever you do anything wrong, you get scolded. If it's serious enough, you'll get to stay for a few more days. You are not allowed to take leaves, even though you can take MC.

If it's just 2 or 3 days, I'm sure you can take it. But SEVEN DAYS? Who would be able to take it?

I don't think I can.

The most I can do, is to bring enough books and put enough videos in my iPOD. But I'm sure I'll get tired of it after doing the same thing for a few days.

Those higher-ups would happily go home everyday, while we are the ones who have to suffer.

WHY must this kind of things happen?

I mean, if it REALLY happens, it would be a downright TRAGEDY.

TRAGEDY OF THE YEAR.

I shall see at the end of the 7 days, how many would still be alive.

And how many 7 days we can endure before we all turn into zombies.

End of imagination.

新年快乐？

阳历新年过了。农历新年也过了。

鼠年过去了。牛年来了。

照道理，我应该在祝每个人新年快乐，别人也会相应地祝我新年快乐。

但我的新年，是否真的快乐呢？


如果快乐，那是因为过了新年代表我当兵的日子已经过了一大半了。还有大概10个月左右，我就可以出来，重获自由之身了。

快乐，也是因为我又可以在这段时间跟同学，朋友们相聚，吃喝玩乐。跟他们在一起，几乎所有烦恼都忘光了。


但是这次，不快乐的层面似乎比较多。

第一：围棋。期待已久的世界业余围棋赛的选拔赛终于来了，但是我还没有做足抵抗就草草败下阵来，再次失去了代表新加坡参赛，飞去日本的机会。人人都说明年还有机会，不过这句话，我不知道已经连续听了多少年了。

第二：兵营。是不是我注定没法跟他人好好相处？不管到哪里去，能交到的朋友都是寥寥无几，关系不好的却有一大堆。而且就算是朋友，也会经常互相猜疑，嘲笑。这种也算得上真正的朋友吗？而且为什么我总是要看别人的脸色做事呢？逢场作戏，装摸做样，在兵营（和社会）貌似是件常事，但偏偏这是我不喜欢做的。

第三：人生。快要过20岁的生日了，我却对我的人生一点打算都没有。大学专业是选好了，但我也不确定我是不是真的想学那个。想利用这段时间来做些有用的事，学些有用的事，但每次都无所事成。我到底将来要做什么？我要做一个什么样的人？我要交一个什么样的女朋友？这些问题，我都无法自己回答。顺其自然，真的是正确的吗？船到桥头真的会直吗？

第四：精神。记忆越来越差，思想也越来越迟钝了。不管是不是当兵的副作用，这对我的生活造成了很大的障碍。人也变得越来越懒惰，一到家就什么事都不想做，到了兵营也整天只顾着睡觉。我的自我管理能力跑到哪儿去了？这样还怎么上大学啊？

等等。


人长得越大，烦恼果然就越多。被如此多的烦恼包围，我还可以说“新年快乐”吗？

Failure Once More

My feeling now? I feel like punching a sandbag as hard as I can. And maybe continue doing that for 5 minutes.

But too bad, I don't have a sandbag at home.

For one more time, I've lost. Lost the chance to represent Singapore in World Amateur Go Championship. Lost the chance to go Tokyo, Japan, where I've long been wanting to go.

I've been preparing for this since last year, and I even used up my last two leaves just to take part in the Whompoa Cup, so that I can get into the selections. I've been doing Tsumego and reading Weiqi book everyday in camp.

But, the fact is, I still lost.

Maybe I still lack something. Something I don't know. Is it called "fighting spirit"? Is it called "will to win"?

Have I not been training enough? (This is quite obvious...)

Right now, I can only say that I'm such a big failure.

It was a good game. Even though my pieces got eaten, I've also made quite a big moyo and my opponent didn't attempt to invade. Hence I was leading by quite a lot by endgame. However I spent too much time in the beginning when my that piece was gonna die, hence I didn't have a lot of time left to think. This lead me to play every move in a hurry, leading to a major mistake and I resigned.

If not for that move I made in the last minute, I would have won.

I don't know about the second game, but at least I would have won that game.

And I would be feeling much better.

But I lost.

I couldn't keep my promise I made in my last post.

Failure.

I guess for the time being, I'll distance myself from weiqi. I'll find other ways to entertain myself. There are other methods to enjoy life.

Congrats to whoever got selected.


PS Who knows maybe this incident will affect my decision to go to which university, and affect my future.

Pending Results

Finished 2 days of selection tournament. The result: me, JC and Yuxiang all lost one game each, to one another, hence we have to go through another round of play-off. It's not the best result, but at least there is still hope for me. Yes, there is still some.

I'm not really happy with the games played on this two days. When I lost to JC on the first day I thought everything would be over, but then Yuxiang won JC in the second round. That's when I thought that there is still chance for me. And in the end, I really won YX, leading to a tie-break. However the game with YX was quite frightening. I was leading all the way until almost end-game, when I made a mistake and a lot of my seeds got killed. If YX didn't run out of time I would have lost, albeit by a little. It was so scary! I swear I'll never play a move without thinking again.

The 2 days of selection showed me that my hopes are not zero. I can still win if I play properly and grab the chance. The last showdown is on this coming Wednesday, when we will play two games. We will draw lots first and two players will play against each other, then the winner will play against the other guy. Once again I won't have time to prepare because I'm staying in all the way until Wednesday (I'm even going straight to Bishan from camp!!). Let's hope I can rest well on these few days, and am able to give my best on Wednesday.

Sudden News

This Monday, just before I was going to book in to camp at night, SWA gave me a call. They told me that I was selected for World Amateur Cup selection tournament, held this weekend (so fast???). Okay, this was just as what I expected, maybe a bit too last minute. But then they told me that there were 8 people going for the tournament, and the 8 includes those that didn't even go for the Whompoa Cup last year.

According to the usual rules, only those Singapore citizens who got first 4 in the Whompoa Cup held every year can go for the selection tournament next year. I asked James about it, and he said that SWA has changed the rules after some meetings. Why then, may I ask, that we were never informed? There wasn't any info about the selection tournament last year, neither did the registration form of Whompoa Cup state anything. How come they made the decisions without telling us anything? Isn't this a very important new rule?

Okay, about the rule itself. So every year SWA is going to choose 4 more other than those who won in Whompoa Cup to participate in this tournament, depending on their past performances in international competitions. But then what about new guys who want to join the competition? If it's always the same guys who go for the selection tournament then new guys will never make it for international competitions (World Amateur, I mean). They should also be given a chance to join the selection tournament also. Hence by choosing more winners from a certain tournament it will be much more fair than having SWA choose the participants among themselves.

Haiz... Today the competition will start, and I will have to play against the other 7 players in two days. I didn't expect this selection to be such a tough one, and there are so many strong players involved. I also didn't prepare well, plus the fact that immediately after I received the notice I had to stay in in camp until Friday. I'm losing more and more confidence and being more and more nervous. Maybe I will lose this chance again. I haven't played serious Weiqi for a very long time now...

Luckily this weekend is our book-out weekend. So I will still go for the selection tournament and see what I can do. If I get chosen, it will be the best. If I didn't.. Hmm... Maybe I'll just hide one corner and cry.

Final Fantasy IV - Prelude (Piano Collections)

This is not the end. It's just the beginning.
This is not the finale. It's only a Prelude.

Prelude

From Final Fantasy IV Piano Collections

First piano video of the year! This piece is harder than it seems! I tried filming this one countless times, and still couldn't play it perfectly. It's so easy to make mistakes... In the end I chose one that's more decent. If I have the chance I will make a new one in the future after my skills improve.

I like the general Prelude music in all Final Fantasy Games. I have to say this one is one of the best adaptations.

To my surprise there were people who actually subscribed to my videos on youtube! I never thought that there would be people who'd do that...

First Random Post in 2009

Today is the 11th of January 2009. On the 11th January 2008, I was enlisted into SAF.

Meaning?

I am a ONE YEAR SOLDIER now!!!!!! WOW!!!!! OMG!!!!!CLAP CLAP!!!!!!

10 more months to go!!!! OMG!!!!!!



Okay, now about the sad stuff.

At the end of last year, few of our guys got caught by an officer playing PSP while on duty. Hence, our OC has passed down a rule: no more PSP in camp. Yes, for our unit, no one will be allowed to bring PSP into the camp anymore...

This is so saddening... I bought the PSP last year just for the purpose of playing in camp, and now they don't allow it anymore. Well actually it's not a permanent ban. It just lasts for 6 months. But 6 months is quite "permanent" to me... Now I won't get to enjoy playing new and old games that I like in camp for months... Luckily I still have my iPod Touch. Hoo~

On the bright side, I don't need to search for games to download anymore. This will save up some time for me. (To put more videos into my iPod Touch... LOL)



This new year is definitely the worst new year for me. And I'm referring to both the Chinese one and the universal one. On 31st December 2008, 11.59 PM, I was sitting right in front of the X-ray machine (that's where we do our duty), doing my countdown. The machine was the first "thing" I wished Happy New Year to... For the Chinese New Year, I can't come home on the eve, and from 初一 to 初七 I only have 4 days outside camp. To be exact, it's 2 and a half days, because I only can reach home in the afternoon... Sad, isn't it? I've never celebrated new year in this way before... I can't even have my reunion dinner on the eve... ToT

Luckily this is the only new year I spend in camp. If there's another one I'll definitely complain until crazy, and if they don't let us off I shall AWOL as a platoon.