Remember

Hello! It's been such a hectic end of the month as usual. And I'm just taking time off to talk about the great music of August! It's been such a musiclicious month I would say.

Great Music of August:

- re:member by Olafur Arnalds

- Bloom by Troye Sivan

- 5 Dollars by Christine and The Queens (or should I say Chris?)

- Forgotten Love by Aurora

Song of the month: re:member by Olafur Arnalds (the whole album!)

Alright there are two albums that I've been looking forward to listening! They are re:member by Olafur Arnalds and Bloom by Troye Sivan. I think Olafur's new album is such a brilliant album. It's truly a work of art and definitely one of my favourite of the year. And Troye's second album is also great. He has grown a lot from his first album I must say. So much maturity in bloom I'd say.

Okay let's talk about re:member first. This album is one of my most anticipated album, since he released the title track of the album re:member back in April. re:member is such a beautiful song and it is one of my most played song of this year. To me it's a song that reminds me to go back to myself. That whatever thoughts, feelings that I have in my mind isn't a representation of who I really am.

And since then I've been excited to hear what the whole album is about. I think it's a great album with a mix of emotional-invoking songs (like Saman, oh goodness) and also those songs that kept you up on your mind (ekki hugsa and inconsist). The whole blend of piano and other instrumentations, his Stratus project, and the electronic sounds patches cohesively like a beautiful tapestry.

As for Troye Sivan bloom, I was also excited thanks to his first single "My my my!" earlier this year. It's such a bop and definitely one of the best pop songs of the year too. The opening track to the new album, "Seventeen" perfectly describes the album with the line "boy becomes a man now". I think Troye has matured a lot in this album from Blue Neighbourhood. He has a bright journey ahead of him.

September is going to be exciting too because Christine and The Queens (or should I say Chris haha) is releasing her new album, which I've preordered mwahaha. She released a new song with a video called 5 Dollars and I think it's such a catchy song. Also Chris looks so hot in a suit in the video heh.

And Aurora also released a new single from her upcoming album titled Forgotten Love! It's a great song and as usual, I love her voice. She hasn't released any information about the new album yet but she mentioned that it will be released in autumn? Or at the end of the year so yes, looking forward to that! :)

Alright that's all for this great music of August! 4 more months to the end of 2018 and of course, many more music to discover and enjoy. Kinda looking forward to the remaining of the year where more albums that I've been waiting to be released! Hope August have been awesome for you. Here's to a superb September ahead for all of us. Time to close another year well.

A Special Mention

The 1st of September will mark the 10th year that I have been writing here. And before I mark this date, I think there is someone I need to give thanks to for making this possible. Of course, anyone can blog for the same amount of duration (or longer obviously). But hey, I am not a blogger, let alone a writer. Neither is this blog of mine some famous blog that people read. I am just someone who enjoys writing. Although I don't write stories like great writers out there, I simply enjoy writing. Whatever is on my mind, the things I experienced, the things I did today, memories, and so on. And if there is one person I should give my thanks to, for giving me this joy of writing, it would by my English teacher, Mrs Lee!

Alright before I begin, let us all travel back 13 years ago, back in 2005 when I took my PSLE. 

In primary school, English is one of my favourite subjects. As someone who doesn't speak English as his native language, I struggled quite a lot when I entered primary school back in 2003. My English was pretty much sub-par. I have lots of grammatical errors and my vocabulary was super limited. I took up tuition with my sister's GP tutor (yes, a GP tutor, giving tuition to a primary school kid) who really improved my English in the matter of 1 year-ish. He made me read books, and write down every word that I don't know the meaning of. He made me write the meanings of the words and asked me to form sentences every single week! My vocabulary improved immensely, and quickly.

Thanks to him, my English went from just-passes to As. Even my teacher was surprised. Special shoutout to Mr Peter, he made me enjoy English in my primary school days.

Fast forward to 2006, when I entered secondary school, English was a whole different feat. It was in a different format, there was letter writing, formats to follow in essays, and you also need to be extra tactful when doing comprehension. I struggled quite a bit in the first two years of secondary school. English became a subject I didn't enjoy. In fact in secondary two, it became a "chore" for me because I realised I have to do well in English, because it's the L1 of my L1R5/R4 of the O Level grading system.

I no longer enjoyed English as a subject, although I still love it as a language. It felt like I don't have a passion for it. I took every test/exams with the hope and idea that I was just doing it because I have to do well for my O Levels. There was no fire, no passion in learning it. It was kind of made worst by the idea that in secondary 3, I was put in a class of people who do really well for English. 

But Mrs Lee changed everything I guess?

I can still vividly remember that our first English lesson was about essay writing. But to my horror, I remember the first assignment we got was to write an essay based on the one-word title composition topic. The one-word title was always the topic I have avoided the most. Number one, because I can't write stories. Number two, I am not a creative writer. And number three I've always felt that discursive or descriptive essays are a safer and better essay topic to write. But it's an assignment, and I couldn't run away from it. Oh, I can also still vividly remember the title: It was "obsession".

Even though Mrs Lee did tell us that we can also write it as a discursive essay about obsession, I decided to challenge myself and write a story. I wrote a story inspired by the Detective Conan Manga, about a person obsessed with arson hahaha. It was a very straightforward story, I didn't have a lot of descriptive words and my essay lacked in depth. If I'm not wrong I scored a just-pass for it.

I remember when I got my paper back, there were a lot of red markings. Grammatical errors, wrong sentence structures and so on. I felt a bit defeated, especially when I know that some of my friends scored really well and wrote amazing stories! Mrs Lee made all of us re-write our essays with our corrections. After doing so, I remember she picked a few of the best essays and printed them for all of us. I was really impressed with the essays some of my friends wrote. And I was determined to have my essay printed out one day.

Essays after essays, Mrs Lee marked, corrected and also commented on our essays at the end of every essay. She stated what we could improve on, the mistakes we made, and also she circled sentences that she liked! There was one essay I wrote where she circled this whole paragraph and wrote "beautiful!" at the end of it. I was really happy seeing that red word on my paper heh.

She encouraged us to read more books, and she used to recommend us books to read at the end of every school semester, so that we can borrow them from the library to read over the holidays. I think my upper secondary school days were the period of time in my life which I read the most book! I used to read one book a week. Now it's so difficult to read a book in a month haha.

It felt quite amazing. How I become a person who avoided the one-word title compositions, to become a person who enjoys writing them! If it weren't for Mrs Lee who made me fall in love with the English language all over again haha.

There's also a special mention to Mrs Lee, although it's not essay related. I remember back in secondary 4, I always did badly for the summary part of EL Paper 2. All we have to do is to pick out 10 points of the comprehension passage and write them out in summary. But I was a stubborn kid who wrote everything in my own words, and change the meaning of the whole passage heh.

I remember one day after my EL mid-year exams, Mrs Lee called me personally and told me that I have failed the summary part of my SA1. And if I'm not wrong, I was the only one in my class who failed it heh. She told me that I have changed the whole meaning of the passage because I wrote everything in my own words, without referring to the important points of the passage. I was shocked really. 

And I remember during our French Leave, where we were given one month of self-study period before Os, Mrs Lee gave me like 10 practice papers. She knew that I often go back to school to study and she asked me to just do the summary part of the papers and gave it to her. My friends and I used to meet up with her for consultation during the French Leave period and she returned these 10 practice papers and thankfully, I scored well for the summary part!

O Levels came, and went by, and during the result release, I was delighted and flabbergasted) to see an A1 beside my English Language subject. Mind you, I have never scored an A in my life for English (except for PSLE). And I remember Mrs Lee just telling me with such excitement that I scored an A1 :')

I also remember how Mrs Lee gave each of us an exercise book as we entered Secondary 4. She simply asked us to do a journal every week, which she will read and reply to us at the end of every journal we wrote. We can write anything we want from school-related to anything else in life. I think this has also sparked my interest in journaling (I've been journaling for 8 years now).

Also I have to thank the Singapore education system? Where we are always asked to do a reflection after every activity. Since primary school days, I feel that we're always given this task. From a trip to Science centre, to camps, to SYF and so on. I know some of my friends always complain whenever we're given this task heh. They just do it half-heartedly and hand them up. But I personally enjoy doing this. And it has become a habit of mine now. I like to reflect on things.

Alright I am going to end off this post here. Once again I would like to give my heartfelt gratitude to my English teacher Mrs Lee for giving me this joy of writing. For re-kindling the fire in my heart when I seem to lose it back 11 years ago. I'm sorry that it took me ten years to write this out. But it's better late than never I guess! :P There is a quote by Henry Adams which says "A Teacher affects eternally; she can never know when her influence will stop" Well Mrs Lee, I didn't stop writing all these years hahaha. Although I'm getting busier these days and I don't think I can write as often as time moves on.

I'm not a blogger, let alone a writer. But looking back how I've been writing here for ten years... Hmm.

We're Here

Today I lost someone quite close to me and my family. Can't really pin-point our relationship, but well I see him almost everyday of the week and on most weekdays. So to know that he's no longer with us, the office will feel really empty. You see the thing I don't like about death isn't death itself, but the lingering emptiness that we will experience after the passing of a person. It's sad.

It's quite a sad Friday really. To wake up to such a devastating news. It's even more sad with the fact that we just had a conversation together the night before. There was no signs, no sickness and whatsoever. He left peacefully in his sleep. Even though he managed to wake up for the dawn prayers, mentioned by his wife. Went back to sleep and he left this world. Sigh...

Hearing the news of someone's passing always make me think about everything in life. About my life, about our existence here and so on. It's quite disheartening to remember everything that we know in life, will one day be forgotten, and one day be left alone by us as we leave this world behind. Yet the simple and obvious fact that we are here in this world is magnificent enough to ponder!

Death will come to us no matter what and no matter when. And the passing of someone is a bittersweet reminder of this fact. That nothing is permanent in this world and that we have to be ready I guess. Yet it seems pretty difficult for us to live our life to the fullest.

Someone said this to me yesterday:

"Why do people die? Because we are all born into this world"

Simple, yet deep. There are many different ways that we can all die from. Sickness, old age, accidents and suicide. Yet we all share one common cause: the fact that we are all here in this world.

Selamat Jalan Pak Bambang. 

Disappearing

Not sure why but I've been lacking motivation and inspiration to blog nowadas. Perhaps the fact that I've been quite busy in this week, and that I don't have time to blog, adds up to this feeling. Also I've been feeling unwell since Friday. Now I'm officially down with flu! Thanks to the very weird weather pattern these days. It's really hot in the afternoon, and really cold at night. Everyone's falling sick.

I find it ironic that this is happening as I inch closer to my blog's tenth anniversary heh. Ten years of writing and blogging here, things seem to slow down somehow. I still have yet to start on my "big" post! I hope to start soon. Maybe this week since we have the Hari Raya Haji holiday.

Okay maybe just gonna give a short update on what's going on so far!

We had the 7th month prayers for my grandparents, ancestors and my late aunt on Friday and Saturday :D It was nice for the family to gather for these two days. According to our tradition, we're supposed to do this prayer before the temple at my hometown does the prayer. Which usually happens on the 25th of the 7th Lunar month. It was a public holiday on Friday so it's a good date!

It's always nice for the family to gather together, the last time we did this was during my aunt's 100th day prayer I think. The next gathering will be on mid-autumn fest next month I guess.

Yup so far these are all the happenings haha. See, nothing much to talk about!

Alright I guess that's all for now. I want to head to bed earlier tonight. Time to rest up for the week ahead. Hope August has been treating you well. 11 more days to September. Whew.

Happy Birthday Indonesia

Happy Birthday Indonesia. 73 years of independence, here we are now. I hope you continue to prosper and grow as we go forward. May we continue to bless this gift of harmony that we are given. I hope we can live by our principle of growing strong in the midst of this wide diversity.

Selamat ulang tahun tanah air ku. Hiduplah Indonesia Raya.

7 years

Clementi circa 2011

I am one day late but anyway... Wishing Singapore a happy 53rd birthday! Just want to thank you for the sweet memories, and I'm always looking forward to spending some days back on the sunny island again with my friends. I've become busier now, so I don't go back as often as I did back 4 years ago. But it's alright, I think we're all adults now and we're all busy in our own ways :P

Anyway I was looking through some old photos last night. Because Singapore's National Day always makes me feel sentimental about Singapore hah. As I am using a new laptop, and I didn't transfer all the photos from my old one here, I was digging through my external hard drive to look at some photos that I took while I was in Singapore! Like the photo above, which was shot 7 years ago back in 2011!

Seven long but seemingly short years. And now Clementi has changed so much really. I took this photo from the old Clementi interchange. The temporary one that is. If I'm not wrong, that place has become a block of flats (or is it Condo?). There's a new feature thingy on the MRT line, and a new mall has popped in Clementi. The Clementi mall remains the same though haha.

I took this photo on a Saturday afternoon. I could still remember that afternoon, where I slept the day away hah. If I'm not wrong I overslept and woke up at like 11 AM I think. And I was just feeling really lazy to get out of the house to get food. I procrastinated a lot and eventually pulled myself out of the house to go to Clementi to have lunch. It was a sunny day as you can see, and I decided to bring my lomo camera with me. It was a wise decision I guess, cause now I have this photo!

So yeah, as much as this is a random snap of Clementi taken on a random Saturday afternoon, looking at how much things have changed, I feel kinda thankful to have snapped this photo! Photographs are a testament of a particular time that once stood still. This random moment has given me so much sentimentality and fuzzy feelings. And it definitely made me miss those good old days.

This year marked the 5th year that I went back home for good. Well yeah I do miss Singapore sometimes. I think the thing I missed the most about Singapore is the solitude. I miss the bus rides, the train rides, meeting my friends, going to school, and so on and forth. Life was simple back then, even though ironically I couldn't wait for time to fly so that I can graduate ASAP hah.

Last night made me feel thankful that I shot a lot of photos on my film camera. Not only that they give a whole different feel when you look at the photos again, but they have also become a proof. A testament, about a moment that I once experienced. And most of the time these moments become moments that I will miss in the future. I think I should take more photos now.

Oh well life has to go on. Reminiscing about the past always feels good though.

Ray of Light

No idea why I am giving this title post "Ray of Light". Couldn't think of any other title to start the post but I just recently re-listened to this favourite album from Madonna of mine! And hopefully I'll see some ray of light soon. It's August now can you believe it haha. 5 more months to the end of 2018! And a new year is upon us soon. So crazy to think of this fact really. Time just seems to fly faster and faster as we grow older. Cause well, we're running "out of time" of course. We have nowhere else to go.

Anyway it's been quite an alright 7 months of the year actually. Although like I said above, I still hope that I get to see some ray of light as we move closer to the end of the year. A sign, a breakthrough, whatever you call it. Feels quite tiring sometimes to hold on to this weird feeling.

Hope to shake it out.

Anyho, August also means that... It's one more month till my 10 year anniversary blogging! Whoop whoop. Crazy, it's been ten years since I started writing here. I never expected to arrive here to be honest, I've always thought that I will stop halfway. No one blogs and no one reads blogs nowadays anyway. But nahh, I love writing. This has become a journal and just a place I seek comfort in.

Well obviously whatever things I was thinking of to do throughout this year, to commemorate this milestone didn't happen haha. But I do have some things in mind. I have a couple of posts to write to celebrate this, and even a special dedication post! There is one person I have to thank for making me fall in love with writing, even up to this day. I shall keep you updated once the post is up.

Alright that's all for now I guess. I think I'm going to start writing these posts, so that I won't take a long time to write everything in one shot haha. Yes, be prepared for a long post. Here's to an Awesome August for all of us! And here's to more years of blogging, I hope.