gender
male
age
21
dob
7-11, it's a store and more :p
horoscope
scorpio, tough one eh?
hometown
teck whye, singapore
location
johns hopkins, baltimore, maryland
occupationstudent
yes yes
good music, good food, sea breeze, happy times with family and friends, cool weather,
no no
backstabbers, dogs that bark for nothing, regulars, hypocrites, misbehaving children, humid weather
sports i play
badminton, swim, gym, cycling, kayaking
listens to
jay chou, david tao, chinese and english pop, chinese orchestral, rock, r&b, world, inspirational, classical artistes
msn
wujassng@hotmail.com
icq 44783954
aim
aidanwu84
::Quote::
"You know, you only have half a heart, so even if you do something whole-heartedly, it's still half-hearted."
Me to Alex one day on 151
::calendar::
29.05.06 IBN Attachment
06.08.06 Concert@SCH
11.08.06 HCJC Booth
19.08.06 JHU BBQ
04.09.06 Back to JHU
The fireworks at the Esplanade were cancelled, i heard on tv just now. hmm, so i guess i probably won't be going down since the countdown is probably gonna be cancelled too. Sian, but again, it doesn't seem very right to be celebrating too..
I'm sure everyone has heard of the earthquake in Banda Aceh yesterday. My sympathy goes out to the helpless victims who can do nothing about this unfortunate natural disaster thrown upon their already frail shoulders. Is nature throwing us a hint?
___________________
On happier times, finally met Watson yesterday after a long hiatus! He still looks the same :) I bought a new phone cover at Toa Payoh. We decided to dine at Crystal Jade Toa Payoh, and the moment we walked in, I saw 3 of Watson's ex-classmates there, Chi Sheng, Alvin and Junyu. Haha. So coincidental, 'cos their class just had a class gathering at lunch time. So we sat together. Despite the initial awkwardness, as I don't really know them well, the conversation topics didn't dry up, and I think they're pretty okay people.
We had to force this shot out :)
Oh and did I mention Ronald Susilo and his beau Li Jiawei was sitting at the table opposite us? We only found out when we left the restaurant and Chi Sheng mentioned it matter-of-fact-ly, as if we all saw them in the first place. Haha. Susilo looked kind of self-conscious, for someone who should be used to being in the limelight. Jiawei looked kinda aunty-ish.
___________________
After that went shopping for some canned cocktail for the BBQ cum potluck at Matthew's place. I didn't find out till yesterday morning that it was not solely a 01S79 gathering; he invited his church friends too. Haha, I have to say his friends are indeed quite happening, throwing each other into the pool to say the least.
The food was quite good, and the company was exceptional. Let's see who went: Eugene, Alvin, Shunting, Wanyi, Devin, Shermin and Isabel all the way from Seattle. The place is located in a very nice environment, windy and open.
This is the most representative shot I could find in my Minolta, taken by Shermin. We always forgot about Eugene who was kindly cooking for us!
And here are the ladies
Sometimes I love my cam.. apprentices and the chef. Who's who?
And sometimes I don't.
But one thing's for sure, Devin loves BBQ.
Thanks for the quiksilver belt Alvin. I needed one.
We were all laughing ourselves to death when we heard about Wanyi's adventurous exploits in her mother's womb 2 decades ago. :P Actually, some of us were laughing more at Isabel's laughter than at that. Haha, the effects of vodka.
After that we adjourned to the table tennis room, where we had the Olympic beginners' event in full swing. Actually, it seemed more like the Paralympics. Haha, I am hopeless in table tennis. So are some of the rest. Hehe.
Eh where's the ball?
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AidanWu was here on 11:58 am
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25.12.04
Merry X'mas to all. Hohoho..
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AidanWu was here on 4:12 pm
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23.12.04
Finally I ate rice for dinner! Solid rice! Ok, I am exaggerating. But at least I can more or less yawn without worrying about stretching the wound. But I don't like feeling the threads of the stitches in my mouth with my tongue.
I am bored stiff at home. Yesterday I took a walk downstairs while my bro went jogging. It felt somewhat like I was in retirement. The doctor advised against exercise, but intepreting that as vigorous exercise, I walked a couple of rounds, and passed a few elderly men making their rounds as well. Then I walked to the pond below my place, where I saw a fish dying, its eyes all puffy and bloated. :(
____________
Merry X'mas to everyone! Although I don't celebrate it, I know it's the most important festival to many people I know. It's not just because they're Christians that they celebrate it, it kinda marks the end of another year, a year which somehow we have all survived despite the tribulations and setbacks. Maybe this association is more suitable for New Year's Day, but *shrugs* do you think I care? Haha. All I know is that they are happy and I am happy because they are happy.
And this is one reason I am quite happy about doing night duty on X'mas Day. 'Cos I know there are friends who really want this day for themselves, and I don't. New Year's Day is much more important to me.
Class 95's playing some really old familiar tunes now..'That's what friends are for..', 'I hope you stay the same..' Is it at this time of the year that such songs mean that much more to us? A time of uncertainty that the new year brings to us. A time of realising that this year is up, and whatever we want to achieve will have to be done in the new year.
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AidanWu was here on 8:44 pm
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21.12.04
Seen in a toilet in Alexandra Hospital:
"We aim to please,
You aim too, please.."
hehe
i love sun yan zi's 'wo de ai'.
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AidanWu was here on 10:28 am
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20.12.04
Just plucked my right lower wisdom tooth and one right upper useless one. One word: OUCH. It's been 6 hours since the operation and it still hurts. At least the bleeding is not so severe now. :(
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AidanWu was here on 4:17 pm
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19.12.04
There's some Christmas celebration going on downstairs at the CCK Community Club. I wonder why Christmas is always celebrated early, and just a few weeks ago, Deepavali was celebrated like 2 weeks after Deepavali itself? And they closed Orchard tonight for Christmas celebrations; did they close Sims Avenue for Hari Raya?
________________
Spent most of my day at Hsinghai practice. We're playing rather technical pieces for the upcoming concert in January, which include the 4-movement <>, Chinese orchestra version though, for those who are Vivaldi fans. Another piece is the 5-movement <>, which roughly translates to "East South West North Central". Bleah. Also, the finale piece will be the one that won TENG Chamber Ensemble its first prize.
________________
Hung out yesterday with William, Louis and Raphael. Watched Ocean 12, although I didn't manage to watch the vcd that Colin passed to me just yesterday morning before 3:45pm at Lido, I found it quite good, thanks to William 'briefing' me about Ocean 11. After that we met Louis at Kino where William was desperately trying to find a gift for his boss. Haha, come to think of it, I have to get one for my unit's stupid gift exchange too. Darn. But at least it's for a fellow nsf, not some crappy aunty. Kino's having 20% storewide discounts! Too bad I didn't bring enough cash yesterday, that's why I put little effort into finding "The Extended Phenotype", which I really should get soon.
Digressing a little, I finally finished Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress", a thriller about the most serious snafu (go check this word out at dictionary.com) US intelligence has ever faced. Decided to move on to something heavier - "Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud" by Sun Shuyun.
Anyway, we decided to take a couple of shots while waiting for Raphael.
After the star arrived, we adjourned to Newton Food Center, where we had a real feast.
What can you see? Hokkien mee, chicken wings, roti john, sambal stingray, popiah and oh-lua (oyster omelette). Plus the satay had not arrived yet at press time. :p
Ok here's a close-up.
I deserve some advertising fee from the hawkers man. |
AidanWu was here on 8:54 pm
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17.12.04
In camp now. On night shift today. BORING.
Hahaa today was a gastronomic delight at home! 4 of my aunts came over. For lunch, two of them whipped up some commendable spaghetti in tomato sauce. The minced beef and sausage bits were generously ubiquitious, and very fragrant. I had like 2.5 servings! And between meals, we sampled the rather cheap kueh lapis I bought from the Caltex petrol station outside ACS that day, and it was not bad too.
After that we got down to preparing the dinner dish - Abacus seeds, a Hakka delicacy. I really regret forgetting snapping some shots of it before eating it. Haha. Anyway, basically it's a traditional dish that consists of a yam paste shaped into individual abacus-seed-shaped bite-sized lumps, stir-fried chopped leek, carrots, sliced mushrooms, sliced pork, garlic, fish sauce, a special kind of tofu (the orange skin kind), and dried shrimps for the extra ommph factor. Yummy! It's a very good communal dish, communal in the sense that everyone plays a part in making it, be it frying, moulding the yam paste, or shaping the yam paste into 'abacus seeds', and of course, eating it. :p The only other dish I can think of that achieves the same social effect is the popiah. Haha, in fact we just had a popiah party at my place last week, which was very successful.
Well, ending the day with some very low-class kway chup in camp doesn't seem too high a price to pay. Kway chup without kway, without intestines.
Haha, talking abt food, don't eat the Southern Crispy Chicken at Cafe Cartel Raffles City. It's a new addition to their menu, which I tried last week. Well, of course unless you happen to like your fried chicken crispy on the outside.... and bloody on the inside. Man, the blood's the reason I can't stomach steak, 'cos good steaks are usually medium-rare, and medium-rare means bloody. But, bloody crispy fried chicken?! Eew. And to think my father was telling us how he used to eat dried pig's blood when he was young. It's like tofu.. urgh.
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AidanWu was here on 9:36 pm
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Awaiting the results..
Judges and TENG after the results were announced
Xian Yue Rules
Celebrating at Crystal Jade Toa Payoh
The other half..
Satiated! Must remind me to try the 'chao shou' next time!
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AidanWu was here on 9:24 pm
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16.12.04
It's barely 9pm and I am sleepy already. Reached home at almost 1am this morning and was damn pissed with all the taxi drivers on the island. Alright, the Prize Winners Concert was alright, ended at around 10, and the photographer from the Singapore Press Holdings took some crappy photos that didn't even appear in today's Life! article on the TENG Ensemble. Haha, but apparently it's going to appear on Sat's Lian He Zao Bao. So after loading the instruments on to the lorry it was already 10:45pm and we headed to Shenton Way to find a taxi back to ACS. And we passed like a hundred cabs that were either hired, on call, or simply didn't bother to stop for us! It wasn't even close to midnight lor, can't expect us to wait one hour for a taxi right. We walked from SCH all the way to Lao Pa Sat, and in the end we just walked all the way to Raffles Place MRT and took the MRT home instead; by 11:30pm they have already unloaded all the instruments at the AC side.
Anyway, the competition was a good experience on the overall. I really hope the NAC will sponsor our visit to China, especially after 3 judges from Xian, Shandong and one more place I don't know, extended invitations to our ensemble via the senior management of NAC. It'll be really fun, and grand!
_________
My wisdom tooth operation is on Monday, and I think I am not giving myself enough mental preparation for it. Aiyah, really troublesome, had to re-schedule my dental appointments at PLAB because of it. Now I have appointments scheduled all the way to February next year!
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AidanWu was here on 8:46 pm
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13.12.04
Some old pictures..
At Marina Square after dinner at Kenny Rogers
Isn't Biopolis beautiful?
This should convince you.
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AidanWu was here on 5:24 pm
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At last everything is over. And the TENG Chinese Chamber Ensemble emerged the Champions! Pardon our behaviour at the Conference Hall when the results were announced 'cos everyone wanted so much for ding xiao yan to lose. They had the audacity to take over the room that we registered for in advance 5 minutes before we arrived at SCH. Well well, it's a lot of politics. And Ms Ding wasn't exactly very polite when she demanded for our instructor, Mr. Shen, to help her percussion instruments.
Well, there's a lot of bad blood against her but it's probably the same scenario on the other side. My mom overheard one of them saying, "At least we got the 800 bucks from the Best Performance of a Local Composition Award, so overall we have 3,800 bucks, just 200 shy of the first prize." Isn't that utterly shallow? TENG Chamber Ensemble didn't participate just for the money; of course, undeniably we needed the money to recoup our expenses (or investment), as we were probably the only ensemble who didn't have a SPONSOR.
I hope the audience were receptive towards our symphonic poem. It's a rather avant garde piece with many Western composition techniques applied, luckily we pulled it off. It had better! With so many late nights spent at the ACS music studio. But, I will definitely miss going back for practice.
Right, now we have to perform for the Prize-Winners Concert on Wed. And before that, we are going to Crystal Jade Toa Payoh to celebrate later.
Darn, supposed to go east coast for cycling just now but it was shelved last minute 'cos the competition ended so late! :(
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AidanWu was here on 5:11 pm
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10.12.04
The preliminary rounds of the ensemble open category was yesterday evening.. and we got into the finals! Together with Hwa Chong Alumni and the Ding Xiao Yan Ruan Ensemble. Well, at least we didn't practise the finals songs for nothing. After that we went to Cafe Cartel for dinner with our instructor.
There was some controversy surrounding the finalists for some of the categories, well, but competitions are competitions for a reason, there's no fixed 'criteria' in that sense, but rather any criteria is flexible, and dependant largely on the 5 or so judges, who as human beings, all harbor some form of prejudice to different extents. And since the competitors have taken part with the knowledge of who the judges were going to be, they should already have a silent understanding that they accept whatever decisions the judges make. If you're not happy with the choice of judges, then don't take part la! Or complain to the National Arts Council.
Just came back from Alexandra Hospital where I made an appointment for my wisdom tooth operation on the 20th. I have to remove two upper 'useless' teeth in addition to the two wisdom teeth, and the doctor split it into two separate sessions. Argh.. two times the pain. But, two times the MC. Hehe.
Today's weather is pretty warm, in contrast with the previous week of gloomy drizzly weather. Going for a swim now.
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AidanWu was here on 1:48 pm
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5.12.04
Yesterday I watched part of this very touching series - Oprah in Africa. For those who know who Oprah Winfrey is, no more need be said. For those who don't, read this TIME profile of her. In short, Oprah bought Christmas presents for 50,000 African children. Her story: she was a poor 8 year old whose mother told her she would not have a Christmas present that year as the family was too poor. As an 8yo who didn't know better, she asked, 'What about Santa Claus?' Mom said, 'We're too poor to pay for his services.' So a very disappointed Oprah was visibly delighted, and touched, when a stranger dropped by on Christmas Eve with loads of presents and Christmas goodies for her family, so that they could have a respectable Christmas feast. This one event changed her life forever, and she vowed to pass on the kindness.
This is one fine example of an anecdote I heard from someone before, which in essence relays the message: Pass on your kindness to someone who needs it, and you would have repaid my kindness in full.
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AidanWu was here on 3:27 pm
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Yawwwwwn. Early in the morning woken up by some stupid Singapore workout at the community center downstairs. Must they really raise the volume to such a high level? I bet the whole Teck Whye was jolted awake by the energetic but irritating lady leading the workout.
Reached home damn late yesterday, 'cos of practice again. Practised on Friday night as well. On Thu we practised the Whole day, from 9am to 10pm! Went down to SCH for a sound test in the afternoon, while waiting for our turn we decided to have a quick lunch. A few of us 'defected' from the main group who ate just across the road; we ventured a little further to this hawker center just off Amoy Street, where the food's cheaper, and possibly better. Saw a freaky macho mary there, body builder's build, but long hair and sissy behaviour when we were about to leave. We half-ran away when he looked at us. The sound test was alright, everyone seemed rather demoralised after that, but in the evening we had an inspirational session with our instructor, and everyone was hopeful once again.
There's something I wanna mention though. The RJC ensemble was before us, and with nothing against this group, how can one of them claim to have forgotten to bring his pipa for the rehearsal and asked audaciously to borrow ours? No sense of responsibility at all. Plus this is a competition. Who in the right frame of mind would lend a prized possession to you in the hope that you damage it accidentally? Same thing for the xylophone. RJC assumed that it would be provided by SCO, and when learning it was not to be, wanted to borrow ours again. Actually, lending it to them wouldn't matter much, as how hard is it to sabotage a xylophone? But, the peeve is the assumption that it would be provided in the first place.
Just one more week and it will be over. I am quite tired of practising everyday, but it's a responsibility and also a personal challenge that I've chosen to undertake, and I don't think I will regret it.
Anyway, I have been on leave since Wed, and since there was no practice on Wed, I decided to drop by Biopolis, and asked Richie along. We went at around 10 plus, and the first place we went was Centros, where we expected to find Celine, our 'nanny' and hopefully she would have brought us around (gladly). Alas, she was at a meeting that just started. So we trooped over to the IMCB where I thought my cousin was working at. After changing for a pass, I gave her a dial and realised that we were at the wrong building. SO feeling silly, we walked over to the Genome instead. She showed us around the labs she worked at. I've forgotten most of the instruments she introduced to us. Oops..
After that we went to Holland V for lunch. Walked around the whole stretch before settling for the hawker center in the middle. And then later we realised there was no bus back to Biopolis from where we dropped! So we trudged all the way back there on foot.
After resting a while in the auditorium which was carelessly left open, we went to find my mentor, one hour early. Luckily he was there, and very receptive towards us. The only two instruments I remember him telling us about are the Zeta-sizer and a in-vivo fluorescence microscope. The former measures the zeta potential of a particular species (usually molecular), which is the surface charge on that molecule, as well as its molecular weight (proportional to size). These two functions are particularly important in determining if a certain artificially engineered vector can be taken up living cells via endocytosis. The latter is, according to him, the only such machine in Singapore! It can actually observe living tissue without having to get samples from the organism. But the organism has to be fed with a fluroscent probe like GFP for e.g.
Anyway, we left soon after, having learnt that my mentor, from PRC, got his Phd in faraway Sweden. Wow, imagine going to France and presenting my doctoral thesis in French!
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AidanWu was here on 9:22 am
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1.12.04
Was on half day leave on monday and tuesday. Went for Teng practice on Sunday and Monday, both ended so late! So shack after that, my eyebags were rather obvious. And unsightly.
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AidanWu was here on 5:46 pm
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::Note::
You can click on the 'Stop' button on your browser to turn off the background music accompanying this blog.
::taggy::
::current faves::
Jay Chou - Nocturne, Fa Ru Xue, Qi Li Xiang
Guang Liang - Shao Nian
Liang Jing Ru - Yong Qi
Gigi Leung - Dan Xiao Gui
Lin Jun Jie - Yi Qian Nian Yi Hou
Stephanie Sun - Ting Jian, Wo De Ai, Tong Lei
Li Sheng Jie - Yuan Zou Gao Fei
Liu Zhong Yi - Ji Ju Xie
Yanni - Almost a Whisper
