No, it doesn't end tonight.

As of right now, 114,000 people have died because of the earthquake and tsunami floods. And its quite likely that that number would rise as more bodies begin to get washed up onto the shores. "The hunt for survivors is drawing to a close." Television screens are filled with pictures of beach shores lined with corpses, traumatised survivors; the aftermath of this disaster. Lives of millions were changed instantly that fateful day as countries declared a state of disaster. Yet, in the nearby island of Singapore, life goes on just as though nothing happened. Sure there are the news reports on television, newspapers, and the efforts of getting donations but that's about it.

The nonchalance of Singaporeans really sucks. I'm not saying that i'm not guilty of it, but its sort of like, "nobody cares, why should I?" Maybe because the disaster didn't affect Singapore directly, so naturally we wouldn't really care about it. Take this for an example. In a huge, crowded shopping mall, the fire alarm sounds. What does everybody do? Rush to the nearest exit? Quite the contrary. Carry on shopping, eating, chatting like the alarm wasn't even there. If a car alarm sounded in a car park, would passerbys actually go and check to see if everything was alright? Doubtful. Sad but true.

Guess what? Just in the duration of typing this post, the death toll has risen to 119,000. While one guy is sitting down, sheltered, typing away at his keyboard, 5,000 people more were found dead. Quite a statistic, you think?

As Singapore parties the year away, and celebrates the arrival of 2005 with dancing, shouting, games and booze, families of the 119,000 mourn their losses. They probably care more about how many seconds of 2004 are left than how many lives are left to be saved. "Life can be really unfair..." That's probably what those affected are feeling right now. They have to suffer all this shit, while others just party on like nothing happened. How they would wish they could swap places.

And by the way, its now up to 123,000, and i've got a feeling its not going to stop rising just yet.

[EDIT]
I just saw something that really, really disgusted me. I saw a poll being taken. The question was, "Will the Asian earthquake and tsunami disaster hurt tourism in Asia more than SARS did last year?" Seriously, at a time like this, should we really care about how this will affect tourism? Like, who gives a fuck about tourism when there are lives at stake? I don't know... Maybe tourism really is that important. But to me it isn't. Worse still, about 1,500 people have already voted on that poll. I couldn't even bring myself to think about what i'd put as my answer. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

It's been a while. And it's going to be a while longer before you get a proper entry. Super shagged after last night. Guess my staying-awake endurance isn't that great afterall. Whatever. Here's wishing people like you Merry Christmas. You're Happy New Year will come in a week. Cheers.

Five days and four nights with the team has been tiring to say the least. Didn't get sufficient sleep each night and some of you would know how much I need to sleep. Even 8 hours isn't quite enough for me. Don't think I even hit 7 hours on any night. Good thing there's nothing on tomorrow, time to catch up on my beauty sleep. Nice, big bed, proper pillow, and no irritating wake-up calls at 7 in the morning. Now that's the life.

Had a couple or more shopping sprees at humongous shopping centres. Couldn't even see all the shops. Just not enough time. Or maybe i'm a slow shopper. metro, hmm... Left the bargaining at Chinatown to the pros. Chinese isn't really my forte, and English can't really get you far. Got myself a couple of t-shirts, an OAKLEY wallet, a pouch and a piece of string in all. Cheap things attract me. Surprisingly I didn't buy any gum, and only had one stick in the 5 days. Wonder why...

Blackjack deep into the nights in makeshift gambling dens. Despite bringing an incomplete deck of cards to Malaysia, we made do with a 3 ringgit deck bought from the store across the road. Won quite a bit, but unfortunately the winnings are divided by two back in Singapore. Actually more than two. Oh well it doesn't matter, I spent everything already. At a point of time there were at least ten people in the game. Quite funky.

Shaving cream & toothpaste pranks at 3am saw more than 5 victims, myself included. Breaking into toilets when showering was in progress; armed with cameras and handphones. Mattresses propped up against doors and strwen along the corridor. Some people just couldn't get pranked. How tragic.

Food was aplenty and the quality of it varied. There was the good shit and the shit. Dined at A&W for the first time in a long time. Missed them curly fries and root beer. Had some Mozza Burger which wasn't the best of choices but the root beer + vanilla icecream made up for it. Once again, cheap.

Mixed feelings about Sunway Lagoon. The TOMAHAWK was good shit and just one roller-coaster actually got me that bit excited. Missed that feeling of an adrenaline rush and a dash of nausea. One thing that did attract my attention was that angmoh. Like whoa. I hardly take notice of angmoh's, except those more famous like Gisele and Maria. Ooh... This angmoh was eyecandy-worthy. Couldn't get a picture though, what a waste.

That's more or less my five days.

Away til the 17th.

Training on Wednesday was, as planned, light. Followed by a rather depressing lunch caused by mis-ordering food. Herbal mutton soup just isn't my favourite. Video, then headed across the road the PSA for free Starbucks coffee. They were having some Christmas Open House thingy that day from 5pm to 7pm and were giving away free coffee. Too good to be true? Believe it. Of course being the Singaporeans that everyone in the queue are, the queue stretched from the humble ground floor counter across the hall and to the lift lobby, where we started to queue. Its free afterall. Singaporeans just have nothing better to do. Finally got our free drinks then sat down for a bit before deciding to get another cup. Queued again but not for as long as the first round. Well, I really had nothing better to do. So why not waste my evening away standing in line for a nice cold mocha frap?

Thursday was light again, then a proper lunch this time round. It's called MUTTON STEW. Video again then to town to collect Mum's book from American Club. Doughnut's make good snacks. Then went to Holland Village and met bestfriend Jill for Starbucks(again). No free coffee this time round though, just a $5 voucher. Met Sean, Jeremy and Kaijin there. Haven't seen kj in ages, but he's still the same. Nice phone, btw. Took damn long deciding what to order, and even longer to realise we weren't in the queue. Talked, laughed, decorated spectacles and handphone profiles too. Then to Windmill for dinner and more laughs. Some people are just hopeless when it comes to NOT laughing. Apparently giant goldfishes in small fishbowls is funny. Mmm, quite funny. Oh, bumped into Kim as well.

Thng and Zhaoyuan came over after that for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and NeedForSpeed: Underground. Breakfast the next morning courtesy of Thng (I did help). Eggs, sausages and chocolate milk. Shiok... Note to self: Plastic cannot go into the microwave. Went down to the pool to suntan. The sun started playing hide and seek but it was better than nothing. Swam a bit, searched for pendants and metal things inside and slacked in the baby pool. Back up again and lunch, again courtesy of Thng but this time I helped more. Barbeque ribs(microwaved) and pizza(frozen). Quite a combination but it was good.

Friends make the world go round.

Maria Sharapova's legs can rival Gisele Bundchen's. Too bad she's taller than me, which leaves her no chance to marry me.

Making decisions can be really tough at times. Especially when regardless of the decision you make, it would result in at least one party getting upset and disappointed. So in other words, it's a no-win situation. Well, on the brighter side, you get to please someone. Nevertheless, you're still the loser. Sometimes I feel that I made the right choice, sometimes not. The whole ordeal is getting me really dodgy. Can't really type all the details out here because it may fall into the wrong hands. That sucks too: having no freedom. I can go on rambling about how fucked up i'm feeling right now but that would turn this entry into a cliche "i-need-your-pity" kind of post. Not my style.

Got back from the Track chalet today. Was good to spend some time with the bunch of people I mixed around with for the first half of my stay in SA. The weather could have been better though; and the waking-up times. Gisele Bundchen occupied the television screen most of the first night, and cards kept us busy until about two in the morning. The 6am wake-up call the next morning wasn't really expected, but oh well... Sentosa is mostly still the same. Beach soccer, touch rugby, volleyball, building sandcastles and burying people's slippers in the sand, you know that sort of stuff. Expensive lunches and pretty(to some) Burger King employees. One thing that was a first for me was the musical fountain. First time going there and watching the display. Besides the corny emcee, kinky the monkey and (some) irritating background music, it was quite entertaining.

Oh look at the time, I need to head to bed. There's TRAINING tomorrow. I could have been on my way to Bali instead. Oh well... Let's see if my choice to stay here in Singapore was worth it or not.

Sad songs do not help the situation. At all. Damn John Mayer...

It's time to take a rest. I'll be back on the 7th. Call/sms me if anything. If you don't have my number, too bad. (:

Taufik rocks. Thank goodness he won. If that Sylvester guy won I really wouldn't know where to hide my face from foriegners. No offence to those Sly fans out there. Oh well, at least he can go and do some Chinese stuff. Jay Chou and etc. Whoever that is. Hmm...

It's been a week since I last blogged and frickin hell its December already. Wasn't it just a while ago when I was slogging it out for the promos? Wasn't it just a while ago when I was still in CJ? What the hell... Whoever came up with the phrase "time flies" is a genius. Just a month before we all head back to those dreaded classrooms again. How exciting...

Last Saturday was the match. Woke up at the unearthly time of 5.45am. That's like in the middle of the night, ugh. Bus 174's can be really really irritating. Either it comes such that i've got to sprint to catch it, or i've got to wait and wait and wait for it to come. In this case, 25 minutes. I could have watched a cartoon in that time, mmm... At least I wasn't late. After the match, headed to orchard with the team and had lunch at cine food court. Headed home after that because of a slight headache. That night I went for Hil's birthday party. So posh, I was severly underdressed. Saw some CJCians i knew, learnt a couple of card tricks skills and drank and laughed the night away.

Had a bit of trouble waking up Sunday morning to go to church. Lynsey(who asked me to go) wasn't there. Stupid girl, tsk. Had a big breakfast at grandparent's place. Haven't had Sunday breakfast there in a while. Headed home then to town to meet bestfriend Jill for The First Sunday. We were supposed to watch Saw but they weren't even showing it that day. What a let down. At least it meant that there would be no need for sneak-ins or extra tickets. Caught some Polar Express instead. The show was, funny. Not sure if it was meant to be, but funny. The characters looked hideous by the way. Took me a while to decide if that negro was a guy or a girl. Sheesh... Waffles and crepes from Marche before heading back.

Monday morning was supposed to be spent in the hospital getting my flu jab. Instead, I was at home stoning away, missing training, because they didn't give the jabs until 1pm. Went to school for the video then to NUH for the jab then home. Stoned away. Tuesday(today yesterday), went out with Mum for a while. Got myself a shirt, pretty funky, mmm. Then met zy and thng to just walk about and look at stuff. Walked quite a bit today. Much more than my other recent town ventures. Met Lynsey, Lawrence, David and Glen in Pacific Plaza, and saw some of the seniors as well as Pearlynn outside cine. Bit of ice cream then back home for dinner.

What a boring life I lead. Needs a bit of spice. Hmmm...