Repeating Somebody
In this day and age, noone really bothers about your predicament or situation unless they’re in the same boat as you, to call these relationships a ‘friendship of convenience’ would be too flippant but the reality is that it’s not that far from the truth. With a heavy heart, I journeyed to school today. In case you haven’t heard, I failed one of my four topics, Statistics to be exact. The school and the markers are not sympathetic to the matters of the heart, so to them or anyone, my pain is non-existent; ultimately, despite my heartbreak and emotionally compromised, my failure was my fault. Going to school today would serve the purpose of me repeating my mod, and dropping another for the sake of it, and trying to fit it into my timetables nicely.
On the flip side, my inner voice grew louder; its meteoric rise powered by the truth in Seng Kiat’s (finally) genuine criticisms and encouragement from others, has caused me to seriously contemplated the ‘other idea’.
Cecilia, Fadilah and the other girl whose name I didn’t catch, all friends/acquaintances I had just met, were advised not to withdraw by the school but then again, it was words of advise coming FROM the school. I received no such advice, having failed only one subject. We received no encouragement when we heard the likelihood that the course had turned into a 4-year one, instead of three like we initially signed up for, didn’t lift our spirits much and for me, only fueled the chances of the ‘other idea’.
But all this ‘contemplation’ was giving me a headache, or perhaps it was the hot sunny weather… Anyhow, I called up Alex, to see if he could accompany me to chill around town, just to distract my mind a little… give it some fresh air before diving back into the real world. He agreed, and we met at Orchard but I’d have to wait over an hour for him, which was fine, as I WAS far west, and if I reached there early, the unofficial ‘public libraries’ of Borders and Kinokuniya could tide time over pretty quick.
Walking past the Liat Tower’s ground level outlets, inside me grew a tinge of anger and in light of the severe flooding yesterday along Orchard Road, there’s a serious need to demand answers from the Singapore government. A simple “choke” at Stamford Canal CANNOT suffice and is unacceptable, considering that officially, there has been real economic damage done by the flood, numbering in the hundred thousands or even millions of dollars. Besides the newly opened Wendy’s, Starbucks, Massimo Dutti and Hermes must have no doubt, lost alot of money yesterday in damaged branded products.
The entire Orchard area relies on just one canal, namely the Stamford Canal, for its drainage system, and if that fails, the area is lost. You’ll ask, “where is this Stamford Canal?” THAT, is a very good question… Stamford Canal runs along the length of Orchard Road to City Hall and discharges its load just before the Float @ Marina Bay.
“Huhs? I don’t see it”
The canal runs right under your noses, is responsible for the wide tree-lined boulevards from Tanglin to Mandarin Gallery, and runs under what is known today as the Discovery Walk through 313@Somerset and Orchard Central, and is the reason why there’s an escalator down to nowhere at Citylink Mall. Hidden away from public sight and boxed in on all four sides, the relatively small canal can be quickly overwhelmed, at which point no matter how efficient the Marina Barrage may be at handling such extreme scenarios, it’d be useless as technically, the water level at Marina Reservoir never actually rose to dangerous levels to trigger the release of reservoir water into the sea.
What can PUB do?
Honestly? Nothing, at least in the near future.
Tokyo has completed, in a nutshell, a huge cave system right under the city, for the purpose of draining water from flash flood situations such as the onslaught of tidal waves brought on by incoming typhoons or tsunamis from earthquakes. The project has received lots of criticism for being overpriced and a white elephant, and it is unknown whether the underground reservoir would even prove useful in such situations… But for Singapore to go to such lengths is just ridiculous. What they’d likely do is alleviating Stamford Canal by providing bypasses into the Singapore River and the Bukit Timah canal, or do nothing, hoping that such things won’t happen again. Afterall, there’s a chilling truth to the 2012 film teaser slogan, “How would governments of the world prepare six billion people for the end of the world? – They wouldn’t.”
Sometimes you’ve just gotta be selfish to fight for the things you want, even if it means sacrificing the other person’s interests. I wanted to eat at Ippudo, Alex didn’t. As a fan of Japanese ramen, particularly famous ramen shops from Japan, I just had to come here. Ippudo serves typically Kyushu-style ramen and to be honest, I wasn’t really impressed. It was excellent, better than Ajisen Ramen but not great enough to blow Keisuke, Miharu, Santouka and Marutama away. Maybe I just wasn’t a fan of the soup, with the famous ‘black oil’ and all but it just wasn’t thick or flavorful enough… and if I don’t almost finish the soup, you’ll know that it’s not fantastic.
The ramen I ordered at Ippudo looks similar to this. (Taken from Google Images)
Enticed by every other table, I ordered the Goma-Q, sliced Japanese cucumber seasoned in sesame oil and fried onion… I’ve gotta tell you Japanese vegetables are absolutely worth their high prices. You get the crisp when you bite on the cucumber and it’s genuinely refreshing and cooling, just as what cucumber SHOULD do but doesn’t have the same effect when I eat those served with local chicken rice.
A must-try appetizer on any visit to Ippudo - Goma-Q, Japanese cucumber (Taken from Google Images)
Toy Story 3 is so far, the best film of 2010.
I decided I won’t review the film, I’m not some film critic PLUS most of you will see the film and should be intelligent enough to form your own opinion.
But I’ve gotta admit that each Pixar film takes me on an emotional roller coaster ride which I sometimes half-dread. In these films, there are points in the film where it’s just so automatic and within seconds, you’d just almost turn on the waterworks without fail! For Up!, it was when the protagonist finally flipped the pages of the scrapbook, is surprised to see it filled and culminating in the note at the end, well, that just killed me. For this film, it’s when the cast recognizes their imminent end, join hands, and facing it in the company of everyone they so dearly love…
OMG, someone just slap me!!!
I’m going crazy over a particular neighbor of mine; he lives in the same block but different lobby and on my rare occasions that I go down to smoke, I notice his presence. That was how I first noticed him. In my whole life, I’ve only seen a handful of guys who look cool when they smoke, it’s like smoking enhances their sexyness or somethin’… And seeing him light up just absolutely turns me on, so much that I’ve resisted attempts to strike a conversation for fear that I might just scare him off. He’s not particularly handsome, just slightly above average…well, enough for me to contemplate as a potential suitor but too bad, definitely not gay but even then, I’d be glad just to serve him once or twice, or discreetly on a regular basis. 
Thanks for pointing out the elusive stamford canal! Will pay more reverence and attention to it the next time round