Do you believe in Fate? I don’t. And never did.

I believe that Fate is something losers use as an excuse. I used to do that too, and a lot of wishing.

What do I mean exactly?

Its simple. I don’t believe that in life, simply because if you wished for something and believe strongly in something (in this instance, Fate), it will happen to you.

I don’t believe in that. The notion is ridiculous. If you want something, you should work strongly towards attaining that. The same goes for a boy or girlfriend. The fact that I’ve wished for a girlfriend since I was 13 to 24 points to that.

But something happened last friday, that turned my entire life around…

It was a normal friday night, around 11pm and I was bored. Since I haven’t logged in to Audition for some five days, I figured that I’ll just play a bit. Little did I know that that decision would be the start of a chain of events that I was not exactly well prepared for…

As I’m guessing most of you don’t play Audition, I’ll just give a (very) brief description on what I was playing that night.

There’s a mode in Audition called Club Dance 2, in which 3 guys are paired with 3 girls. You play as per normal and then choose your partner. To sum it up, if you’re synchronized with your partner and both of you achieve similar ‘grades’ at the end of each beat, you accumulate hearts. The couple with the most hearts at the end of the song wins, and gain a slight money boost (100 dens).

I’ve been playing this for a long time now, trying to find a suitable partner for the past 1 month with not much luck. The few people I have affinity with (high hearts rate) are already attached, or they just don’t play often enough.

Hence, I wasn’t really expecting anything to happen that night, and was just trying to have a bit of fun until the next time I login a week later perhaps.

And so by chance I partnered this girl who was dressed rather ‘auntie-ly‘ for lack of a better word. The other two girls were dressed to the nines compared to her, and I still don’t remember why I chose her that night.

*shrugs* Sometimes there are things we do on a whim or fancy, and perhaps not justifiable by logic. Perhaps that was one of those times.

Surprisingly though, we actually won the game for around four times, and that was when I decided to ‘try my luck’. I used that term because I checked (just a few clicks) and found out she already had a couple in Audition.

I’m not really into the habit of breaking people up if you know what I mean, but we just seemed to be playing very well together, and I just decided to ask.

She told me she’ll think about it, and we proceeded to win the next few songs.

And that was when she ‘broke off’ with her couple, and we became an ‘item’.

As we haven’t really talked much until we got together (wait, we haven’t talked at all really), I decided to find out more about her. After all we ARE now a couple in game~

And then was when I realised… other than similar playing styles, we also type similarly and share a lot in common as well.

In fact, we spent a couple of hours just chatting, before playing and winning a few more games, and chatting again.

I don’t actually remember what we talked about… All i recall was that I really had a lot of fun that night, and I’ve never had such a long yet enjoyable conversation in Audition with anyone before.

Before we knew, it was 4+am, and we decided to call it a night.

The next night, we ended at around 5am. This happened every night until the fifth night (today), where we ended at 6+am.

While we started out playing a lot, the past few nights has been more of chatting and learning about each other than playing. And also on what we’re going to do next…

What would you do if you met someone who shares so many things in common with you? From the way you think, the way you look at things, the fact that you’re both aunt and uncle Agony, the way we both enjoy each other’s company so much and had so much fun in the process~, how we both get jealous when we’re dancing with other people…

Oh my, I’ve never felt jealous in such a long time… Why would I be jealous when my Audition couple (of 2-3 days then) is dancing with someone else? This just doesn’t make sense.

While we don’t complete each other’s sentences, everytime she says ‘omg’, ‘btw’ and ‘break up’, my heart skips a beat. And yes, if used consecutively, my heart skips three beats though the effect is lessening.

I swear, my heart has never skipped more than a beat before, even when my friend the nurse looked at me…

And here it was my heart betrayed me, skipping 3 times for a girl I’ve never met.

How is it possible that we’ve only been a couple for 5 nights, yet it feels like I’ve known her forever?

I’ve never understood why people could get married after being together for 3 months, never understood ‘whirlwind romances’. But now I do, now I can finally identify with them.

Somehow, it feels like my entire life has been the way it is, just so I could meet her.
My previous relationships, my ‘previous’ life… in fact, if it wasn’t for the operation, I wouldn’t have picked up Audition, wouldn’t have learnt a lot more life lessons, and definitely wouldn’t have met her.

While it looks like I’m really besotted with her, I’m not falling head over heels yet.

In fact, we’re both taking this slowly…
We’ve both been hurt very badly before when we opened our hearts… and even though what we’ve been through is like nothing short of a movie.. there’s no risk in taking things slowly.

She’s very afraid of upsetting this delicate balance we have… and we both know how special this is for us.
But for me, I’ve seen too many chances and opportunities slip by me… I won’t let her slip me by.

If all those regrets in the past has haunted me for so long, If I let her go now… I will definitely live in a lifetime of regrets.

Or to put it in Westlife’s words (which we both love)
“But if I let you go I will never know
What my life would be, holding you close to me
Will I ever see you smiling back at me?
How will I know
if I let you go?”

If you think the past few paragraphs were mushy and sweet. I assure you that today’s conversation with her was a lot more so. I think she felt like running at the end haha..~

But you all know me, I don’t usually sweet talk to anyone (where got chance?), and I mean what I say.
And I said how I feel … and all these came out.

Though I have never felt more sure of what I wanted at the moment… to hold her in real life…

But enough of all the mushy stuff before I scare all of you off…~

The past few nights has been more talking than gaming actually, and we set a new record today by talking from 1am to 6+am. Haha.. I was suddenly reminded of how we both bought tigers for our characters yesterday, and we spent 15-20+ minutes naming them.

It was so fun… she really makes me feel young again.

There’s a lot more to say, and a lot more stories to tell.
I know my words don’t do my emotions justice, especially this post.

But I’ll write another one about her soon.

About… my Audition couple (who ironically won’t get to see this),
About… my mirror image of the opposite gender~
About… the girl who has made me so happy the past few nights…

About… my soul-mate.

Hi all.

I know its been a few days since my last entry but I’ve been really busy. These few days has been a very exciting phase of my life, and there are two personal entries I would like to share with you.

Let me start with the one that I personally feel is less exciting.

Beware: Long post ahead (pictures at the end)

On Saturday evening, I headed over to Hougang for its annual Lunar New Year dinner.

I’m not going to touch too much on the food (some of which were strange. Curry prawns anyone?), not going to touch on the company (it was great as usual. I had a lot of fun catching up with fellow Wp ExCo members and the familiar faces in the party again).

This time I’ll just touch on something that suffice to say, didn’t happen last year.

First of all, I sang in front of a group of close to 1,000 people.
Yes, I went up to the stage 3 times and sang 3 different songs. Twice with a fellow ExCo member and once with the entire ExCo (not to mention the Yam-Seng of course).

The first time happened before most of the fellow guests were seated. I sang Lang Ren Qing Ge by Wu Bai with Choon Yong. It really wasn’t that hard when there were only less than fifty people watching.

The second time was when the entire YW ExCo (who were present) went up and sang Emil Chou’s Peng You. Yes, in front of close to a thousand people. There were after all about 95 tables not including the various waiters and waitresses.

I still remember the experience  vividly. Chelsea was quite shy, and kept hiding behind me and Frieda. Meanwhile Choon Yong, Alfred, Swee Bee and me were the ones holding on to the mikes.

I didn’t really feel anything on the way up the stage, and just started singing while looking at the little TV screen on my feet.

Its not that scary leh! In fact, after the entire thing… it was kinda exhilarating. It was the first time I’ve ever stood in front of a thousand people, and sang! How many people can say they ever did that (other than the 30+ other uncles and aunties who took turns singing)?

The third time was an ‘accident’. Alfred and I actually queued for Hao Xin Fen Shou By Wang Lee Hom and Candy Luo and it was supposed to be right after Choon Yong and I sang earlier. Yet because the Karaoke Jockey somehow messed things up, we ended up singing at around 9+pm instead.

This time I was a bit worried. You know, the usual stuff like burping in the middle of singing, etc. After all we WERE having a meal… albeit a very long one. I stopped eating about a minute before it was our turn, and before I knew it. We were up!

After stepping up on the stage (for the fourth or fifth time), I was feeling kinda immune to it all so I just sang my part… and left.

Good memories those were, and would remain in my mind for a long time.

What next you say? Maybe public speaking to 1,000 people .. or singing to 5,000? You’ll never know~

The next exciting event was that my picture along with three of my fellow ExCo members were published in the papers~

During the meal there was a Lian He Wan Bao reporter asking us various questions- Mainly why we joined, whether we’ll run for the elections and the like.

She was really nice and very friendly, and the photographer stayed with her til the end to take many many pictures, some of which I’ll show you later.

She even called me up on Sunday morning to ask me when I joined the party, though I didn’t expect the article to be out on Sunday night itself.

Here are the pictures…

This appeared on page 6 of Lian He Wan Bao on 7th March. The 4 of us, Chelsea, Nathaniel, Me and Alfred (in that order) are Executive Members of the Workers’ Party Youth Wing.

On the left are our names, and short write-ups on when and why we joined the party.

A closer look at the top portion of the paper. That’s the Secretary-General of the Workers’ Party on the top left, Mr Low Thia Kiang, and our Chairman on the top right, Ms Sylvia Lim. They also entertained us with a few songs that night

And this is the lower part of the page. The picture on the left was all of us (Youth Wing and main party members Yum-sehing. The picture turned out really well! (Though you can only see my hair at the bottom heh :D)

And because this is my blog and people are complaining about it being too wordy.
Here’s a picture of me with flash.

And here’s one without.

How do you think I look? Yandao or not?

And in case you don’t understand mandarin, here’s what it says.

“Recently graduated from Murdoch University with a degree in Public Relations and Journalism, Aaron is currently recovering from his back surgery and looking for PR related jobs. He joined the WP Youth Wing in 2007.

He says, “I joined the party to realize my dreams and at the same time pass on the suggestions to Mr Low and Ms Sylvia to present them in Parliament for debate”.

First of all, when the reporter asked me whether I would ever run for elections. I told her I never really thought about it, and the only time I thought about being a minister was when I was much younger, as it doesn’t seem like they’re doing a lot and it looked like they were earning a lot of money.

Of course, a lot has changed since then, so I feel that this part has really been taken out of context. I didn’t exactly join the party to realize my dream of being a politician =_=

Before you think I’m being a show off or being arrogant, I’m currently happy where I am in the party, to support events and to brainstorm in meetings. One of the reasons I joined the party is because I want to spread the idea that being in a political party other than the ruling one isn’t really that scary, and to encourage other young people to join.

This is after all our country. You have a choice on who you want to govern you. Remember that.

I am also happy to have my picture in the paper (how often does that happen?) but I don’t intend to run for parliament. Not anytime soon. I feel that there are people in the party who are much more capable and experienced. They would make much better candidates than me.

I repeat, I don’t intend to run for parliament so you won’t be seeing me anytime soon on TV

Up next, the other exciting happening in my life..~

I was so tired yesterday that I didn’t get to blog about anything.

Anyways, the verdict from the doctor after 30 minutes of waiting, 2 xrays and $79, the doctor checked my wound, told me its doing okay, told me to keep using the lumbar support until the end of 2 months, start swimming after 3 months, asked about when my MC ends (2 months after) and off I went.

I did manage to ask him to get me in for assisted physiotherapy though, but truth be told I felt somehow cheapened by the experience… ah well. That’s what you do when there’s nothing significant happening in my case, and you’re an associate prof I guess. Time is money~

Declined a lunch/movie offer with an old friend cause I was feeling quite tired after the trip. Couldn’t believe the two xrays made me feel so giddy. I recall a time when taking xrays was like taking pictures, this time I felt like I had swung for 20 rounds in the same spot. Beh.

Grabbed a packet of chicken rice on the way back, managed to get some nap before waking up a couple of hours later to head to Bedok for my haircut.

Managed to get a lift from my friend somewhere before Bedok, and got my hair cut and dyed. I kinda like the look, but I’ll have to play with it a bit more before I know how it looks like most of the time. It does look rather easy to recreate… Time shall tell I guess.

Met Zacky up afterwards for dinner at Bedok market. Bedok is really an “unglam” place according to him. There are only markets and neighbourhood shops. No shopping malls or other stuff. Not unlike Clementi a few years back actually. Hmm~
Anyways we had some noodles and carrot cake, and walked around a bit before I took an hour ride 506 home.

Will show you some pictures of my hair … as and when I do start taking pictures of it.
That’s all for now~

I just told mom my decision to dye my hair tomorrow after having a haircut. And she told me not to.
She said that I should be spending when I have the money to, when its within my means.

Now I know where the realist and practical part of me stems from. Perhaps it was subconsciously ingrained in me through mom all these years…~

Anyway, that aside, I will proceed to dye it brown tomorrow.

But before you start criticizing me for being unfilial or disobeying my Mom..
I assure you that’s not the issue.

Its about knowing what I want. I know at this point of my life, getting a good haircut, knowing how to style my hair is the first step in being a(n even) more confident and shuai me.

Ever since as long as I can remember, its always about being enough, doing enough to get a credit or just enough to pass… eating enough so I’m full, grabbing the first t-shirt that matches and move on… in Economics term, the “satisficing” choice. Or to take the first option that is good enough.

While I’m sure I don’t look that bad, I know that in these past few years.. I am not being the best I am.
In fact, I must have given a lot of first impressions about me being shabby many times over.

That’s not going to happen anymore. The last time I did that, life turned out so horribly that I don’t want to share about it. I want to be the best I am, and to feel the best I am.

I shall not settle for second best, third best, when I can be THE best in what I am.

And I shall do that starting with my hair, and subsequently my spectacles, clothes, shoes… the works.

I want to be the best I can, simply because when I look and dress my best, I will also naturally be my best.
Don’t you always feel sharper when you’re in a coat and tie, compared to when you’re wearing singlets and slippers?

Sometimes its as simple as that, and it all starts from a single step.

Sorry mom, I know I haven’t been a great son up so far, but there are some things I know to think for myself now.

I know what I want now, and if we are not in consensus, I will do it my way.

Because Mom, its my life, and no one knows more than me what I want.
Its my life, and its time for me to fly!

A few years back, blogging was considered the “in” thing to do.

That didn’t really apply to me though. When I first started writing online, it was on a private diary. That was around my poly days, 2002 thereabouts I believe.

I believe then a lot of people were like me, either writing journals physically, or kept confidential somewhere in the net via my-diary.org or similar sites where you can choose to allow people to see your content or not.

The detailing of life events actually started way back in primary school, where I wrote down stuff physically into paperback diaries. It quickly got boring (and tedious) because writing an entire page takes about 30 minutes and its really tiring for my hands no less!

Perhaps the ease of storing and detailing life events online started the popularity of diaries, which then evolved into what we know as blogs today- when people wanted to share their diaries, their life events, their pictures, funny videos/articles, or even their thoughts to others.

My first footprint on the blogging world was on blogspot in 2005. Together with Xanga, I remembered that they captured much of the market then.

I remember choosing blogspot as it was pretty easy to customize (with some basic html knowledge of course). It was also a lot more colourful than Xanga, without looking too messy.

Oh yea, do you remember that “blog” was the word of the year in 2004, according to Merriam-Webster? It was all the hype!

The purpose of my blog has always been to share my thoughts, and also more importantly, something for me to remember when I grow older. In fact, when I look back on my entries 5 years ago, I can feel the glaring changes in writing styles and also the thoughts beneath. In a sense you could say it details how I grew up.

I made the change to Wordpress.org when prompted by my friend Jek. Since he had a server of his own, I just needed to pay for a domain name and I’m all set. It was a lot less colourful and a lot more boring, but it was also a lot easier to use, what with the plug-in’s and all, and it also looked a lot more professional. Not to mention the fact that Aaronpeng.org looks a lot cooler than aaronthemedic.blogspot.com.. hur~

But I digress. At around the time I made the change to Wordpress.org (or aaronpeng.org), I joined Ping.sg which was a network of bloggers who banded together and organized various outings. Back then it was the only site where published blog entries were automatically synced to the site as long as you are a member. The top 10 posts were also a highly coveted spot since its the first thing people see when they go onto the site (for stuff like popularity and advertisements mainly).

I’ve made a lot of friends there through various outings, and at the same time also witnessed its ‘downfall’. And once again I digress.

The point is, many of my blogger friends whom I met then, have stopped blogging or are now doing so with less regularity. Perhaps they have moved on with their lives, perhaps they now have better things to do.

But I believe that its the introduction of Facebook(FB) that has made many of us blog less (me included).

You see, I used to share pictures, thoughts, articles, links, videos on my blog.
Now I can do all that (minus long thoughts) easily on FB, and get replies instantly.

I know that by posting it on FB, hundreds of people are seeing it the moment I click on post. Yet on my blog, they can only see it if they have a RSS reader and are following me, or when they visit my blog each day.

Replies are also immediate, and I can know just a few seconds later when someone comments on something I say.
Not to mention the fact that this post will probably appear in FB as well, as that’s where most people will read it from, and not directly via my website.

Add Twitter statuses that are also available simultaneously via FB, and there you have it. No reason to blog so much anymore. At least that’s how I see it.

As of now, I’m juggling between posting various videos/links on FB, and an occasional post on my blog.
What about you? Have you blogged less because of FB, Twitter and other stuff that lets us stay connected to the Internet and our friends?

Perhaps in time, blogs may even start dying out. Who knows?

Its been a long time since I last blogged.

And no, its not because I have nothing to say. In fact, there’s so much I want to blog about that, just that I’ve been going out quite a bit these few days and it really tires me out, especially with the stretching and all.

But anyway, there’s this particular incident I would like to share, on why I am a member of the Workers’ Party (WP) and why I’ll never look back.

It so happened that a junior of mine chanced upon my blog while she was doing some research and emailed me, asking if I would be interested to be part of a focus group. She deliberately left the topic vague, so that we wouldn’t be able to do any research beforehand, and I readily agreed. She was after all, my junior (though one I have never seen or met) and I do love doing these random things.

So it happened that when all the focus group participants met up, we actually had a representing member from various opposition parties. Jarrod Luo from SDP, Alex Tan from SDA, Rachel and Seelan from SfD and myself from WP.

It was the first time I actually had the chance to mix with so many young people who have such strong convictions about the country and how it can improve- though the fact that we’re all in different parties/organizations mean that we believe we can achieve it in different ways. And I feel that is just beautiful.

The focus group topic (which the group wants to keep confidential), really broadened my knowledge about certain issues in Singapore, and I think all of us really enjoyed the conversation. In fact, all of the participants even went for dinner together after the focus group ended, and had our own discussion on various issues.Though I really hoped that the initiators of the focus group learnt a lot more than the members, I think all of us brought back something that night.

For me, it reminded me of why I joined WP again. All the things I felt were grave injustices, all the things I’ve heard and seen, the fact that prices and inflation rise much faster than our salaries, the fact that electricity tariffs continue to rise despite oil prices dropping, the fact that ministers continue to receive high salaries despite us not knowing what it is they actually do (do you know what your Mayor does? And who he/she is?), the fact that bus operators continue to raise prices every year despite posting record profits… despite so many things. The list may very well be endless.

The thing is, up until my ‘political awakening’, I always thought that Singapore was a great place to live in. As long as I have a good job, I’ll be able to get a HDB flat, get married, and retire with my CPF when I’m old. Yet with the very ‘affordable’ HDB flats and ridiculous minimum sum required, I’ll probably need to sell my house that I spend the next 30 years paying for, to get a smaller one just to retire.

The thing is, once you’ve opened up the colorful packet of rainbow coloured wrapper to find that there are worms inside- well, the image sticks forever.

I cannot deny what I’ve seen and heard and believe, for it would be denying reason. And if I deny reason itself, it simply means that I’m living in a land of make believe and fairy tales.

So if anyone ever wants to know why I joined the WP again, I’ll sum it up in a sentence.

Because I believe that the country needs to be changed, for the better.

And I believe WP can help me do that.

How about you? What have you done today to make Singapore a better place?

Just a few days ago it was reported that scientists have developed a way to get rid of the highly toxic and dangerous cane toads. I didn’t think too much about it then, until I stumbled upon this article.

Curiosity to kill Aussie cats

SYDNEY - AUSTRALIAN scientists are hoping to add some truth to the old adage by using curiosity to kill some of the country’s millions of wild cats.

New traps that attract cats using sound and light, and then squirt them with poison, will soon be tested in South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre said on its website.

‘This is a tunnel that emits a… sound and bright features that attract cats to it,’ professor Steven Lapidge said, according to public broadcaster ABC.

‘It requires them to walk through a tunnel and if they set off certain sensors in a certain configuration, then it detects the shape of the animal. If it is a cat then it will deliver a short spray onto its belly of a toxic substance that puts them to sleep.’

The centre believes Australia may have more than 18 million feral cats descended from escaped domestic pets, which kill native wildlife and are hard to control using conventional poisons.

Australia’s vast size makes it vulnerable when new species are introduced, with the country suffering large-scale environmental and agricultural damage from wild pigs, rabbits, foxes, cane toads and even camels. — AFP

Source: ST

Seems like whenever something becomes a nuisance, scientists will find ways to mass exterminate the species. So according to the list, wild pigs, rabbits, foxes, camels and maybe even Kangeroos will come next?

Who’s to know? But I’m definitely not condoning this device. Mass murder of anything never solve problems. Holocaust anyone?