1. Cricket: What's the use of technology if the umpires still manage to get the decision wrong with it? Case in point: Prior's dismissal in Day 5 of the second Test - it was obviously a no ball; Prasad's foot was on the line, with nothing behind it. Still, third ump focused on the wrong frame and the decision was upheld.

[Finally one which seemingly got Jordan out is called a no-ball]

2. WC2014: No one at work can wrap their heads over what's wrong with England; enjoyed the chatter and banter with the rest of the guys there, esp with our dearest German friend J�rg. Topics included the WC (naturally), EU and German politics (he's pro-EU and a SDP supporter haha), life in SG and in many other countries - well, everything but work... Looking forward to visiting him in Deutschland next year.

3. ^ leads to this: an incomplete bucket list for 2015.

Things to do/places to visit

Stockholm railway art, Northern lights! TC interview, Lord's, Old Trafford, Durham
Signal Iduna Park, Oxbridge, V&A/NHM/BM (again), Glastonbury 2015! TC app? Skype interview? Brussels, the Hague, Copenhagen, Lund, Malmo, Scottish Highlands redux? Lake District, the many tube stations in London, Primark and Lilywhites, Cornish pasty, Dortmund, Tilberg, Amsterdam? Notts, catch some live matches, Ryanair/easyJet frequent flier miles lolol, romance under the Northern lights haha macham some fairytale Frozen mishmash with something that will never happen.

Alright time to wake up there's one more semester of hell to go before all these.

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I have a confession... I have not watched Frozen(even after close to half a year), be it on the big screen or elsewhere.

Six months on, Menzel's voice (still) gets replaced by some others each time the track loops to a certain part. It's quite a reminder of the times when people around us would just break out into random renditions of that song, simply because the cold never bothered us anyway.

Frozen is premised upon the notion that "an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart". As with all Disney movies, the reason why they are so successful is because they appeal to our inner idealism - and for us to relate it to the film itself.

If only it is so simple irl.

It is only now when I discovered the story that I began to appreciate the ironies and connections between the movie and reality.

And at the end of it all it is about time I accept that there are simply some things that cannot be done unilaterally without any external help/blessing/tidings.

Maybe being lonely is better because, well, at least disappointing yourself is not as bad as compared to others letting you down. It is akin to an investment which has gone bad, And, then to bring this chain of thought to its logical conclusion, this is probably why people diversify their attentions - to act as some sort of a hedge against market fluctuations and limit their exposure to any one investment.

And also mebbe one day you can be convinced to leave your ice palace and promise to never shut the castle gates again.

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Got to stop feeling like Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8; (recalled the JC days when all the pianists in the class used to play that day in day out at the piano at the 天堂). Speaking of those times, managed to meet up with a few of them over the weekend to attend joo's reso performance. Adjourned for supper after that: the talk just flowed naturally (testament to the six year strong bonds we share).
***

Now: It is as if nothing has ever happened, like as if the past year was whitewashed - I actually dreamt last night that I actually managed to perform system restore on my life (can you believe that?).

Yet after all the doom and gloom of this latest setback, there appeared on the horizon the faintest tinges of silver. I've managed to talk to many people that I would ordinarily not really talk to; on an unrelated but somehow still connected note I'd managed to join the dots and get the full story as to what happened re. the cereal.

It was really a wth experience on hindsight (I think I really underestimated how difficult these things are)

Time to sleep - this has been a random post and Germany just twacked Portugal by four goals to nil courtesy of some good acting and a Mueller treble.

The new normal still needs some getting used to - bit by bit, slowly, everyday.
_________

Postscript: Air is cleared. Thank you, for everything.

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Post-mortems are not the most pleasant things on earth - but it can only be good and timely to face up to the realities and acknowledge the mistakes and missteps and to provide some closure to everyone involved.

A huge shout-out to everyone who have made the past few days and weeks immensely tolerable and meaningful. Thank you.

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During a recent (extended) family dinner I got into quite a heated debate with my relatives over the whole Roy case - I must have shocked them a little given they have never really heard me speak in English at all for the past two decades. I guess at the end of the day there are many misconceptions around - i.e. about the purpose of letters of demand, playing your cards right and holding them tightly to your chest in our adversarial system, divorcing questions of law from politics, emotions from logic. Many tend to conflate everything together and seek an easy target to dump all their pent-up frustrations on. Who can claim to speak for the majority? Not me, definitely not TRS, and not random assorted online commentators either. Is the 5000-strong return my CPF protest indicative of the wishes of the majority? I don't really think so.

There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation going about online. I saw that someone on my news feed was constantly sharing TRS links. He was promptly deleted after I grew tired of the shit that site was producing (not that I knew him personally anyway).

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Looks like it has been a year, or two actually, depending on which event I am linking my current predicament/situation to.

Well, if you have told me back then that I will end up like this, to this extent, I guess I would not have believed it. It just seemed... so impossible, that I can fail myself in such a massive way.

Though they say that when one door closes, another open. However, they did not prescribe what our reaction should be if the new gate it doesn't match up to the locked and bolted door.

At least we know what the reaction will be like at Edgbaston when a certain Mr. Senanayake comes out to bat later.

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Hi,

It's quite funny how some things come about full circle really. I used to think that Let It Go was am emo song, but now it is one of hope. I miss the days when that song was like sung literally everywhere - haha it was like a mockingjay of sorts.

Results were released today. It was meh. Even the sight of a first C ever did not really shake me one bit. I guess I've learnt to accept things as they come - and after one month of work, well - results are not everything anyway; they don't determine, for example, which PG you are best suited to. They are just like A's - a passport to the next stage, a threshold requirement that needs to be fulfilled.

Anyway, I made a new friend last Friday. And well, that was just... pure chemistry? (maybe the alcohol helped)

And today I spent like two hours counselling a foe(?)-turned-friend on her woes.

The question posed at the start was: Do you believe that we humans are inherently selfish or are we truly capable of purely selfless altruistic acts?

Well, I believe that we are all selfish at heart, even if we profess not to be so. This is because before we even perform any action that the officious bystander may perceive as being selfless, we have already weighed up the pros and cons while contemplating our course of action. This act itself confirms the proposition: we always look out for our self-interest, even if it gets outweighed on the weighing scale.

In any case, to those who did well, congrats. To those who did surprising well, congrats too. But as usual, please spare a thought for people like myself who did not do as well. We don't need you to complain how you did not get an A but a B+ instead. However, if that complaint was towards a certain module, sure, I'm all ears now. I have been convinced that there is too much subjectiveness in the criteria and will look to bring it up informally if we ever meet.

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The day will eventually come when moving on means erasing every single trace whatsoever of things that had happened, both good and bad, from your life. There will be new people to joke (mild, else cavort?) with, laugh with, liking all your posts indiscriminately on fb and beyond, play with, smile with, spend time with.

And the day will eventually come when moving on also means making a conscious effort not to visit this site, asking people to do so on your behalf and therefore keeping your side of a one-sided bargain. Technically that works.

It is time to write off whatever emotional capital, time and effort that I'd invested. Currently am in the midst of preparing a solvency report to that effect.

And then you have people that are so busy with other people and events and commitments that you become simply a mere irritant that so is low down on the priority list that you ought to be ignored.

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