Congratulations!

Today was a day of mixed emotions and feelings, nervousness and uncertainty.
Today, the 27th of June, 2010, was the Mid-Year Kendo Grading Examinations. I was going for 初段 (Shodan), currently 1st Kyu.
In a frantic rush the night before, I had almost forgotten to finish up the answers for the questions to be handed up upon a successful Jitsugi and Kata evaluations. Added to that i was also doing some maintenance on the shinais that I was going to use for the grading. After everything was done, it was already 4am. What a bummer..I was hoping to sleep early the day before grading, get revitalized and rejuvenated. Guess not. With only 3 hours of sleep, I tried my best to energize myself and made my way to SKC. I had only a muesli bar as my energy source for that morning.
So skipping all the details as well as the long wait before the 1st Kyu people were up for the grading, I felt that I performed well today. Focused and composed, I breezed through the Kihon component of the Jitsugi. After which came the Gi Keiko. I took my time and doubled my focus to catch opportunities. Overall the Jitsugi was well done. The Kata component also went smoothly, only with a surprise that the Senseis only wanted to test the Kendokas going for Shodan Katas’ 1 to 3. In the group of 1st Kyu, only 2 didn’t make it. Unfortunately, they will have to train harder.
Grading was done and over. There was joy and there was sadness. On the whole the NYP cohort did very well. Many of them jumped to grades that we never predicted and of course for myself I have achieved my Shodan!
To all the NYP Kendokas who took the grading today, Well Done!! Keep up the training, keep up the spirit. Congratulations you have earned it!
Packing up and ready to leave the dojo, the suggestion to crash Clara’s pad was taken up. We arrived at her place in about 30mins give and take a little. Her apartment was pretty nice, spacious, not the most decorated but comfortable, as for her room, well..its quite a sight to behold. If you are korean pop culture fanatic, you’d probably love it in there. So after the little house visit, we headed off for lunch for a good hour of so got myself cuts and bruises on the left knee and headed back to Clara’s crib to chill out for a little while. We left her place at about 6pm and it was fun. Whoever knew Angela could be tickled so easily.
It was a relatively great day. Starting work tomorrow! Ippudo kitchen here I come. I hope the environment is as friendly as Stella describes it to be.
So yeah, this wraps up today’s blog post.
Cheers and have a good one.

I’m going to save up to buy me some Gurren Lagann figures!

Finally. I’m back?

It’s been too long since I actually last blogged.
I could hardly believe that it has been almost a year since i last posted something on this blog. I do plan to keep it going, guess its just the motivation or possibly the lack of content.
So the last entry was sometime in August, 2009. That was pretty long ago.
Having graduated from NYP (Nanyang Polytechnic) early this year, I have been thrown into an abyss of free time for me to either make a little spare cash before going into NS or just slack around. Speaking of which I will be enlisting into national service come November the 8th. So that leaves me about a little over 4 months before going into that wonderland known as Palau Tekong.
Now, the question that I or probably everyone gets is, “so….what are you doing now?”
My answer to that, I have been training a lot for the upcoming Asean Kendo Tournament 2010 which will take place in the month of October not too sure of the date. Trainings are held once every week and so far I have been through about 5 trainings. It is tough i will admit that.
I have also been looking for part time jobs. So far, I have only worked at Robinsons for about 2-3 weeks. It was quite the experience. Temporary staff aren’t actually allowed to handle the cashiers job, but somehow, I find myself handling the cashier. The time I was working there was short but it was an eye opener for me. I have to be very honest, it was my first part time job. Made new friends and possibly enemies, especially that pig faced lady that sells mattresses. She had a pretty stuck up attitude, didn’t make a good first impression to me at all. I mean who has the cheek to call a new guy dumb or stupid on his first few days on the job. I ended up telling her off when she started to call me that a second time. From then on she wouldn’t dare come near my area except when she has to prepare an invoice for customers buying mattresses. At that moment which I told her off, was one of those few events in my life I will never forget. There was also another staff that was pretty annoying. A gay dude. Yes, you read right, a gay dude. Gosh, it was THE most creepy situation I have ever been in. Its worse than watching a horror flick. Its really like being in one. Freaky.
I don’t think I would want to go into this in detail, but all i can say that the gestures he makes and does are more than enough to freak even the most controlled guy out. That aside, the other temporary staff were really friendly and sociable, which was good news. At least I had people to talk to when there was nothing to do on the sales floor. Well, the experience at Robinsons was a mix of good and bad, definitely learnt some lessons during my time there. Looking forward to my next part time job which will probably last until I go into NS. I will be working at a ramen factory! No, its not for some packet ramen but preparing all the ingredients and whatnots to be delivered to Ippudo, a ramen restaurant located the Mandarin Gallery. Yeah, I hope the working environment there is good.
So onto the next thing that I have been doing. I have been doing a lot of photography and photoshopping lately. Experimenting with all sorts of post processing methods such as cross processing, HDR, etc. What I hope to achieve out of all this is to prepare my portfolio to be used to appeal to getting into the design courses in the local universities. I guess it’s a revelation for me. I have found my calling in life which is design. I figured numbers and heavy theories are not really my cup of tea. I am more of a visual person, I like to see visual results rather than cracking my head over which formulae is going to solve a scientific problem. So, I indulge myself in taking loads of photos and what you call, “beautifying” them over in photoshop. I enjoy doing it and it’s an important aspect to what you do in life. Have the interest, pursue with a blazing passion and success will follow through. Moreover, I keep learning new things and ways to post process I never thought possible. I’m currently dwelling in the field of graphic design, integrating radical designs onto subjects/photos to make attractive advertisements or just visual eye candy. Its going to be hard work and I expect that. What is ever easy in this world to begin with right? So, I’m going at this one step at a time, from basic re-touching to more advanced topics as I move on. Another thing that I have been into is web development. Creating web portals for various uses would prove to be quite profitable in this day and age where more and more e-portals for galleries, businesses, fashion shops, etc are on the rise.
Alright, so i guess that’s more or less what has been going on over the last few months since August 2009. OH YES, I have updated my pedalboard! Will be posting images of it soon enough. Haha I remember I did mention in a post that my pedalboard would stay the way it was for a long time to come? Guess what, I lied and its a fact that a pedalboard can never remain the same for a long period of time unless one has got what they have been looking for. Do watch out for my band! We are busting tracks out onto myspace really soon, so keep an eye on my blog as I will be posting the links up for the tracks when they are done.
Wrapping things up, will be updating my blog at the least once a week maybe slightly longer or when there’s some really interesting content that i happen to chance upon. So, till then.. Cheers and have a good one!!

Damn.. I feel like having more Tua Huay!! =P