The past week was spent mostly at home, recuperating from another teeth extraction session. Yes, it's another one, cos the previous session only removed the right side. So this time, i have 4 teeth missing in my mouth. 2 on each side.

The 2nd session was even more killer, cos the dentist had to operate on me. Yes the same old story again, the tooth snapped, leaving the root implanted. Noob dentist couldnt take out the root, pro dentist couldnt take out the root. Gave up, decided to operate on me, but told me to wait after he had his lunch. So i spend 1 hr waiting ard with half a tooth missing, the anaesthesia wearing off.

After much hassle in the operating room, the bugger was out. The last tooth was fortunately easily extracted, so thankfully i din need another op. All in all, it was a harrowing experience. This is gonna be the last time tt i'm going for extraction. (I dun have wisdom teeth problems fortunately.)

Caught the starcraft bug again. Managed to gather some guys to play Big Game Hunters vs AI. One thing about the computer is tt they are much faster than you think so usually u get rushed before u can do anything. But in a multiplayer setting it's alittle bit better cos we can always help each other. Anyways it's all fun.

Midterms are coming, but i dun really feel the panic-ness yet. I wonder why.

Feeling alittle bit more in control lately. Positiveness. I see Nick, he's very positive, till the point tt i get envious. Sometimes i wonder how he manage to get so much energy and drive? Support from other pple perhaps, he seems to be surrounded by supportive pple, be it friends, coursemates or parents.

A song comes to mind: U2 - Sometimes you can't make it on your own. Hmm, i feel very alone in my quest to get good grades, to maintain my fitness, basketball and guitar skills. Sometimes i get very lost and very unmotivated to do anything, cos there's no one to guide me along, to push me. Kinda like during the NJ bball days, where i had to be the team coach.

I spend all my time teaching pple, but who's teaching me? Interesting problem tt i need to overcome.

The plan tt i'd worked out a few posts back, was sadly put on hold due to the braces thingy. Cos it's really uncomfortable right now till the point where i dun really want to do anything. Once i get used to it, the plan will carry on as per normal.

It's good to feel alittle motivated, and have a little sense of direction in life, however pointless that direction is.

Just went for my tooth extractions today. After today's experience, i realised tt my teeth are fucking strong. Here's the reasons why:

I din visit the dentist at all after primary school. So tt's abt 10 years of dental neglect. Yet, the accumulated tartar and calculus are unable to create any decays. Today's teeth cleaning was very smooth, tho abit painful. It shows tt dental crap dun get stuck on Chang's teeth man.

I extracted 2 teeth today. Initially wanted to go for 4, but the dentist was already too shag to continue. For the 1st tooth, there was a root break, meaning the tooth was out, but its root is still stuck in the gum. Tt's some strong roots i say. And thus the dentist has to use some sorta pick object to hook onto it, and pull it out. But my root was too strong for it, so the pick was ineffective, and the n00b dentist couldnt do shit, so he kinda panicked.

Thus he called for the specialist dentist tt specialises in shit cases like mine. So pro dentist came, tried with the pick again, and this time it got a hook. But my root was still too strong, so when he tried to pull it out, the instrument snapped, leaving the pick head in my root. So much for pro-ness.

After abt 20 - 30 mins of struggling, i was already rolling my eyes like "are u guys done?", but in the end they managed to get it out somehow. And tt's just the first one. The second one din have a root break, but after pulling out the tooth, the n00b dentist exclaimed something like "omg how come ur tooth have an extra root one?" So began the process of another root removal.

And during the 2nd extraction, the local anaesthetic either wore off or wasnt strong enough for Chang's amazingly strong willed teeth. So the dentist had to administer more to numb the bugger for good.

Strong teeth is good. I'm amazed myself.

The only problem is tt i'm afraid it will be too strong. What happens if they decide not to move at all, not to react to the braces at all? What if the braces wire snap becos the teeth are too strong for them?

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? - Alanis Morissette

I read somewhere tt it's good to write things down so tt u dun forget and thus be alittle bit more focused in whatever you do. Thus, i'm writing my general weekly plan now before i forget or lose sight of it.

Monday:
- Wake up @ 9
- Ball Work + Weights
- Rest + Lunch
- Guitar/Tutorials
- School 4pm-6pm
- Free time/Tutorials/Run

Tuesday:
- School 8am-10am
- Ball Work + Weights
- Rest + Lunch
- Guitar/Tutorials/Nap
- School till 6pm-8pm
- Free time/Tutorials/Run

Wednesday:
- School till 8am-10am
- Ball Work + Weights
- Rest + Lunch
- Guitar/Tutorials/Freetime/Run

Thursday:
- Designated Dental Day @ 8am
- School 12pm-6pm
- Ball with NJ friends till late.

Friday:
- School 8am-8pm
- Free time/Run

Sat & Sun:
- Shirui time

Every night i will try to sleep at abt 12. Tt shld give me sufficient sleep and hence sufficient energy to last the days. Unless some pple need a listening ear.

I find tt this plan is good as it provides a good balance of sch, ball, guitar and Shirui, which frankly speaking, is the only 4 things tt are revolving in my life right now. Which is good.

Currently working on the drum track for "You Wanna Be A Star". Yes the old drum groove is not really correct, and there were some minor errors as well. Added a few more fills to liven up the sound, and i also tweaked the hit dynamics alittle to get a more human feel.

And of course the new drum track will be synced with BFD! Will re-record the song soon once the drums are done.

Downloading the BFD percussion set, which includes a wide variety of percussion pieces like ur cowbells, triangle, bongo, conga, maracas and it has some nonsense crap like pots and pans, chopsticks, fork and spoon hits. It also have a human clap sound in there. Really funny, but definitely useful.

Watch out for blatant use of cowbells and claps soon.

Can i say i'm not affected by this latest ankle sprain?

Every injury hits me like a train.

I've been through countless injuries already.

I feel like a walking disaster sometimes.

我不想再受伤了。

我只想开心的打球。

可以吗?

I usually dun post twice in a day. But after seeing this vid, i feel tt it's worth every effort to show it to everyone i know.

Welcome to Jurong West Street 42. If you were wondering what's up with the hype in the above 2 pics, then let me enlighten you. COS MONKEY GOD's IN DA HAUZZZ!!

Yes, everyone is there to pray to the tree tt has a somewhat weird monkey face on it's trunk. I just walked by there (cos it's exactly along the road to Shirui's hse) and the latest update is: IT FILLED WITH BANANAS! Yes. Good wholesome bananas to give u lotsa monkey energy and monkey power.

The interesting thing is tt there are plenty of Indians there, which i presume to be of the Hindu faith. Is there a Monkey God in their religion as well? From what i heard, it seems so. So it's kinda interesting to observe the Taoists and the Hindus praying to the same deity. Arent they supposed to be different religions?

I have come to a conclusion, that the Monkey God is the one true god in the world. He has already unified 2 grps of pple with distractingly contrasting skin colours, and it's just a matter of time before he starts converting those with shades in between. He doesnt need to be anywhere or everywhere, rather he's able to will pple to come to him. I've already seen Msian bikes parked along the road. It doesnt take long for the rest of the world to come.

Monkey God is able to generate instant wealth for people. Just ask the 2 ice cream uncles parked at each end of the crowd. The money is rolling in baby. And the fella tt sells "Official" Monkey God pictures too, i bet he's making some quick dough out of the high resolution scans.

And the thing tt is most kickass abt Monkey God is that, he's got balls! Of all days, he decides to reveal himself during fasting month of another faith. He's directly challenging their authenticity! Like a omnipotent being should do, he's making sure tt he's the real deal. Where's all the other gods to come challenge his place? They should reveal themselves now! It's an all or nothing battle for devotees!

There's really alot of people there. Either praying, or watching people pray, or watching the people watching people pray. And selling ice-cream, high quality photos. And pissed off people honking their horns due to the insane jam, pissed off people trying extremely hard to parallel park amidst the insane jam, pissed off bus drivers trying to get to the bus stop to let passengers alight and quickly get back to the station to take 5.

This is madness. This is Monkey God.

OH MY MONKEY GOD!

The volume knob on my electric guitar refused to turn today. With a bit of courage, i removed the cap to reveal the potentiometer inside. After some generous spraying of contact cleaner + WD 40, my guitar was alive again. It felt amazing tt i have the ability to revive my guitar.

I can't see my tagboard again. I wonder why.

Just finished 2 books by Scott Adams aka the Dilbert guy. God's Debris and The Religion War. Interesting reads, very provocative and controversial ideas present. A thought provoking experiment. Might not be suitable for close-minded Christians.

I'm thinking of running a little online guitar tutorial. Kinda like a weekly column, where i'd put up an etude which targets on a specific playing technique. It's a win-win situation for everyone, cos being a weekly thingy, there are expectations and anticipations. So it forces me to write something, however short and insignificant it might be. And it forces me to practise something, and allows me to hone in a specific technique as well. Guitarists who read this blog would probably learn something off it as well.

Said column shld come complete with tab and audio example. The only problem i forsee is the lack of video, which i think is a very capable medium to convey my ideas. But oh well, we have to work within our limitations i guess. Any ideas, or collaborators or whatever?

Lately, pple think i'm emo. Seriously speaking, who isn't lonely and emo and bored at any point in time? It's not really a big issue.

My favourite line from "Standstill":

Late at night, I wonder why

Those words we meant to say never came through

Good night to all my random readers. May randomness be with you.

I got arrowed to do one of these memes again. This kinda thing is easy to stop, as long as some pple dun participate when they get arrowed to do it. And eventually it will die off by itself. Oh well, i dun see any point in not doing, so might as well give myself something to update this blog with.

Rules: Each player of the game starts off by writing 6 weird things about themselves before choosing another 6 of their friends to "sabo". People who get tagged needs to write in a blog on their own, 6 weird things about themselves and state the rules clearly.

Hmm, 6 weird things.Tt's gonna be tricky. Cos i wonder if things tt are weird abt me are too weird for the general public to digest? Anyways here goes:

1) Whenever i eat, i tend to finish up the food tt i dislike most/like least first (vegetables), then finish up the nxt food tt i dislike most. So usually, when im close to finishing my meal, u'll only see rice + the stuff tt i like to eat. I MUST finish them in a particular order. Systematic approach to eating is quintessential in Chang's life.

2) I always have random itches all over my body. Like a monkey. It's irritating as hell. It's not like i din bathe thoroughly.

3) I'm always wondering how pple think of me. Like now, i'm wondering what this sentence means to pple reading this.

4) I've always got a random riff/song ringing in my head. Then i will start thinking of how to use said riff into an exising project i have, or write a completely new song. Then some hot babe will walk by and said riff/song will disappear from memory forever. It's good to have a memory recorder, if there is one.

5) Everytime tt i'm presented with a problem or dilemma, i will always try to find the loophole to eliminate the problem. Right now i'm thinking of tagging 6 totally random names so tt pple might think i've actually tagged someone, but in reality no one was tagged and thus stopping the spread of this meme by a little. It's weird huh, but who knows.

6) I like to tell some harmless lies once in a while to people who have totally no clue who i am, cos somehow, they will never find out the complete truth. This classes of people belong to the group which i will not bother to furnish them complete details just because i'm not interested in continuing the futile "friendship". Sorry.

Yep tt's abt it. Something weird, something evil, something scary, something naughty. What else? I'm still contemplating whether to smoke thru the tagging 6 pple thing though. Hmm ok thinking of 6 random names is harder than thinking of 6 pple i know who blog.

Ok Louis, Daniel, Shirui is out, cos they are doofus-es who dun bother with shit like this. And Johnson's the one tt arrowed me. So tt leaves:

1) Joanna - So tt u can have some fun, and hopefully i can know something abt u, which i think is hard because u are fiercely protective of ur stuff. Which i can totally understand, cos like you, i'm fiercely protective of my stuff ;) We belong to the same kind of pple. It's a challenge trying to break down ur wall :)

2) Nick - Cos Nick's the man, and it's good to know something abt the future rockstar so tt i can hold him ransom nxt time. And i know he'll have the dough to pay me cos he's a rockstar. Btw i believe Nick is game for anything, cos he's a CDO, so this is nothing man. Just do it ass!

3) Miko - Dunno if she will respond. Just giving a shot really. It's good to let pple know u are interested in maintaining a friendship.

4) Key - Cos Key Chua's blog is v bimbotic. Too many photos. Tell us more abt urself!

5) Joel - Probably too old and mature for this. Another 50/50 case actually. Just to see if ur dead/alive.

6) Lin Chuan - Cos he's the last person i know who reads my blog. Can't think of anyone else.

Ok the actual reason for wanting to smoke thru is because i really don't know who reads my blog. So it's hard to think of 6 pple who read. I'm not like Mr Popular u know. And i believe there are many more who are reading in the shadows. Which i'm perfectly fine with. Cos i read in the shadows too ^^.

Riddle: What happens when a bear does Yoga?

Answer: He becomes Yogi Bear.

Good night