latest from troyes! read all about it!
it's SNOWING!!
what's seemed to be slight rain with strong wind at first sight turns out to be snow!!
very small ones though, but it's better than nothing already!!
they float in the air with such carefreeness that for a moment got me captivated by their beauty..
the sure sign of winter and x'mas has arrived..
merry x'mas everyone to those who happened onto this site, and of course my friends and family.. and a happy new year..
and of course, in midst of this festive season, never forget to pray for those who are less fortunate than us in any way and say your thanks to god for being able to live comfortably and to be alive..

22nd dec..
finally managed a plane ticket to sweden and then to lulea, the northern-most town of sweden where matti will pick me up..
but it will take more than a day, as usual before i see him..
will leave tomorrow in morning, this time i'm taking the train at 0804 so i have AMPLE time before i take the bus to beauvais airport..
plane will depart at 1445 and reach stockholm at 1455, from there, i'll go to arlanda airport for my next flight, which will not depart till 24th dec's morning at 0805..
baek left for bordeaux this morning, he's going to his french friend's sister's place for the festival..
his friend had been an exchange student in his university, kaist, the semester or the year before..
i almost had given up on the trip to finland because all the timing of the ferry and train doesn't match or it takes too long or too expensive.. until sandra found the flight from stockholm to lulea for students which cost only around 45euros thereabout instead the rocket-high 249euros that me and anna found.. i would thereby express my gratitude to sandra and anna here for their help, gerry too for his laptop on monday night..
last night saw me a cherrier person than i had been in the morning, trying to find a way to finland and not being able to... even baek commented that he dared not say anything to me because he saw that i was very stressed and stern..
i think i'm still show too much of my emotions in front of others, i have tried and been training myself to reveal as little emotions as possible..
but it seems that i have not succeed well.. oh well, back to training phase..
maybe its the way i've been trained during my officer cadet school that i must remain calm and steady no matter the situation is, or maybe its the way i am, i don't like people to know too much of how i'm feeling now.. its really up to them to guess, as much as they tried..
so, i would try to study a little today to repay the luck i have yesterday.. the keyword: try...
on a last note: i hope this shall be the last blog i have for this year..
a +

21st dec..
hey.. what is derrick doing here, writing his blog?
isn't he supposed to be on his way to the land of the midday moon?
well.. i WAS supposed to be, until i MISSED the plane!! haha..
i had planned so well the timing for all the transport to beauvais airport..
the train at 948am so i will reach paris at around 11am, from there i will take a coach to the airport, which will take an hour and 10 mins, so i will reach there well before 2pm, ample time for my flight which is at 245pm..
yes, it was supposed to be..
until when i reached paris and realised that the coach does not leave from the place i arrived from troyes!! it is at another station, which they have no answer to initially when i asked the person at the info counter.. they had to ask their collegues.. i'm pretty sure that i'm not the 1st to have asked them the same question..
then came the next miscalculation: i assumed that the coach leaves for beauvais airport at regluar intervals, maybe every 30mins or 1 hr.. but no.. they leave 3 hrs prior every flight.. so that means for my flight at 245pm, i should have taken the coach at 1145am.. yes, i wished i had known it before i reach there!! it was already 1225pm when i reached the coach parking lot.. and the rest is history..
and that also meant that i had to forfeit my train ticket which i had booked months ago.. 29euros(sin$60).. so now i'm back in troyes, meeting surprised eyes everytime i meet someone whom knew that i wasn't supposed to appear here in front of them.. haha..
but i became rather tired of explaining again and again why i am still in troyes.. haha..
just got myself another flight on 23rd dec, thursday to stockholm..
SAME time as the previous one, but 3 times more expensive.. and on top of that, there's still the plane or train ticket to take care of when i reach stockholm which would take me to somewhere north of sweden so matti is able to pick me up from..
did some checks on the train.. some daunting results came out: 14 hrs from stockholm to lulea, the closest to matti's place.. but still nothing compared to the 16 hours i endured from barcelona to paris..
but i'm determined to go his place finland, since we have planned long time ago and his family are expecting me to be there.. no way i'm going to let them down..
oh well.. i would like to watch some show now to make myself feel better, well actually i'm better already.. i don't dwell on past bad experiences too long..
a +

19th dec...
6 more days to x'mas..
1 more day before i depart for finland..
so today shall be my last blog for the year, unless i'm able to have access there..
i certainly hope so, so i can post pictures during my stay there..
i certainly hope we will have a qhite x'mas this year, because matti told me that it rained a few days ago and washed the snow away.. aww..
i had capoeira demostration yesterday at utt..
it was some event organised by the red cross for fund-raising..
not too bad.. the turn was average.. i thought there would be more people..
pictures will be up later..

the x'mas lunch with my favorite gals.. from left: nari, sung and liping..  

the beer flowed freely.. to the point that some drunk french actually splashed beer at each other.. and the rest started singing some UTT songs.. and so to rise to that occasion, on of them actually went up the counter and showed us his STUFF.. his butt, of course.. what are you thinking?? i was too late, so it was when he had already done up his pants.. what a pity ya, girls? haha 

the party at foyer last night.. 

17th dec..
rainy day, but not that cold.. thank god..
been raining the whole day and winds are blowing strong..
but it's only 7 degrees!! so HOT, in this sense, that is, haha..
think the trip to carrefour is off, till tomorrow morning, i hope..
had a x'mas lunch with the korean and chinese girls..
we had pot-luck: nari made mexican rice, liping made steamed-egg, i made crepes, and sung brought some apples..
it's those days that you just feel like staying in your comfy and warm room and do nothing, or maybe watch some movies or read a book.. or just tuck yourself in the bed with your other half, chatting away.. how blissful.. haha..
for me, the library suffices.. for now.. i hope, i certainly hope..
oh well.. will try to STUDY a little before the x'mas vacations..
a +

a short funny flash animation about an unfunny subject which is a take-off from the Godfather..

16th dec..
another cloudy day...
the party at atlantic was cancelled because it has closed down! haha..
this town is boring its pubs to closure.. man..
so instead, they are having one at the foyer at utt..
so i will go after my last - i hope not - climbing session at the omnisports hall, with baek of course..
wanted to watch 'to kill a king' last night, but they talked so much that i actually dozed off, so me and baek changed to 'the day after tomorrow' instead..
the thing is, it's in german..
i don't know where my friend got the show from but yes, it was in german AND chinese subtitles.. so.. i tried to understand it, some of which are quite wrong, and it was not too bad..
still i dozed off some time into the show..
it was not that it was not good or something, just that i was kind of tired after 8 hours of lessons, maybe..?
citroen's tv commercial for their new c4: http://www.citroen.co.uk/c4/homepage.asp?pagetype=c4..

baek had sent me lots of traditional korean songs, which had found its way into his laptop after we watched the korean movie "don't believe her!".. quite entertaining..
it has a very nice song which i liked a lot.. so i asked baek to search for me..
and instead of just 1 song, he sent me about 30 of the most popular traditional songs!!
and the most interesting fact is that the style and rhythm is so much similar to those of japanese and taiwanese traditional songs that i suspected that they have the same roots..
oh well, does the fact that japan had occupied korea before ring a bell? maybe..
i wouldn't say i'm a hardcore fan of such songs but i grew up listening them because my dad liked traditional japanese songs and my aunties listened traditional taiwanese songs..
although i had ziltch idea what they're singing but i enjoyed them nonetheless..
and i find the way they sing rather amusing: they would look sorrowful when they sing and will look towards the distant and raise a hand towards that direction, as if singing to someone at that direction, and they sing with lots of throat tremble.. very nice..
weekend's just round the corner already.. last saturday seemed just yesterday! ah..
oh well, back to car magazine, no i mean my studies.. you get the idea..
a +

another close-up of mine.. succeeded with the macro this time round..  

trees of the world unite!! there's one by sanna, 2 by matti, 1 by james, and 1 by yours truly.. aren't they lovely.. 

james too had his feminine side.. he had actually finished his, but pretend to be doing something just for this pic..  

mr finnish hunk displaying his feminine side.. we are making tree as x'mas presents.. 

ahhh!!! can you believe what i had just seen?!?! floppy disk!! yes.. they are still using that in some discrete place in machine room!!  

the presence of sun does make a lot of difference on the grass.. creating a feel of the triumph of sun over the freeze.. 

some fluffy plant covered with ice.. didn't succeed with the macro focus though.. will try again.. 

the sub-zero temperature caused the water vapour to freeze on the grass, creating a scenery of whiteness.. it was yesterday morning.. 

had not seen the sun for about 2 weeks.. taken on monday noon.. and it had been sunny for the next 2 days, including today.. 

kind of blur.. because i had some of that vin chaud also.. so was kind of unstable..  

gifts from russia.. nice but expensive.. 

and that's baek and his vin chaud.. you can actually see that he's quite normal before it.. haha 

went 2 centre-ville of troyes last saturday with felipe and baek..
they were having the x'mas market over there.. it was quite fabulous.. but rather small..
and it was so COLD!!!
we were pratically freezing there..
baek tried the vin chaud, which means hot wine..
he got kinda tipsy after that.. just laughed and laughed..
they have some interesting stuffs over there from russia.. like accessories, toys and cds..

baek and me at carrefour yesterday...
bought so much stuff that we can't put all of them in our bags..
end up eating of some the delicious croissants that he bought..
lazy capoeira day.. prof is not back yet so we didn't learn anything new, just trained on what we had learnt..
i was talking to this lady when she expressed her interests in martial arts.. how interesting!!
we ended up talking about kung-fu movies and she had actually watched alot of them..
what's too good to be true is that she had watched 'ong bak' before too.. hhaha..
and the best part? she will lend me the dvd next monday !!! ain't that great or what?!
had dinner with gerry after capoeira..
we are trying to have more meals together before i return.. which is not so far away..
had korean cuisine.. haha.. which is really simple to prepare.. and nice..
was so tired after that that i had trouble keeping awake while watching 'zatoichi' in baek's room after that.. but it was entertaining nonetheless..
will be making my x'mas shopping later.. really have no idea what to get..
guess when i reach there i'll know.. i hope..

10th dec..
another week passed jus like that..
click of the finger..
blink of the eye..
beat of the heart..
and voila, its friday again..
single-digit-temperature week.. was told it was -1 degree last night..
it was my first time cycling at 1 degree on wednesday night to capoeira...
not too bad, when you are all well-dressed with warm clothes..
yet another day shrouded with thick mist..
oh well, i'm quite comfortable and warm in the library..
don't really felt like blogging this week , as you can from the duration between the current and the previous one..
oh well.. think i will feel better during the weekend and will blog more..
and charles, you have not write to my e-mail yet!!

3rd of dec..
the whole UTT is surrounded by a thin layer of mist.. adding a sense of mystery and freeze..
it started to be misty since last night, after our climbing session.. first mist of my life..
looked scary.. the way that you are not able to see far ahead.. as though a veil was placed permanently in front of your eyes, disrupting your vision..
i guess it's going to be another quiet and calm weekend..
with the korean girls going paris and the european girls to strasbourgh..
gerry, li jun and abel to chateau of loires or something like that just added to the emptiness of CROUS.. looks like its going to be a dead maison this weekend..
oh well, it's just fine for me to have some time for myself..
although there's going to have some events going on in UTT and a capoeira demostration tomorrow.. which i'm going to the latter..
just came to realise that i have only 3 more wednesdays left that i'd be able to cycle to capoeira..
2 more for the next 2 weeks, followed by x'mas break till jan, after which is 2 more weeks to exams.. and off i go.. back to singapore.. oh man..
i don't want to go back..
yet i enjoyed the weather and the convenience of singapore..
i don't like the weather and the annoying french way of working..
but i have grown attached to the friends here..
argh.. i'm torn mentally into 2..
agony bites deep..
perhaps that explains the bad mood i'm having.. but then again, maybe not..
yet i have already no choice but to go back..
reality strikes home..
i'll just have to enjoy to the fullest my remaining days, and pass my exams too.. haha
a +..

1st of dec, i don't know why, but it has not been a good day for me..
i can't find the words to describe..
it's not like the day didn't go smoothly or something like that.. it was fine..
no one pissed me off, but even if someone did, i don't think that i would be this crappy..
it must be one of those days again..
i'm feeling sleepy the whole day.. and yesterday too..
baek told me that he had heard me snored yesterday evening during the yoga session!! man..
it's my body clock at work.. i don't, or i can't, get alseep before midnite; and no matter how late i go to sleep, i would wake up around 7 or 8 in the morning.. it's just crazy..

does true love exist? or is it just convenient love? i keep returning to this statement of my friend since he asked me 2 weeks ago..