To find the best ginger ale.

First up,
Evervess Ginger Ale.
$0.75 from Cold Storage.

I guess this is by far the cheapest I could find, and what you pay is what you get.
It is loaded with sugar, and there isn’t the slightest hint of ginger.
If I poured it into a glass and served it to you, you would have probably thought that it is 7-Up.

Up next,
Muji Ginger Ale.
Can’t remember the exact price, but it was around $2.70.
No pictures either, but you will recognize it when you see it.

The ginger taste is over-powering! It even leaves behind a strong aftertaste, which doesn’t stay pleasantly in your mouth (unlike Coke Light.)
It is not to my liking, but if anyone likes the overwhelming taste of ginger, this is definitely the one.
Moreover, priced at more than $2, I wouldn’t buy it even if I was really thirsty.
I think the only drink that is worth grabbing from the Muji refrigerator shelf is their milk tea.

Lastly, my favourite,
Schweppes Ginger Ale,
$0.90 from Cold Storage.

(The one in the middle, obviously.)

THIS.
I can’t find a better tasting ginger ale yet.
Reasonably priced, the taste is well-balanced; not too sweet with the lingering taste of ginger.
And this is the one they serve on board airlines too.
When you are on board a long flight and craving for some happy juice, I swear nothing feels better than having chilled ginger ale in your mouth.

Meanwhile, I shall try more of other brands when I actually see them.

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,” is something I would like to repeatedly remind myself.

Sure, of course, men are naturally attracted to pretty things,
Which is why cosmetics were manufactured, so that the aesthetically-challenged may have their fair share of looking beautiful.

But if you have an ugly personality and character,
Photoshop and make up can’t save you.

Yet, having said this, it doesn’t really make a difference because there are still a lot of shallow people out there.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_754249.html

Olympic chance for final-year tertiary students or media graduates

A young aspiring journalist is about to score the assignment of a lifetime – an all-expenses paid trip to cover the Olympic Games this year.

The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) and The Straits Times are sending a young reporter aged between 18 and 26 to the quadrennial event in London.

The chosen candidate will not just win a ticket to report on world sport’s biggest event. His or her stories during the Games will also be published by ST, reaching its 1.34 million readers nationwide.

The winner will also be mentored by the two ST reporters covering the July 27-Aug 12 event – senior correspondent Rohit Brijnath and correspondent Terrence Voon.

No harm trying!
I just submitted my essay and my CV.

40stripes.com dates all the way back to 2006.
I spend about $60 a year to publish my life online, and its maintenance is not easy.
Yet, I still want to keep this blog going and I refuse to delete its archives.
This is simply because 40stripes.com has followed me all the way through my polytechnic years, my national service days, even right up till now, when I have graduated from UB and found a job.

If you actually read through all 944 posts on this blog, you can probably see how I have transited through the various phases of my life. How some of my dreams were fulfilled, how I didn’t manage to achieve some of them, and how the rest of them were killed by the reality of life itself.

Then in October 2008, I tattooed the words ‘Proven Character’ on the back of my neck, which I have always found to be my sense of identity.
‘Proven Character’ sums up who I am, or at least what I aspire to be.

However, over the past year,
I had completely no control over myself, and how I reacted to certain situations.
My emotions spiraled out of control that I was so overwhelmed, and I allowed people, circumstances, and my environment, shape and mould me.
I became the type of person I hated.
Sometimes I would think about what had happened, wonder what went wrong, and push the blame on others.

When I went to church today, I walked in feeling like it was going to be just another weekend,
But it wasn’t. Somehow it felt different.
Perhaps it was the vibes of 2012 that hit me.
I bumped into old friends, ex-ministry members, and even an old crush,
And they still treated me as well as before.
As well as how they got to know me back then in 2008.

It made me realize that despite what had happened over the years, not everybody is going to judge me.
Some people still genuinely care.

Moreover, due to my job nature, I have to interact a lot with pupils and fit into a school setting.
I have to become the decent guy, removing all my piercings and covering up my tattoos, so that I am someone that children can actually feel comfortable with in a school environment.
That also means that I have to stop swearing, be less harsh, and start being kind to others.

In short, I have to start living right.

It is going to be a difficult task,
Because the truth is, after you hit a certain age,
A large part of who you are is already set for life.

I am 25 this year.
There are a lot of habits that I cannot get rid of.
I can’t just change myself overnight and transform into an angel the next morning.
It is going to take a lot of effort, determination, and time, to do that.

But I am willing to try.

While it is true that I can be a real jackass when I get angry, when I start to hate, and when I want to make things difficult for people,
the opposite is also true.

I can go to great lengths for people that I appreciate, that I love, and people that I really treasure.
People whom I feel that they should not be short-changed, and deserve to be treated right.

I had enough of making excuses for myself.
I had enough of making myself look pathetic.
Everybody makes mistakes. I may not have the capacity to forgive everyone, and I certainly don’t expect everyone to forgive me.

But what I can do for myself (which others can also benefit from) is to start living right, again.

I am not doing this because I have a motive.
I am not doing this because I want to have something to brag about.
I am not doing this because I have something to prove.

I am doing this, just because it is the right thing to do.
If there is anything that I can actually prove, it is to prove that if I can do it,
everyone else can.

It is difficult to distinguish right from wrong, because people draw their lines at different levels and standards.
But I am going to take the first step.

Enough with the hating.
Lets get down to business.

I am Proven Character.

Ever had this feeling?

You go through the same motion with someone new. You do the same old things, visit the same old places, eat the same old food, except that this is with a totally different person. You remember who you once did it with, who you once visited it with, who you once ate it with.

It messes with your feelings.

You think that you are in love, but in fact, you are just in love with the sense of familiarity that she gives you. The same feeling that someone else made you go through, that made you happy beyond words.

I am experiencing it now.

Feelings. They deceive.

Today is Friday the 13th,
A day which many associate with superstitions and bad luck.
A day when weird and unbelievable things could happen out of the ordinary.
Perhaps even made into an episode of Incredible Tales.

What is so weird and unbelievable about this day is that I got a job,

With the Ministry of Education.

I bet my whole life nobody could have imagined that I could ever state in my CV that I worked with MOE.

I won’t say much about the job because I believe that such things are sensitive and classified,
But I am, after all, holding a BA in Sociology, so you could probably figure that it is something related to what I studied.

I start work next week.

Let me teach you how to stretch your SGD50 bill.

1. Cross the causeway.
2. Visit a moneychanger and hand him your SGD50 bill.
3. Receive RM 120 in return.
4. Go for a 60 minute foot massage for RM 60.
5. Have a very filling lunch, consisting of iced milk tea, mee rebus, mee siam and rojak, for RM 20.
6. Buy a dozen of J.Co donuts for RM 20.
7. Buy 7 bottles of vanilla coke for RM 16.
8. Be happy.