really like this song, think i may do an acoustic arrangment of this song, once i'm done with the dreaded exams. at the moment i'm still having a headache so really appreciate this soothing song. i ended up going back today, and things just weren't the same. what i thought got was going bad really went bad. i really didn't know what to say. it just felt weird. i wonder why i even bothered to make that attempt. anyways, off i go to sleep, hope effects of panadol kicks in soon, i need to get started on work tomorrow. with or without you.

Running To Stand Still

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was lyin' still.
Said I gotta do something
About where i'm goin'.

Step on a fast train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night.

Singing ah, ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.

Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth.
I see seven towers, but I only see one way out.
You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice.
You know I took the poison, from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here, singing

Ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day.

She walks through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain.
In through a doorway
She brings me white golden pearls
Stolen from the sea.

She is ragin'
She is ragin'
And the storm blows up in her eyes.
She will suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand still.

owww i have a headache. i didn't have it just now, i wonder what caused it.

today's not a good day. it hasn't been good, considering i've not stepped out of any exam venue feeling that i did alright this sem. and it's not a good thing.

have been trying to forget stuff but i just can't seem to. i really don't know...i was thinking about doing things for myself for once, but it's not working either. my identity seems to have been lost along the way. either that or things have gone so whacked i don't even know what's going on anymore. maybe i shouldn't resist anymore.

argh i need to cure my headache...

for the well-being of my brain, after tomorrow i don't want to see another circuit for as long as i live. i know it's quite impossible but who knows. in a way i dread that there'll be 2 papers tomorrow. it's going to be a long-drawn battle but whatever it is, i have to take both seriously. as much as they may be my favourite subjects, they're definitely not my favourite topics...but the battle must still be fought. i won't dare to think/expect any grades till i see the papers tomorrow. but i will promise myself that no matter how well/badly they go, i will take a break and relax tomorrow evening (like i haven't done enough of that)...but i think many of my brain cells will be sacrificed tomorrow.

ok, i'm going to try to finish 11 and 12. then go back to fraunhoffer and derivation of the lens stuff. i wonder what time i'll be done. or will i ever finish? argh...

yet after tomorrow, my life will be very twisted cos what's left will be chem and accounting. it's a good thing in the sense it's marking the end though not very near, it's still THE END...better than a never ending torture spree, but those 2 subjects are the bane of my life currently and i can find my chem text at the BOTTOM of the pile of study-stuff....so imagine when i last touched anything to do with chem. accounting isn't even in sight, i have to go dig it out from my bookshelf.

i wonder what will happen, i wonder what kind of results i will get this time. it's so darn unpredictable. i'm just worried that it'll be worse than what i view as the lousiest i 'can afford' to do. i don't wish that this moment of slack-ish behaviour will ruin my dreams of going to that prestigious place. and i was still playing catch up. sigh...'nuff talking. good luck to me tomorrow...not only do i need inspiration, i need STAMINA. 9am to 4pm is seriously no joke...and definitely isn't funny.

couldn't seem to concentrate...not even with EG. i feel sick, of everything in general. upset that i'm the one screwing my own life up. i've seen two lousy papers...and remembering how i once promised myself that i would never allow this to happen in uni life i question how seriously i take myself. i think i take some people more seriously than myself...

aiyah...let's get back to EG.
i think the lead guitar book piece we did today was nice...blues and jazzy sounding, no wonder DC played it well. we did a bit of sweeping ("not sweep the floor lah"). a few other rifts, which sound pretty cool. with natural harmonics (which i can't get...). talked to DC a bit today...but nothing much.

ok off to watch CSI then probably to sleep.

i'm suffering from a neuro-hull-breach. computing should not be tested or learnt in this way. i can really feel my brain swelling up from all the stupid coding and values i have to remember, which by the way have little if not NO resemblence to the english language, when in real life programmers can always refer back to their materials for the coding if necessary. it's more important to understand the concept and reason behind the syntax...but drats who am i to say anything, i don't hold no phD in computer science/enginering/software programming...i don't even hold a darn phD lah. sigh.

it's no use to say i'm seriously lagging behind time. because most would say they believe while they may or may not...while others who believe are definitely not able to do anything about it. i got to start on electro-magneto-blah-blah-crap the moment i come home tomorrow, not forgetting there's EG at night. i don't want my physics results to be screwed...even if the rest are (although i REALLY HOPE THEY'RE NOT, but the chances are slim and i shall be honest and realistic).

i constantly wonder what happened to me this semester such that i have lost all motivation whatsoever to get stuff done and get stuff into my brain. argh, let's hope things go back to normal next sem...i'm hoping that my formal specialisation being confirmed and covered will actually bring out some spark of brilliance. ya dream on i know...

this song just says so much. oh and the 2 interview clips are quite interesting...general information about u2. i think the part with bono talking about michael hutchence (lead singer of inxs). i can totally relate to how we can really feel black and lousy, but somehow i never hit rock bottom either...and it's scary to think how it would be like.

Gone

You get to feel so guilty
Got so much for so little
The you find that feeling just won't go away.
You're holding on to every little thing so tightly
Till there's nothing left for you anyway.

Goodbye, you can keep this suit of lights
I'll be up with the sun
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down.

You wanted to get somewhere so badly
You had to lose yourself along the way.
You changed your name
Well that's okay, it's necessary
And what you leave behind you don't miss anyway.

Goodbye, you can keep this suit of lights
I'll be up with the sun
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down.

'Cause I'm already gone
Felt that way all along.
Closer to you every day
I didn't want it that much anyway.

You're taking steps that make you feel dizzy
Then you learn to like the way it feels.
You hurt yourself, you hurt your lover
Then you discover
What you thought was freedom is just greed.

Goodbye, and it's an emotional
Goodnight, I'll be up with the sun.
Are you still holding on?
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down
I'm not coming down.

U2 Interview Part 1

U2 Interview Part 2

i will not look back, even if the sky falls down behind me. and so, don't ask me about today's paper. i'm done, and it's over...

anyway inspiration for myself:

The Edge even goes as far as to practice a single riff for HOURS - alone - to PERFECT ONE SOUND.

What would you do if you fell off the stage?
- Answer: I don't know, probably climb back out and carry on. I did have a slight shock when Bono fell of the stage on the opening night, but he didn't fall very far fortunately. I have fallen off stage on a couple of occasions. The first thing is to protect the guitar, because you can fix an ankle, you can fix a bruise, but when you break a guitar that's the end of it.

I'm not a fan of the million-miles-per-second guitar player. That's more a form of athletics than anything else. It's not really about music ... Peter Buck from R.E.M. is also good. Good in that nothing he ever does really bowls you over - until you've heard it about twenty times. I think that's a sign of music that really has longevity, when it grows on you like that. I like R.E.M. Maybe it needs a few more records to be brilliant, but it's great now.

The one my mother bought me I learnt how to tune. The one I had before that was like this little Spanish guitar. It looked good. That was part of it. I mean, I liked guitars at that stage. I stopped looking at them for a while. But I've started to notice how amazing they look again. That's one of the things that attracted me to rock & roll. Initially, there's that feeling of potential, of power, when you strap on an electric guitar. And then you learn that what it's really about is controlling that power. I mean, the guitar has been a big part of Rock 'n' Roll. I just can't imagine Elvis holding a violin!

hope that time will accelerate after tomorrow...i know what i'm going to be doing after 12pm. eating lunch then having a nice long nap before i start on my quantum. sigh...i have my doubts about being able to finish 2 modules of physics in a week. not that i didn't have the time...but that's another point.

hope tomorrow will turn out fine. everything that i want to do has been done. or so i think...
note not everything i can do, but everything i want to do...has been done. hope i won't be done tomorrow. yes. off to watch TV before sleeping...my brain needs to come to a sizzling halt.

i feel that i should be much more selfish...everywhere i turn, i feel i'm not good enough. aiyah...not like it's something new. whatever. i don't think this exam is going to be a good thing. but it's not that i lack time, i lack spirit. hate self-battles.

first time i jammed till i injured my hand. my left hand is injured now, thanks to non-stop bending action. was playing some solo at EG today and halfway thru i felt immense pain shooting through my left hand first finger and nearly dropped my guitar. DC says it's temporary, i think it is, cos it's better now. over-strain...probably goes to show how much time i've spent doing the wrong things.

my stupid computer is giving me attitude problems. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and i've reformatted it 3 times in one day. argh. it's now working and i hope nothing goes wrong again. i have to download msn, windows media player and the rest of the stuff. sigh. and on top of all this, i'm supposed to be studying.

anyways, i would like to thank...
val, elaine, tong shou, jacW, jh, SQ and lh for their sms-es/messages yesterday . i hope i haven't left out anyone but i don't think i have cos i wrote everything down. although it was a quiet day. i still did go out with 'son and 'ron for dinner at sushi tei cos chomp chomp was SO crowded. hope this year will be better for me...and everyone who makes my life better.

darn, i feel like it's been so long and i haven't even sat for my first paper yet. i wonder whether it's ever going to end. sianz.

does my exam start next week? well i think so...but it doesn't seem like it. everything has been so sucky and i haven't even been studying. and even when i try to, nothing seems to make sense...or rather, i can't make sense of anything i read. maybe i'm just not going to study for the exams? darn, i haven't started on stuff like chemistry and physics at all. but whose to believe me rite? i guess i can only complain to myself. yet complaining doesn't make sense because not like it's going to allow me to pass my exams.

nothing makes sense. i don't want to believe my birthday is this saturday. i wish i wasn't born at all. argh. whatever lah. THIS YEAR I DO NOT EXIST. yes, that way, i won't have a birthday and i'll only exist once again when there's no exams to spoil it all. does it make sense? well it's not supposed to anyway. nothing makes sense...

(above 2): my 20th birthday present from me to myself...


















these are the very reasons why i am so broke now. but every single one of them is worth my money. cos U2 is a brilliant live band, i can not buy their CDs but i must watch their concerts. if they ever come down to singapore (although i think that would probably be in my dreams) i will definitely watch them. the energy at each concert is fantastic...they always blow the crowd away. most importantly, they don't sound like crap playing live -- unlike some other bands which can't play live for nuts. they sound good and they're the real thing. every member functioning to play their own part and performing the song to show it like it is. their music is definitely not some fake, synthesised in the studio sort of thing. it is music that has been written with talent and contains substance.

and it's true that it's getting harder to find because somehow there's been an influx of posers esp recently who can only sing (some can't even sing) and look-good (or so people think they look good) and they just go and pretend that they have all it takes. and that simply isn't what music is about. a concert is where you watch the band play live, major component being the music. it's not about seeing nice pretty costumes...or nice dance moves...when the darn guy can't even play a note on any instrument when they perform. seesh. these are the people that CANNOT be labelled as MUSICIANS. dancers are NOT musicians. at least not by my definition, dancers are just artistes. so if you can't play a darn note, please don't tell me the group is called a band or the individual is a musician. i'm not even going to go into writing his/her/their own songs...i should stop before i get hate mail. seesh.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EG yesterday. i've been getting the comment "wah, exam coming still go guitar" so often lately. but never mind that. i was really tired and somehow feeling slightly sick ok i think it was more of the tired bit. quite a tight squeeze. so i was sitting beside DC beside the amp stuff. he kept asking me whether i was ok cos i was nodding off between songs. can't believe it. it didn't help that i hadn't got any sleep 48 hours before that. so yes...it really sucked quite bad actually. but the guys were just as lame...and DC had a problem trying to get them to stop playing to do the demo for each rift. haha to the extent he jumped up in a moment of fustration and then decided to play it cool and laugh it off. lucky the response was ok. so now we need to have 2 make-ups. and we're planning to have like a 3 hour continuous slot. hopefully soon. haha...i totally like the idea. i think we can just rock till the studio collapses...

and i haven't bought my book 2 yet. argh. was too excited looking for the U2 concert DVDs...

argjh wish i had all those guitars.

anyways, i don't think i'm going to clear my exams at this rate. sigh wonder why just can't get started. darn, not like i have a lot of time left. sigh...what am i to do.

"I'm not sure if Irish people can dance.... except for The Edge, that is, who is our own funky chicken." -Bono

"My room overlooks the park and yesterday during the afternoon I'd opened up all the blinds and taken back the curtains so I could look out over the park. Come nightfall, I was grooving to some rap record in my room, bopping around the room for maybe half an hour. I don't know what I was doing, just messing around...and at one stage I looked out of the window and there were about 200 people looking up, clapping, applauding my dancing. That was funny." -The Edge

His [Edge's] gaze drifts off into the air, mentally subdividing God-knows-what complex equation. It turns out he's wondering if right now Larry is finding the fan letter Edge left lying conspicuously in the dressing room. The letter tells Edge that he is "the best-looking member of U2. Bono has a big nose and Larry looks like an inflatable doll." Edge got the note in Australia and he plans to keep leaving it out until Larry notices it. "Bass players attract the weirdest fans," Edge says. "I tend to get the bespectacled MIT students. Bono gets the poets. And Larry, unfortunately, gets the girls." Edge sighs and repeats the old saw: "We should have gotten a Ringo." The Beautiful Boy himself enters the cafeteria, showing no signs of having yet seen himself described as inflatable. Edge gets up to collect his mash note for next time... U2 At the End of the World

From an interview w/ B.P. Fallon:
BP: Did you ever think you were going to die?
LARRY: Yes, only on the back of Bono's motorbike!
EDGE: Only on the back of Bono's motorbike.
ADAM: Only in the back of Bono's car.
BONO: Die, no. Squashed, yes.

BP: Do you ever wish you were Edge/Larry/Adam?
Bono: The bass is the hippest instrument in rock 'n roll, the drums are the most exciting. I want to play the guitar very badly and I do play the guitar very badly.

"When I was three I thought the world revolved around me I was RIGHT!" -Bono, Zoo TV Tour

"Hello? Is this Speedy Pizza? I'd like to order 10,000 pizzas for Detroit. We're at the Palace. D'a know the Palace? Yeah, I AM serious. I'm very serious. You can't make 10,000? Just make as many as you can. OK. What? My name is Bono." - Zoo TV tour, March 27 1992

"When those people get up at the Grammys and say, 'I thank God,' I always imagine God going, 'Oh, don't- please don't thank me for that one. Please, oh that's an awful one! Don't thank me for that!" -Bono at the Grammys 2001

"I just passed Adam, I said, Adam, you're 40, doyou have anything to say? And he said, obscurely, Howlong do I have to sing this song?"- Bono, in the YahooChat, 12 March 2000

"It's a mad thing we do.There's nothing natural about it.I mean, I hit things for a living. I hit things and people clap!" - Larry Mullen Jr. (U2 Drummer) 2001

haha...look here i can't believe people do this. i like this website a lot...this guy's a genius alright.

anyways, it was a great day for doing absolutely nothing. so absolutely nothing i did. going off to read more websites. yes talk about slacking. i'm tired. seesh.