Pre Road trip

After hearing almost as many horror stories from as many Malaysians in Blk C, I feel kinda worried about the trip. The flooding and demonstration just make things worse. Furthermore, my body is aching all over from 3 consecutive days of floorball-ing. Subtly, I've lowered my expectations for an exciting, exhilarating, fun-filled road trip to just a safe and sound one. But my 6th sense just tell me this trip will be a funfilled one.

Thundary Night

Lightnings! Haven't seen them at such close proximity for a long time. I wonder what the lightning struck. Everything seem to be in place. Maybe it's the ultra efficient lightning rods on top of every building doing their jobs. Adults pacify children by telling them that lightnings only strike those who commit evil deeds. What will the children think when they know there such a thing call lightning rod? Will children that grow up in this internet era think that it is okay to commit crimes since there is lightning rods to be struck in their place?

Mistaken identity

Received this message on facebook:

WOW! Was juz browsing thru and saw U sia! Peixin PRIMARY sch, Pri 1-1 and 2-1?!!! WOWW! HAHHAHAHhA! Haf A sMashing gOOd day! ENjOyz!

The problem is I am not from Peixin Primary School. Now I know there is someone who looks like me with the same name as me out there.

A Semester Cycle

Interesting mail I received.

Hope this is not what you are encountering now. hahha

New school semester:


At the first week:


At the second week:


Before the mid-term test:


During the mid-term test:


After the mid-term test:


Before the final exam:


Once know the final exam schedule:


7 days before final exam:


6 days before final exam:


5 days before final exam:


4 days before final exam:


3 days before final exam:


2 days before final exam:


1 day before final exam:


A night before final exam:


1 hour before final exam:


During the final exam:


Once walk out from the exam hall:


After the final exam, during the holiday:

ippt

Furthest sbj ever and slowest 2.4 in 9 years. But no more ippt for a year.

Break!

Hall life is sure hectic. IBG, SNDCC, Buaya week and DnD is really too much for 6 six weeks. Shouldn't had played buaya week. Although I tried my best and had considerable amount of lameness and fun, I think I kinda disappointed my buaya and buayee. Now, I have to find a nice present to compensate.

Organising DnD (and SNDCC) is surely an unique experience. Although it was quite xiong at times, the comm never failed to have fun.

Finally it's midterm break when I can try to finish my projects and catch up with sleep.

Divided into two

I think better when I jog alone, but I still can't comprehend how a "family" community has to end up like this. Those who just can't accept things, just had to make things unacceptable when such decisions won't affect them. Those (more like that) who don't know things, just had to make things more complicated by jumping on the bandwagon.

Childish thoughts keep running through my mind that will make the current not-so-nice situation worse than before. How come this shit has to happen within the blk that I m in? I must not be childish.

7 deadly sins of meeting

Sin #1: People don't take meetings seriously. They arrive late, leave early, and spend most of their time doodling.

Sin #2: Meetings are too long. They should accomplish twice as much in half the time.

Sin #3: People wander off the topic. Participants spend more time digressing than discussing.

Sin #4: Nothing happens once the meeting ends. People don't convert decisions into action.

Sin #5: People don't tell the truth. There's plenty of conversation, but not much candor.

Sin #6: Meetings are always missing important information, so they postpone critical decisions.

Sin #7: Meetings never get better. People make the same mistakes.


Ripped it off from some website. Sad to say, all meetings I ever attended are guilty of at least 5 of the 7 listed sins. Maybe NUS (and ah gong's army) should start a module on meeting management or even make it a university requirement module.

Death of face to face talk

Received 5 emails from a certain group seemingly quarreling about some ambiguous issues. Somehow, with emails, people can no long talk face to face and differences have to be settled with emails (and broadcast to innocent parties who most likely don't know what is going on). I can imagine 5 years later, I would be sitting in front of my boring officer computer, receiving heated arguments between parties who just can't bear the sight of each other to hold a normal face to face conversation (or hold a conversation with each other using an ancient technology call telephone). Most likely, I won't know what happened but I would still be receiving the mails, thanks to the power of "carbon copying". How exciting my future office life will be?

Vietnam 07

Took me quite a while to write something about the trip. Finally gathered enough motivation after my first paper in 3 months is over.


Flew to Ho Chi Ming City with Jetstar. We kinda paid more than we should. The very next day after we paid for the tickets, Jetstarasia decided to come up with a $2 promotion. What a good omen!


Day 1:

Checked in to a wonderful guesthouse "Blue River Hotel". The staffs there are simply fantastic. The facilities there are new and clean. With aircon, attached bathroom, cable television and free internet usage, it cost 6 USD per pax per night. How I wish they have this everywhere in the world.

Dumping our bags, we embarked on a "7 hours City Tour" recommended by our little blue book.
With a little Holland all thanks to ____ (I shan't mention name) and a few short cuts, we managed to keep the tour to within 7 hours with plenty of rest in between. Some (mis)adventures also took place: chased by dogs, vendors, disrupting traffic flow.

First meal in Vietnam, at Pho 24, just before walking round district 1.


Different sizes of noodles.

Kanghao with a street vendor prior to being harassed by a coconut drink vendor for 2 whole streets

Overcoming the language barrier to buy a cup of "mix ice" desert. It took two NUS students to do the job with a wtf hand sign (look carefully and you shall see) from Alex.

Final Destination "Jade Emperor Pagoda". I was sincerely hoping to see something grand. Maybe not as grand as the grand palace of Thailand but at least a little taller (my understanding of pagodas is that they are supposed to be tall), bigger and filled with a few more statues of deities. This is seriously not a site worth visiting for Singaporeans who have see many many more variety of temples in their lives. This is not withstanding the fact that this is the most out of the way tourist attraction in the city tour.

Concluded day one with ~20 fake pirated adiddas polo tees.


Day 2:

Dragged ourselves out of bed and had our first breakfast in Vietnam. We asked for coffee but they served us both coffee and tea. That is where we learn that vietnamese usually starts the day with a cup of tea.

Took a long bus ride to Cao Dai Temples. It's a temple built like a Christian church decorated with Buddhist lotus, emphasis place on direction like in Islam and Taoist influences in its rites. There are another 3 religions involved but I can't really remember. It was really an eye opener.

Front view of the temple


Different colours symbolise different "religion"

With so many tourist staring at them, taking pictures with flashes on, they still carried on with the mess.

Visited Chu Chi tunnels, indigenous product of Vietnam war and a very popular tourist destination now. Watch a super low quality video that was produced like 20 years ago? The irony is that it is shown on a huge plasma screen that will cost me more than a year worth of allowance. There's more than tunnels in that place. It's is more like a open concept museum that show case how the people lived in the extreme conditions during VW. The highlight is the tunnel where I gave up on the first exit and some ang mos didn't even bother to try since they know they will be stuck somewhere along the tunnel.

After crawling through 30 m of the infamous tunnels

Concluded the day with more than 100 hours worth of DVDs


Day 3:

Mekong delta day. Took boats everywhere in the region. Visited honey farm. Took pictures with python. Witnessed coconut sweet production line.

Kanghao tasting the wind.

Snakes like this are available everywhere for people to take picture.

Straw hats with a plastic cover.

Concluded the day with more DVDs and polo tees.

Day 4:

The designated shopping day. I bought a cheapo backpack that look sturdy enough for 12 USD. Walking in the crowded Ben Thiam Market for the next 2 hours was quite physically and more importantly, mentally demanding.

Ate Pho at Pho 2000 a shop patronized by Bill Clinton when he visited Vietnam. More shopping followed.

Girls went for their long awaited pedi and mani cures, Kanghao went to for his hair styling. Gary and I made our way back to our room. My last meal there was from the fast food chain a shrimp burger, supplemented by a baguette with some fillings from a road side store right next to it.

Concluded the day with a flight back to SG!

TV and Smoke

When I was younger, my parents used to tell me that I might just blow up the TV one day by watching the TV for too long. It was their desperate attempt at preventing me from becoming a TV addict. I didn't really bother with their threat then and no TV blew up. However, it never happened until today when the TV was barely switched on for an hour. Too bad I was too kanjong in preventing a fire from starting, I forgot to take a picture of the once in a life time scene.

I am officially sick but not bed ridden. I have gave up on my deceiving myself that I am healthy to go out, jog, swim, night cycle.... but luckily I have a stockpile of movies to kill time. Watched, Hitch, Hostel: Part2, Shooters and Letters from Iwo Jima in the past 48 hours

Special sem is more enjoyable than I had expected when I signed up. The lecturer is humorous yet the questions he asked, the comments and jokes he made are all quite "enlightening". How I wish that all engine modules can be as interesting as this. I know I am sick but I am still sane enough to know that I am daydreaming. There are also interesting people in that class. Overenthusiastic smart alecs seem to be in abundance in lecture, while overenthusiastic freshies are in abundance in my tutorial group (7 out of 13 people).

Nightcycling was kinda refreshing; most of the participants were sick. In addition, a total of more than 3 hours were spent on fixing the bikes and one eventually gave way. Went to a grand total of ONE eating place (mac at ecp is not counted). The saving grace is the bah chor mee that I have haven't tasted for months.

Saw damn a lot of people skating at ecp. I didn't know it is still the "in" thing now. Maybe I should really try inline skating soon.

9 days and counting....

In another 9 working days:
1. I will not need to wake up at 5.30am every morning.
2. Take extra care when eating soupy food
3. Squint my eyes at the monitor all day long
4. Use an antique nokia phone

Although this attachment is one of the most enjoyable so far(maybe because that it is one of the shortest), I hope this is my last one.

As of tomorrow, I still have another 2 months before school starts. Hope my procastinations do not put the two months to waste. Actually there isn't much I can do other than play, rest and a little tiny bit of studying for my special term. The past one month hasn't been so bad. Even thought I did not really do something very fulfilling, at least I feel fitter than a month ago which give me higher confidence in getting a silver for IPPT. It's worth a hundred dollars! Which can be use to offset my 124-dollars-more-expensive-than-if-I-book-now-budget-airline Vietnam trip and maybe the "so-going-to-happen" bintan trip.

From my experience in the past one month, I come to realise that Singapore is indeed a small island. First day of work, I bumped into Zhichao, my mids batch mate, who is studying in NTU, in NUS library. Second week of work, bumped into Nick, another one my mids batch mate who also happened to be my secondary school CCA mate and JC school mate, working as a waiter for a catering company. All thanks to the coincidence, we got to do a lot of catching up. Third blk outing, bumped into Waihan, friend from the JC days, sitting just one seat in front of my during the screening of pirates 3 (rather disappointing movie though). Plus a few hi and bye friends that I met on the MRT and bus rides home. I guess I managed to spot them because I can't just simply drop my head and doze off the moment my butt hit the seat anymore. Nevermind. In another 9 working days i can sleep on the bus/MRT all I want.

Random Post

There is something wrong with blogger. The input system isn't functioning properly. Nevertheless i managed to upload a pic(below).

This was how my corridor looked like on my last day in Sheares. What an amazing sight. That's how much junk people collect in their rooms over the year. I guess this pile of rubbish would had given the cleaner a surprise the very next morning.

Been back to NUS once since I shifted out. Just to help a friend access the library. Nothing much changed except the demographics during lunch time. Everything seemed the same except that the place was generally less lively and you feel like you are hearing a foreign language all the way.

Well, I am really enjoying my stay at home. At least, I got much more time to sleep and do my own stuff. This makes me wonder if I should contiune staying next sem. Traveling is bad but bearable my from experience these few days. I can always sleep on the bus. Money I save can be better spent elsewhere. But then, I will most likely miss the wonderful people there. Nevermind, I still have a long time to consider.

Personality test

Accurate to a certain extend...

Get to know yourself better

Your view on yourself:
You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties. (i know i am not a bias person, but I never knew that I was suppose to be diplomatic)

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes. (quite true leh)

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person. (erhmmm not really true)

The seriousness of your love:
You are very serious about relationships and aren't interested in wasting time with people you don't really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.

Your views on education
You may not like to study but you have many practical ideas. You listen to your own instincts and tend to follow your heart, so you will probably end up with an unusual job. (i am suppose to convince myself that I like to study..... my job is indeed unusual, about 2 people per year will take up the job.....)

The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don't focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success. (no comments)

How do you view success:
You are confident that you will be successful in your chosen career and nothing will stop you from trying. (typical try-to-make-you-happy statement)

What are you most afraid of:
You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear. (so i shall offend everyone around me starting from tomorrow, no one shall receive any form of help from me at all and don't try to make me buy lunch for you all)

Who is your true self:
You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve. (oh my god, if i give good advice george bush is the best president in the entire USA history)

Mugging days

I am really amaze with myself that I managed to mug for hours at a stretch. Hmmmm, but I am more amazed with people that can mug for 14 hours straight. Does mugging such long hours really helps? Even if it does, I will convince myself it won't. Somehow, I will be tempted to deceive myself that watching 14 hours of anime in one shot helps mugging.

I am blogging now because some "yandao" is using the gym to watch something and I can't use it (i am trying hard to fit into my uniform). I wonder what's so important that he needs the privacy of the gym to watch it?

Girl is a truly amazing species. They expect guys not to get angry when they repeatedly whack them on the back. Yet, they get angry when guys laugh at them. They expect their actions to be reciprocated yet, when guys help them with things, they take it for granted. They whine and throw insults and expect guys to pay more attention to them and yet when guys rebut them with simple logic they start crying.

I am typing all these because I am really pissed off with someone. Seems like I get pissed off more easily during exam period. Really need to manage my temper. Come to think of it, if I don't vent it out, won't I end up like the south Korean guy that killed so many people?

I give up, not waiting for the gym anymore, bed is more comfortable than gym.

ME

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

they never say i am a boring person leh.

Pre exam period.

Signs of exams nearing: more people go to the study room/library, people get moodier, people do more silly stuffs, less people turn up for hall/block events, emptier comm hall.

Signs of exam stress: people quarel over the cyberspace, more posters being defaced, practicing "heavenly kicks" on doors, babble non stop without thinking.

Hmm, I just realised how popular blogging is. Almost everyone I know has a BLOG. I wonder why? Maybe it's just a trend, like how everyone used to own a personal website in the past. But definitely, it is a trend that is here to stay. With every new addition in life, different problems will also arise. Now quarels can start just from blogs and carried on to real life. In sec school days, quarels started form IRC too but we were childish back then. Being in Uni now, I thought people around me will be more mature. How wrong am I.... I guess childishness will always be a common feature when people congregates.

SO says I am fat. I am just heavy lah not fat. Anyway, SO u are LIGHT!

The "real" Night of 77 Stars

Night of 77 stars 07 continued the tradition of all previous block C concert proud tradition of being totally incoherent to absolutely anything but remained remarkably entertaining. The dancers were should part time as stand up comedians, those you see in Gags or Just for Laugh on sbs buses TV mobile. Using Janice contagious laughter, KY's kickass expression, JS's good looks, Tat's MR singapore's muscles, fx's dance moves and wendy's (how?) pinch, I think they can easily be the funniest group of standup comedians ever gathered. Vulgarity also gotten a whole new meaning under the creativity of the girls. Hokkien songs sounds kinda scary now after watching an Ah Beng hold an umbrella going after a ... girl. The level 8 performance really epitomise the incoherent theme. Kenneth also unnecessarily displayed his song writing talent. But I guess he is really sad, if not he wouldn't have even composed that song and performed it infront of the very eyes of his armh armh. It just shows that armh armh-ness is not the way to go. Other than that, I also found out that he is damn good at creating decoys and I have to be the unfortunate one. If his room is burn down or something, it is really not me.

Nus open house

Helped out at Sheares for the NUS open house. It was really quite boring. Not many people would want to visit the halls because not many people intend to stay in hall. If NUS would lower the hall fees, I think a lot more people would want to stay. But I guess it will never happen in the near future.

Teenagers nowadays, at least those coming to NUS really give thorough thoughts about their future. Of course, it is a good thing. I didn't even bother to go for university open houses or faculty talks. Now the first few questions incoming students asked are, "is Life sciences the way to go for the future?", "Is the job prospect for electrical engineering good..."......

Another thing is that JC student really don't know much about hall. With so many seniors and friends in hall, is it really that hard to know more about the various halls in NUS? Ask so many bo liao questions about the different halls. Some even think that all RH are meant for rafflesians. While many others think that all science student should go to KE7 since it is the nearest hall. Since I am from Sheares (and they know it), what kind of answers can they expect? Of course I will put down the other halls to promote sheares lah. Maybe I was once like that...

Year of the Golden Pig

Chinese new year comes with hongbaos and new year goodies. Hongbao wise, it seems to be lesser and lesser each year despite the economy doing better and better. I suppose it just the people getting stingier and stingier.

Being an undergrads also implies that CNY is really short. With midterms one week after CNY who could possibly really enjoy chinese new year. In addition to midterms, there were tutorials and assignments to add on to the misery. Although I cut short my CNY and went back to hall, I played majong almost everyday. It is really an addictive game, very addictive.

Organising CNY dinner during the "week of midterms" isn't a wonderful job too. Late nights were unavoidable but thanks to the kind and understanding Deco IC and chairperson, the week didn't become worse. At the very least, I still had the night before the tests to study and it is not as if I would have studied way before that. Luckily the dinner turn out quite well despite the expected low attendance and unexpected lack of food.


Hieu is really enjoying himself being the Vietnamese Chai Sheng Ye



C-towners left in hall.


Hope everyone has a prosperous Golden Pig year ahead!

Posters 2

Posters can not only show how unpopular you are but also show how popular you are. After an event certain posters with a certain guy disappear before you can even walk back to you room. Luckily for me, steal one and fence off some attacks for the poster.

New month resolution

New month resolutions:
1) I shall be on bz mode only when i am really busy and away mode when I am really away. In case someone say that I am HJ again.
2) I shall not lag behind in tutorials since i know i can never do catching up.
3) I shall take picture of people drooling in lectures and send to the professor to inform them on how "wonderful" their lectures are.

Posters

Somehow or rather, posters are getting more and more popular in hall. Some serves very general purposes like appealing to people to support IHG games. Some serves to tell people of specific events. There are also posters that just serve to raise the profile of people in committees or sports. Well, when you have pictures of people everywhere in hall, there will also be some vandalism. I guess some people just like to show their displeasure by tearing down posters of people they don't like. I guess no harm is really done but I sure hope those who tear down the posters feel better. If not the money spent on printing the posters will be totally wasted. I think a better way of showing their displeasure on a certain someone would be pasting post-it notes beside, around or on the posters. Firstly, they can really substantiate why they hate that person (on the poster). Secondly, it save money. A piece of post-it is definitely cheaper than reprinting a poster. Thirdly, post-it notes are small and the process of pasting it shouldn't take more than 3 sec. Therefore, the chances of you being caught is quite slim. For those whose posters are torn down, maybe it's time to reflect on what you have done wrong.

Its 2007!

I think it will be a great year ahead. Why? I didn't flunk my sem 1. I played more majong then all of sem 1 combined. I did a 13odds for the first time in my life and in fact first time seeing someone win with it. My bank account didn't go into serious deficit.