.b.e.n.j.i.

2009-06-06T20:58:00.003+08:00

i haven't blogged in the longest time, largely cos i've been working from 8am to 7:30pm on weekdays.. by the time anything gets done, it's already 9+pm..

work has been the same, with the same people and the ever changing faces of the "newbies".. but still, newbies don't stay long; and we "old staff" just hang around with each other.. thus the newbies seldom get to mix around with us, and then they find it boring and leave after a while.. it's a viscous cycle.. nobody cares to break that cycle, i'm leaving in a month, i can't be bothered..

i enjoyed the company of pohling, because we spend over 12 hours a day together (from 7:45am to about 8pm while waiting for the bus).. and i think we click really well, and there are several occasions when we talk too much and there are a lot of people who will try to prevent us from sitting together.. they largely gave up cos it's either we move to somewhere else together and start talking again, or one of us won't be productive and they can't get their things done on time.. i'm glad for her company cos this "job" became so fun that i actually look forward to it everyday - despite the terrible pay of $5 per hour.. but i get to do really interesting stuff like repairing broken links for the images and doing the illegal stuff that i'm not really supposed to do.. we broke a thousand and one rules - from bringing in our water bottles, to bringing in food, to going for unofficial breaks.. but the fact remains that we work better when we eat, so they don't really care that much too.. so that's work, and that's how it has been for the past month; and for the next month ahead..

outside work, i met up with jesse, quanyou and xingloong to watch terminator salvation at the grand cathay last saturday.. and it was marvelous (the cinema).. but the show itself was a letdown because of a terrible plot, but it wasn't a complete disappointment because the sound and the effects were great thanks largely also to the grand cathay..

other than that, life was been routine.. way too routine..

oh and i'm looking forward & dreading uni life at the same time.. jesse tells me it's hell, but i'm looking forward to the fun and the usage of my long asleep brain.. i received the freshman guide from NUS, and i'm probably not going to go for any orientation camps.. i don't believe in paying for torture.. and i believe that man is a social creature..

2009-05-09T11:44:00.002+08:00

back from indo, peacefully, without much hype about the H1N1 virus.. in fact, i just learnt that our status is still orange but will be lowered to yellow on monday.. apparently this is not the case at tanah merah ferry terminal.. they had a infrared camera, but no one was manning it and the people all had their masks off when we arrived.. orange alert huh..

but indonesia was great!! i travelled alone to indonesia and was picked up at the Sri Bintan Pura ferry terminal.. it was a nice and smooth ride, although i was really hoping that there are the huge waves to make the trip slightly more exciting.. sadly there was none at all.. i even dozed off in my first trip there in ages!! to think that when i was young i could stay up all trip just looking at the waves and frothing made by the ship..

day 1 dinner was the authentic indonesian riverside BBQ that made the plaza singapura bbq look like crap.. but what i loved most was not the fish, but the sotong.. and there was "asam sayo" (which literally means sour vegetables) which i have not tried before, but i loved it immediately.. it was like our tom yum soup, without the spicy stuff.. absolutely delicious..

day 2 breakfast, bak kut teh.. yet another winner that puts even the best singapore bak kut teh to shame.. it's thick, almost literally flooded with pepper pods, and loads of meat.. but i love the soup more..

then begin my 1 day tour with my relatives to visit all the relatives in indonesia.. first stop, grandpa and grandma @ Huai En Tang (i think), where their ashes are stored.. i remembered how my grandma is so lovely and doting and my grandpa who did all the discipline stuff.. i remembered being chased around the whole house with my grandpa and his splited cane.. and grandma who would give really huge angbaos and would buy all kinds of food for all her grandchildren.. oh what lovely memories..

then was great-grandmother, buried in the christian cemetry.. she lived to a ripe old age of 97, and survived the japanese occupation.. she had a great story to tell, but most of her great-grandchildren aren't history fans.. so we didn't really sit around to hear her story.. it's too late for regret now anyway..

then we went for a really long (30 mins @ 130kmph) drive to my uncle's corn farm.. and had a nice pluck and eat session with corn.. i ate 3 whole corns!! and i've never tasted anything as fresh and sweet as these.. and oh yes, we ate them raw.. and these aren't even the best crops.. the grade 1 crops will only ripen in Sept.. but nonetheless, the grade 2 corns are good enough for me..

then we went to another uncle's dragon fruit plantation.. and i just found out that dragonfruits grow like grass (i.e. horizontally).. they have really weak aloe-vera-like stems that cannot stand up to gravity.. but in a planation, space is money, so they had a pole and a tyre used to support the dragon fruits.. and i never knew that dragon fruits are so tedious to plant, because their flowers only open at 12mn so the workers have to go around the plantation at 12mn to collect pollen and to manually fertilise every single flower one by one.. work aside, dragon fruits have a low capital because one plant have a life of 20 years and they can produce fruits within 6 months of growth and keep producing fruits every 2 months.. and the seeds can be re-used to plant even more dragon fruits.. so basically all you need is one dragon fruit, poles, tyres and a large plot of land.. and all these are cheap in indonesia.. of course we tried their dragon fruit (the red ones - cos indonesians think the white ones are not as nice and sweet).. and it was love at first bite.. i ate 3 of them =D.. of course, my lips got tinted red by their blood-red flesh and it looked like i applied lip stick..

then we went to another uncle's vegetable farm.. which was pretty much the same as those we have in singapore.. so there wasn't really anything that interests me..

then we went to yet another uncle's champedak & durian farm.. but sadly it wasn't the durain season so all we had were baby durians that weren't ripe yet.. so we can only see, but not taste.. argh.. i was really looking forward to great durians..

then we had yet another long long drive to the beach where yet another aunt operated a kelong cum seafood restaurant, famous for gong-gongs.. and i single-handedly ate over 20 gong-gongs (amongsts lobsters, clayfish and other seafood).. my cholesterol levels are going sky-high, but ohwell, i haven't ate them for ages..

and that concluded my tour of indonesia.. we had a long long ride back home..

and guess what, i met up with my younger cousins so i took them out for LAN (in indonesia).. well, surprise surprise, they had core 2 duo PCs, although they still used CRT monitors.. but it isn't cheap, coming at an equivalent of SGD$1.25 per person per hour.. cheaper than singapore, but it's supposed to be much cheaper.. we had 2 hours of LAN, playing warcraft, and counterstrike cos i didn't know how to play the other games there.. and guess what, i was badly trashed (13 to 2) by my younger cousin, aged 12..

day 3 breakfast was fried carrot cake & ban kat mee.. both of my childhood favourites.. then we went to visit another 2 aunts who lived nearby..

lunch was yet another round of bbq fish..

indonesia was nice.. but it's still not very well developed.. try having no electricity for most parts of the day; forget piped water and try well-water.. and try doing your business over a hole that overlooks the splashing seawater below.. so i wasn't really used to it, but childhood instincts took over after some time..

it was supposed to be my uncle's wedding, but i think i enjoyed much more.. and i even had the groom be our tour guide and driver around the place.. i got to meet my uncle's super pretty wife (i've yet to see anyone face-to-face, or even on TV, who's more pleasant-looking than her).. i'm really happy for him..

2009-05-05T20:23:00.003+08:00

I've finally mastered my new HTC Touch Cruise 09 cos it's really complicated with the stupid Windows 6.1 interface.. Oh yes, i bought this new phone after i bought my G700 less than 3 months ago.. There isn't much to complain about my "old" phone, but my dad decided that i would be better equipped with this new phone, so he bought me this new one (i paid for my "old" phone with my own money, this came, relatively free)..

I love love love the WIFI in this new phone (cos i'll just sign in to MSN on my phone and lie on my bed and chat all night long), and i can skip turning on my computer just to check emails, my blog and facebook, plus it loads pages faster than my laptop anyway.. and since it displays webpages just like my computer, i have no problems going to any other websites too..

but that aside, there's really nothing much i need from this phone.. basically it's a quad band phone with a 3.2MP camera, WIFI, GPRS, HSDPA, GPS, aGPS, EDGE, and a really powerful qualcomm 528Mhz processor with 256MB RAM.. it's HTC's iPhone replacement, but i doubt it'll actually replace the iPhone.. i really love the processor, cos it never lags.. and i hate lags..

but i love my phone, and i love my dad =D

with that, i'll be shipping off to indonesia tomorrow! yes, the talk about the H1N1 virus and all the border screening.. but WHAT-TO-DO? my uncle's getting married, ask him!! i just hope indonesia doesn't get it so i don't have to be quarantined at home when i return..

2009-04-24T22:31:00.002+08:00

i've just watched Bridge to Terabithia.. it's not a new movie, rather it's screened in year 2007.. but somehow i missed it and only got to watch it today.. and gosh, it's the most touching / moving film i've watched this year.. it speaks of a really talented girl who can write really well, but because she's too good, no one wanted to be friends with her.. and this guy who's poor and gets ill-treated by his parents at home that he hides himself in the works of his own drawings.. by chance this two children met on the school bus and realises that they are actually neighbours.. these two isolated / despised children seek refuge in a imaginated world, called Terabithia..

it's touching because the girl is so positive and cheerful that she brightens up the days of the people she meet.. she's adventurous and wants to try out everything around.. hence the canning of the idea of Terabithia.. it's touching cos it reminds us to look forward to everything, everyday.. and to quote her: 'keep your eyes closed, but YOUR MIND WIDE OPEN".. this way, we can approach life's challenges with a different attitude, and gleem at the joys that lies undiscovered beneath..

i watched it twice straight in a row, and i could have watched it for another 10 times without getting bored.. i should have watched it earlier..

2009-04-20T21:35:00.002+08:00

had a very interesting week, last week..

monday was out with weiyu and jesse to buy quanyou's present.. and well, we walked around citylink and suntec.. and the first shop that we entered, we saw this nice fossil watch.. when we left the shop, i remarked that the watch was 一见钟情. i'm not sure whether it's supposed to be written like that, but that's what i meant.. love at first sight.. little did i know, it really became true.. we talked all the way to carrefour and back, and still decided to buy the watch where we first saw it.. and it was a really really nice watch.. a fossil leather automatic watch (with battery as backup power).. it was so nice that i would have bought it for myself if i was richer.. it was a slight "heartpain", but we agreed that it was worthed it for our dear friend's big twenty-first..

then we went to eat at shodoku, where i ate 7 bbq-ed quail egg bacon rolls, a rosti and salmon sashimi and macha ice cream shared with weiyu.. gosh i soooo loved the quail egg bacon rolls, but it was also very very sinful because of the extremely high levels of cholesterol..

i started work on wednesday at trusted hub again.. and met my old friends, samantha and bao ling.. too bad samantha had to leave on thursday; so i only had bao ling for company.. it was really fun sitting together with her cos we were almost making jokes all the time and laughing at everyone else's names and nicknames (a common hobby).. often we became embarassingly loud too.. but i'm glad God placed me with this friend, because otherwise i really would be bored to death with the very dull and mundane job of simple data entry..

saturday was best! together with quanyou, weiyu and jesse, we went to kuishinbo @ suntec!! and ohmygosh the food was fantastic!! for a slightly higher price compared to saruka, it serves so much better food.. and i loved their fresh sashimi and oh-so-wonderful desert table (with a chocolate fondue too).. lunch was so filling that i skipped dinner, and breakfast on sundy.. we then sat around outside royal sporting house to let the food digest.. and had a hearty conversation there about everything and anything.. after weiyu left, we met up with eric and played Left4Dead at E2Max at Cathay.. it was fun, but very draining such that quanyou and i both got headaches at the end of it.. mugging was never as brain-frying as this.. but within 3 hours, we managed to complete 2 advanced campaigns and a normal level campaign AND about 5 rounds of counterstrike.. =D

sunday.. had a really nice "rock concert / karaoke" at church with john leading the second service worship with a bass guitar, a keyboard with a second synthesizer and charlet as the backup singer.. it was the first time we had the bass guitar, and probably one of the very rare times with charlet as a backup singer.. nonetheless they put up a really fantastic performance that i commented that we could very well record it and make it into a CD album to sell.. but people weren't singing and worshipping.. we listened.. so i guess we presbyterians are presbyterians after all, we sing well with a simple guitar and a piano, but add in the bass and the synthesizer and we listen..

after second service, we had a really long lunch with jackie and aloysius at just acia @ dhoby ghaut.. and then we went to gramaphone to borrow this DVD called SuspectX.. and we went back to church to watch it in tuanqi room - because there was suddenly no tuanqi programme thanks to certain people who couldn't plan the programme in time.. nonetheless i enjoyed the mind-teasing japanese show.. about how a mathematician creating the unsolvable murder puzzle and the physicist trying to solve the "unsolvable" murder puzzle.. absolutely intriguing..

so that was last week.. i'm looking forward yet another week of work (hopefully fun), and rest during the weekends..

2009-04-12T22:21:00.004+08:00

ok , it's been 15 days since my last blog post.. obviously loads of stuff happened, but not so much that surmounts to a blog post on each individual event.. and i'm getting lazy, partly due to facebook's word challenge and spot the difference..

ok, i left my job at alexandra hospital on April's Fool's day - no joke! my contract ended on 31st March and my boss requested for me to stay one extra day ( i don't know why).. so after that they said that they no longer needed temp staff for my position.. so, here i am, jobless.. again..

that friday (03/Apr/09), i went with rosel (and her friend, dengli) for this MCYS media event for the now-hyped-up thing - the MCYS commercial - aka. the funeral (which i love so much that i dragged my parents to watch it on youtube when i went back home on that day).. don't ask me why i went, my answer sometimes freak myself out too.. then had super yummy lunch at shokudo.. following which, i was made to watch L.O.V.E. with them.. as i told rosel, it was yet another fan-flick-film; and i enjoyed it more than i expected, but much less than any other movie.. what kind of movie gets spilt up into 4 parts?? but i agree that the guys in there are really shuai (or pretty).. but i saw them purely & objectively as actors even though the girls in the same theatre (who made up about 90% of the population watching the show) screamed when certain guys came on the screen..

enqi's birthday celebration on sat (04/Apr/09).. at changi fairy point chalet 5.. which was absolutely haunting given the very inaccessible locale, and the long and ardous walk to the chalet itself.. and the wooden chalet has no aircon, and tall dark ceilings.. but with the large crowd of people around, it made it less scary.. and more fun..

had culinary competition in church on sunday (05/Apr/09).. it was very haphazard, but it was fun working with the brothers and sisters in fellowship to prepare a dish.. and with our budget of $20, i was surprised we managed to whip up a large portion of baked salmon and two sticks of bacon (wrapped in aspharagus and mushrooms).. it was a great idea for future cooking needs, if ever..

the rest of the week was just catching up with sleep.. my record was waking up at 1pm.. my average being 11am.. but somehow, more sleep caused me to get sick.. so since wednesday i had sore throat, cough, flu, and slight fever..

and it's made worse by the BBQ at grace's place on friday.. and even more so with a durian feast with jackie at geylang after the BBQ.. we paid $20 for 3 large durains.. for the both of us..

but by now it's getting ok already (after i finished nearly half of my newly opened bottle of Vit C pills - ate 2 vit C pills, 4 times (wake up, brunch, dinner, before sleep) a day).. and trying to pay back the long overdue exercise that i've owed by lifting some weights around.. i guess i should be ok by tomorrow or latest, tuesday..

2009-03-28T19:59:00.002+08:00

i finally had a saturday to myself.. and i really really loved it.. most importantly, i managed to get a long-overdue haircut, watched 2 movies (race to witch mountain & dr doolittle - million dollar mutts), started working on the blog template for my tuanqi cell group's blog, filtered through several hundred chinese worship songs to find the better few to download into my iPod, attended (by chance) an amazing chinese orchestra performance at parkway parade (with our SM Goh as the guest of honour), went to buy pasta (and the sauce, ground basil leaves and oregano, and loads of mozzarella cheese ), came home to cook pasta, and blog.. that's 8 things that i've done today! i finally got to clear my to-do list by 8 impressive items.. wahahaha..

i really loved the chinese orchestra performance! yes, i love orchestra music and would love to go for such concerts / performances (and not those jay chou or duffy concerts).. and best of all, it's free (and near to home)!! it really makes me a little proud to be part of chinese orchestra when i was in primary school..

and i loved my home-made pasta too!! gosh i missed pasta so much that i had to make it on my own; but i will always love the nice pasta that god gave man the intelligence to create.. largely the italians, but man in general..

tomorrow's church again.. looking forward to it!!

2009-03-23T20:09:00.003+08:00

so many things happened this past week..

johnnie, my colleague, got a stroke.. and within a day, he got well again.. and this is one person whom i should talk more about.. my first week at work was made disastrous because of this person because he is unfriendly, and overly cool about everything.. he's like another of those people who live in their own world filled with cantonese and just ignores anything else that doesn't communicate in that language.. but after a while, he started opening up and started talking to me.. but the most interesting thing is that he is a very proud christian too.. because he really goes around telling people about religion and his God whom he's so proud about.. on many occasions i've overhead him just going on and on and on about Jesus and who the true God is.. of course, his character and his unwillingness to talk to new people isn't exactly that well-developed, but his passion to spread the gospel is really something that all christians can learn from!! it's really obvious who his life belongs to, and his ultimate destination in life..

and john, my church mate, got burnt from an explosion in work.. he suffered 20% burns to his face and upper body and from thursday till now, he's still in ICU.. he went through a skin graft surgery and we're all praying very hard that his skin graft tissue would not be rejected by his body..

aloysius went to india to train bangladesh workers to build skyscrapers in singapore.. and mind you, aloysius is 21-years-old with an A Level education, just like me.. and he's a part-timer going on an overseas business trip..

i met joseph and bernie while having my lunch at AV; and on another day, justin, melvin and the rest of them, also at AV..

oh and i also went for enrique's birthday party and caught up with fellow T31 people..

this week has been filled with ups and downs.. it's emotionally exciting yet when it concerns work, it has been the same same same thing over and over again..

i might quit my work at the end of march, but my agent is trying to get my pay raised, so if it goes up, i might stay.. i don't know..

2009-03-15T19:57:00.002+08:00

i must have been crazy to go to the IT Show!!

i went there yesterday, knowing fully well that it's going to be flooded with people.. but i had only one objective, to buy my 8GB M2 card.. and i did.. surprisingly i managed to squeeze in with the crowd, get to the top floor, find the shop with a decent price, queue up for it, get my M2 card, and get out of that place.. i paid $47 for a 8GB M2 card.. it was selling at $79 at fuwell before the IT show, but i'm sure there are stalls at the IT Show where i could have gotten it at $45 or less.. but i'm so fed up with the people that i couldn't really be bothered to look around..

and it stinks really bad too, because there is just so many people, and the air conditioning isn't coping nearly well enough.. so it's stuffy and filled with sweat stenches.. plus the people are so close together, that occasionally a sweaty guy brushes past you and you get his sweaty arms wiping on yours.. very very gross.. then there's the brainless parents who still insist on pushing their baby pram inside and causing a huge jam..

oh and there's this person who didn't know about the existance of a lift and tried to push a trolley with 5 LCD TVs down the escalator.. and (expectedly) it fell and caused a pileup at the exit of the escalator.. there was nearly a stampede, if not for the people just pushing the LCD TVs on the floor to get it out of the path of everyone else..

oh and there wasn't a hint of recession when people shopped.. i'm not going to any IT Shows just for fun in the future.. unless i really need to buy really cheap (and targeted) stuff..

2009-03-07T21:12:00.002+08:00

it's been 3 weeks since the start of my job; and i must say it carries with it it's fun, and surprises..

first off, the hospital stores certain files in the mortuary! imagine the thought of having to go to the mortuary to look for files (and mind you, it's not the air-con part of it).. but in the exact opposite, it's a dusty place with faulty fans that doesn't move when turned on but might start moving out of the sudden even if you do not turn it on.. and there's the musky and damp smell in it.. plus the constant humming of some electronic gadget.. oh and there's the usual faulty compactus that requires my full body weight to push (but thankfully they only store deceased case-notes in the compactus so i very rarely have to use it).. and if that's not enough, they're actually examining corpses next to where they put the files.. so imagine taking a file and opening the door to freedom outside when you see a guy wearing full surgical gown and face-mask pushing a covered trolley into a van.. then you start thinking whether you should have put on a face-mask first, or whether there's still time to bolt for the open area..

and how about the funniest joke? imagine seeing a request for a patient called "unknown chinese".. then you start wondering where to start.. and then you thank the immigration department for the NRIC.. oh but that's not the best, imagine receiving a request for file from the Accident & Emergency Department, about a patient walk-in.. and upon checking the patient's particulars, you find out the person passed away 6 months ago.. then you think about how on earth did that guy turn up at A&E again! to some, it's not funny at all; but oh well, these are some very entertaining facts pertaining to my job..

somehow i think it's a fun job, but sometimes i still get a little freaked out by the incidences that happen in a hospital..

2009-03-04T21:48:00.002+08:00

for my whole life, i've never seen a company tell their employees that they are gonna pay them $5 per hour, only to give them $6.35 later.. believe it or not, i worked at trusted hub for 8 days, and now i'm regretting leaving them because their pay is decent and it's super near my place..

2009-03-02T22:28:00.003+08:00

MioTV is really great.. well, as compared to the ones from the SCV cable points, i must say that there is a whole lot of difference.. firstly and most unmistakably is the sound quality.. gosh it's full surround, just like in the cinemas.. then the picture quality had so much difference that i wanted to buy a 1080i plasma screen just for the MioTV subscription..

but ok, since it's free; and it comes with 2 free movies a month, i shall just browse through the free ones.. and for me; i choose little nyonya (again again).. and yes, this is how i found out about the excellent sound quality.. in fact, i have half a mind to switch to 1080i mode and record it into my computer.. then it'll be even higher quality than DVDs..

i really don't understand why rosel detests little nyonya when it's so nice..

2009-02-28T22:31:00.000+08:00

wow, i got got a 2MB diskspace from singnet to go with my broadband.. how useful!! comparing with my 8 google accounts each with 100MB space and unlimited bandwidth, it's useless!! singnet, catch up with time! 2MB webspace and 6MB email space is useless!! if it was 2GB webspace and 6GB email space, then that would mean something now.. lolx..

2009-02-28T17:52:00.002+08:00

my last post was nearly 2 week ago.. well, now i'm working at alexandra hospital, at the medical records office; and basically finding patient's files and sending them to the respective departments in the hospital..

the first day i went there, i felt like quitting.. well, i felt like quitting at every job on the first day (i remember the calling at DP information and having to entertain unreasonable people; and data-entry at trusted hub and having to do really stupid things like typing what you see on the screen).. but this is different because there is just so much walking involved that made use my mother's isqueeze when i got back home! plus it's not like trusted hub when people are generally nice - my workplace has so much politics that i can't even follow suit!

but thankfully i met huiping - my BMT mate in army.. so that brightened things up a bit.. but still throughout the first week i really felt like quitting.. i don't know what got me carrying on, but eventually i did it and after the first week, things felt really nice now.. in fact, i really wouldn't mind staying on now..

well i have free-and-easy lunch breaks (i could go at 12nn, or i can go at 1pm, or i can go at 11am), and i can take as many breaks as i like throughout the day, and i can leave as and when i like without much hassle.. and my superior is so relaxed that i can check email, read online papers, while he himself checks the SGX stock-exchange and teaches me a little about currency trading and stocks..

well i guess it's the stress of being in a totally new environment when you're out of control and with no knowledge of what to do.. and there's so many thing to learn when finding files because the person who files the case-notes doesn't do it accurately all the time.. so sometimes there can be mis-filings that are really irritating.. and when you can't find a file, you're stressed, and then you start hating your job.. at least, that's true for me.. but thankfully i have my superior who would find everything for me, or at least take over the problems and solve them on his own..

and i get to meet really nice people too.. basically that's the nurses (or patient service assistants) as they call them in Alexandra hospital.. the doctors are fierce and the staff nurses are even worse, but thankfully the PSAs are great service personnel.. so that's one reason why i look forward to delivering the files.. especially to the few clinics with my favourite PSAs..

and yesterday i gave tuition for the first time, to this super ambitious chinese guy who has just arrived in singapore for 3 months and is intending to take GCE A Levels and get a good pass in GP to qualify for NUS Faculty of Science. Oh, and unexpectedly, he faces tremendous difficulty in english, he knows chemicals by their chinese names, and can't remember physics definitions.. oh and he has 7 months to get up to speed to get straight Bs in A Levels.. and my friend and I are his SOLE tutor.. oh and one last thing, tuition is once a week.. he intends to self-study.. english, physics, chemistry, econs, maths, chinese.. ohmygosh.. impossible just found a new meaning..

oh and i re-activated my facebook account which has been deactivated since 2007.. partly cos everyone else is using facebook - even friends like esther and fude; and also because facebook has became such a monopoly (sadly) that people no longer send photos and instead asks me to take it from their facebook account - and how do it do it without an account?

so that's the past 2 weeks, in a nutshell.. i'm looking forward to church tomorrow..

2009-02-15T21:13:00.002+08:00

church today was great.. there was this band from breakthrough mission playing a wonderful piece of music and a great vocal - and to think that they are all ex-drug-addicts.. the vocal came up to share about his experience and how christ has saved him from all the drugs, and it was really touching to know that someone has conquered such a difficult task.. so if drugs can be overcame with the help of jesus, what else can't be done??

i had a copy of the recording of this morning's session and so i was watching it over again, and the second time seems no less dramatic than the first one.. even as a christian, i felt like his speech can make me overcome everything in this life!!

oh and sze ern gave me a birthday present today!! ohmygosh, because not only was it unexpected (because we don't practice giving presents on birthdays), but it was a Hugo Boss Perfume (it says vapouriser, but i guess it's the same thing).. and it's memories because i was never actually close to her.. in fact we can almost be considered as we grew up together in the church, but i seldom talked to her (different cliques).. and we belonged to the same tuanqi but still we seldom talked anything other than matters pertaining to the tuanqi.. and it's only recently that we've been talking a little bit more (her occasional extremely lengthy calls that made me wonder whether her mobile phone plan comes with unlimited outgoing calls, and sms chats while she's watching a movie).. but the point is that she was a sister whom i've grew up with and we didn't even talk much.. it has been a waste for the past 21 years, but i'm glad i'm starting to know her better..

and they got me a mocha tiramisu cake in tuanqi today!! yes i'm doubly shocked today.. and i had to do ruth's challenge of blowing out the candles one-by-one.. but i managed to do it (lol), and had great fun too..

which reminds me to be really grateful for everything and everyone around me.. from those who smsed me their birthday wishes for me, like zinc (sze yin), peijun, alyson, sherlyn to those whom i actually managed to spend quality time together with, like rosel, minjia, trey, weiyu, yanyi, quanyou, jesse, eric, aloysius, weijie, qinghui, jackie.. and even trey's girlfriend junie, who went out with rosel and trey to get my present (and in the process getting wet in the rain).. gosh, all of you seemed to take more interest in MY 21st birthday more than i do.. but i do thank God for all of my friends because i know that without them, life would be so much more different, so much more boring.. God bless all of you as much as you have blessed me!!

2009-02-14T22:37:00.002+08:00

went out with jesse and eric for LAN and movies.. Because of the movies, we got buy-1-get-1-free LAN offers.. oh and we watched Valkyrie.. some WWII show about this guy plotting to assassinate adolf hitler.. and how he stood up for his own beliefs in an era when everyone else is driven to follow the one (morally blind) leader..

kinda reminds me of my beliefs, in this world when people believed in sex before marriage, and extra-marital affairs, etc.. and not just that, and about trying my best to resist kissing lip-to-lip till the marriage when the pastor says "you may kiss the bride", or to believe in the one and only girl forever.. or even my belief in Jesus, when the majority of singaporeans are buddhists, followed by free thinkers.. just like Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie, i need to stand up for my beliefs; and if necessary, pay the price for what i believe is righteous..

thanks jesse and eric for the nice night out on valentine's day.. oh and happy valentine's day to all!! i love you!! God Loves You!!

2009-02-13T21:54:00.005+08:00

today's my last day at trusted hub.. and it was just sad to leave because i just got to know this group of very fun and lovely people.. sadly they "sacked" jonathan and chee guan, but there's new people like chee guan's cousin jane, and zhen ci, who kept me entertained throughout the day.. gosh it makes me feel bad to leave, and somehow makes me have second thoughts about starting work in alexandra hospital.. but i know that i have already signed the contract and i should probably look ahead to better pay and more friends..

i'm still very sad that i missed wishing qinghui a last farewell on the 9-month trip to australia for her studies.. her flight's at 9:10pm yesterday and i was still eating sashimi then.. and a sudden wave of sadness came over me because i was quite angry with her that i didn't tell her that it was my birthday when we met for steamboat dinner on wednesday.. and she did ask, but i insisted it was july.. and somehow weijie, aloysius and jackie didn't say a word.. but still i was quite pissed that she could still be at her house at the time we're supposed to meet.. like "hello even if you flew you'd need time?".. but it could have been my fault because i didn't tell her that it was my birthday, and if i had told her, perhaps she would have came on time.. perhaps i was expecting too much..

which leads to the question of whether we have the right to be angry at somebody.. like at some people who always arrives late (the above 30 mins late kind) and never makes the effort to change, and those who are still at home when everybody else has arrived, and at those who doesn't make a effort to join in the flow and to come on time, or at those who promised (or hinted) that they would be there and not have the courtesy to inform of their last-minute back-down plans, or at parents who promises toys and visits to the zoo just to keep their son happy but knowing that they would never be buying those toys and bringing him to the zoo after he stops crying, or at mum who nags and nags but never seems to bother finding out the real reason why we kids are doing certain things the way we do.. in these cases, who is the judge? morals?? or is it logic?? or have we been merely looking from our side, but not at their side of the story??

sometimes you grow up to see friends change, some for good, some for worse.. and some friends disappear for a long time and you suddenly cross paths with him again.. people like shenghui and keith whom i would be meeting in NUS faculty of science.. and yet the people who distanced, like melvyn and jana (sec 1 sec 2??), like esther (sec 4 till a month ago)..

i suddenly remember the song, friends, by michael w. smith.. and friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them.. and reminds me about the conversation with rosel at fish and co some time ago.. would you date someone if he or she is not of the same religion (not even free thinkers).. well, if the Lord's not the Lord of them, nothing lasts forever, right?? ok, it's something only christians will know, but ohwell, i should stop emo-ing.. and look at friends as they are now..

friends are lovely, friends are chewy, friends are huggable, friends are the spices and everything nice (minus the chemical x that makes them fly (away) like powerpuff girls).. LOL..

2009-02-12T23:56:00.003+08:00

met up with rosel, minjia and trey at miramar hotel for ikoi buffet dinner together.. and before i forget, they were EARLY!! ok, not that it really matters that much to others, but it means a lot to me.. ya, they probably know that i don't really like latecomers because i blog about them all the time, but ya, i appreciate your effort.. and i have sufficient reason to believe that someone orchestrated the on-time thing cos rosel was telling me to be there on time.. and she cancelled her archery for it!!

like what i told people, 21 doesn't mean a lot to me.. but this group of people make me feel like i'm under-reacting to my very own 21st birthday!! ok, they went to a great extend to make it a surprise, and it actually did.. not the concealing part, but the gift itself.. it was a Titus watch!! i'm not even sure if i kept to my no-no to "ohmygod" thing, but i'm semi-certain i blurted it out when i saw the Loius Vuitton bag.. to be very very honest, then i was afraid they would really get me something from LV cos i'm quite sure rosel would know that i wouldn't dare to use such a thing frequently (considering we went into LV @ taka and i am totally dumbfounded by their stock of monopoly-money priced stuff).. and yes, the Titus watch suits me much better because it has class and it's not unusably expensive.. and i will definitely not take it if they got anything more pricey than that..

actually i'm still very happy that they noticed the really tiny details about how i love punctuality.. gosh, i cannot reiterate that face enough.. but anyhow, they did it and i love them all..

oh and we adjourned to tcc to have coffee again.. at first i wanted to have their nutello, but once we sat down i felt like ordering a ice cold frappe.. sadly minjia was too full that she didn't have space for more fluid, but ohwell, it was just nice sitting around and talking.. the coffee was just a good thing to go with it..

great night spent with the vivo group.. and it's a glad thing to note that the next time we meet, it won't be for birthdays.. cheers to more badminton, sumo house, and to the near future pratas and gym sessions..

2009-02-10T21:16:00.002+08:00

i landed my 3rd job - medical records officer @ alexandra hospital.. somehow it sounded so much like rosel's job back when she was waiting for university.. i hope it'll be fun.. my recruitment agent just kept repeating over and over again how pretty my supervisor would be (apparently they know each other), so much so that i had to remind her that she's a lady too.. nevermind, i just hope to have fun while working..

i really love my recruitment agent cos she's really friendly and we talked over the phone for extended lengths about many things.. it's so unlike the really cold recruitment agents around that make their job offer seem so valuable and highly demanded that they rattle on and on about it and finally when you ask them about the pay, $4 per hour.. -.-"!!! i even "bargained" over the phone with my job agent (which is another reason i love her, cos she gave me 75 cents extra per hour + CPF).. not a lot, but at least it's something..

so i'm gonna start work at alexandra hospital coming monday.. and i'm going to work at trusted hub for the last time this friday.. i really hope flora doesn't get too angry or disappointed cos she really taught me a lot of things.. the other temps only know data entry, whereas i know classification, date tagging, and others.. her efforts would be so wasted.. but aiya, who asked trusted hub to pay mediocre pay..

2009-02-09T23:39:00.002+08:00

went to sakura @ tampines safra for dinner with fude tonight.. the food was good, much better than sakura @ downtown east.. i had a horrible experience there, but it was really very nice at tampines sakura..

we ate loads of sashimi (actually mainly salmon, tuna and this fish they called "silverfish" but i thought that was the tiny insect that can be found in old books).. but i quite liked the "silverfish" because it tasted like otah.. and of course there were other dishes, but i really love raw fish..

we had a nice chat too.. about life, army and friends.. in fact, it felt so nice that after we got "chased" out of sakura at 9:30pm, we walked around tampines ITE and slowly walked to temasek poly.. just to let the food digest, enjoy the cool night breeze, and to enjoy the nice time spent together..

thank you fude, for the nice dinner..

2009-02-08T21:32:00.004+08:00

i liked reading zihwye cheem in the past cos it really sets me thinking.. now that zihwye hasn't been blogging there for so long, i'm just going to the spaces of a deranged mind @ http://spacesofaderangedmind.blogspot.com and it's really quite.. deranged.. but as i told the owner, i like to read.. but replying takes a whole lot more brains that i can offer now.. i really wish i still retained my JC2 brain standards.. gosh..

2009-02-08T20:56:00.002+08:00

went out with weiyu and jesse yesterday.. for dinner we had fantastic bak kua-ish ribs at Tony Roma's.. and we also tried out their oh-my-gosh great great onion cake.. thankfully the waiter told us that the full loaf could feed 4-6 people, because we almost ordered the full loaf.. but it was nice and if i had the chance i would love to go back there again.. both for their ribs and their onion loaf.. glad to know that weiyu and jesse both liked onions..

jesse really surprised me because i was expecting dinner perhaps at just noodles, or fish and co, etc.. but when we went down that stairs at the convention centre, he just motioned right at the entrance of tony roma's.. and i was like ohmygoodness!!! and i've never been quite that shocked before; but at that moment, i knew i was in great company..

i didn't want jesse and weiyu to pay for the meal, although i'm quite sure they would have thought of it long ago.. partly cos i'm earning more than jesse's rather miserable army pay, and weiyu's jobless.. and weiyu bought me that fantastic bag just a week ago.. but thanks for the idea, it's the thought that counts.. really..

it's really fun with these people because i feel really at ease with them around.. it's like i can say and do anything i want without fear of offending them or making them pissed.. i dropped my ribs (dinner) twice and they laughed it off, and i talked about fart during dinner and they didn't seem that bothered.. actually i don't know, but if they are, they did a great job at hiding it.. the point is that these are the friends i want with me forever.. even though i know that eventually we're most likely just gonna go our own way because meeting up only during birthdays are never enough..

but i really don't wish for that to happen because they are such nice friends.. which is why i asked jesse out on valentine's day.. since we're both single and we have no one to celebrate it with.. and yes, we're going for LAN.. after so long.. i dunno, but LAN is probably died off since JC, but as long as we spend some time together, i think it's worthed it..

then we went to watch "the curious case of benjamin button".. i really don't know what to say cos they're watching a show about "benjamin".. and the show really made an impact on me, partly because they keep saying benjamin; and also because it reminds me of another great show - jay chou's secret.. it made me want to treasure every relationship more; and it makes me look at things differently.. like how couples would take care of one another, and the "till death do us part" thing..

ok i'm just a little emo because i'm just afraid that relationships like that won't last.. people probably say that the "friends forever" thing is only said in secondary school, but i still like to say it - not ignorantly because it's a fact that most friendships don't last forever - but because it's a dream, it's an aim, and because we said it, we will try our best to make sure it stays that way..

so to weiyu, jesse, yanyi, quanyou, eric, rosel, minjia, trey, esther, aloysius, wejie, jackie, xueying, and the others whom i just don't remember at the moment, friends forever!!!

2009-02-04T21:31:00.002+08:00

i found that my job is probably much more fun than any other job in my workplace.. basically a label documents by their document type.. and i found out that it's the best because i was asked to help out with the actual "data entry" and i really hated it because i had to enter dates after dates after dates.. it's so boring and mundane that if i were an IT Pro, i would have created a software just to do that!! it's a work of a computer and they hired people to do it!! gosh.. but thankfully i only did it for 30 mins, anything more than that and i would have died of boredom.. i went back to my own job, feeling thankful and really glad that i'm doing what i'm doing..

and i met zinc and wanyi on my way to parkway to meet fude!! i was on the packed bus 15, and they were outside waiting for the bus.. and later, we met again at the marine parade food centre.. gosh, time really flies.. zinc and wanyi and so much more different now, and zinc is so much louder than before!! hahaha.. and i met zinc's boyfriend, who suggested me to work at PSA as a crane operator with a monthly pay of $2800.. but for that, i have to lie that i can work full time and then submit resignation a month before i quit.. i told them blatantly that it would be like lying and i wouldn't do it.. guess honesty comes at a price, but a price that's worthy when you add in the moral and ethics..

2009-02-03T21:11:00.003+08:00

started work at trusted hub on monday.. and i really don't know whether i should blog about my work.. not cos it's very sensitive cos i've been working with sensitive information in the army and i've not blogged about it.. but because the information is truly funny.. and more importantly, weird..

ok, my job can be simplified as "data-entry".. and what i do is to tag documents by their type.. it uses slightly more brain than simple data entry because i need to analyse every document and sort it according to the over 100 types..

but the funny part is that i'm doing for polyclinics, in particular, clementi polyclinic.. so just imagine what documents need to be indexed from the polyclinics, and i'll probably be doing that.. and of that, people go to polyclinics for blood tests, urine tests, diabetic tests, etc etc.. but one test is absolutely peculiar, and i would definitely not talk about it here.. and don't even bother asking me in my tagboard.. ask me personally and i'll tell you, but otherwise i'll keep my mouth shut cos it's funny, weird, and very out-of-place..

i should quit my job soon, but to do that i need to find a better one.. because i really can't carry on doing this for a long long time..

2009-02-01T22:32:00.002+08:00

combined church today.. so i can sleep in till 9am.. usually by that time i would have been in church already.. and next week onwards will be my duty to be the "soundman".. so i have to be there by 8:30am.. gosh.. but ohwell, i love sleeping in today..

we went to yutong's house @ maplewoods @ bukit timah for lunch today.. and when i went there, it felt like nirvana.. or heaven.. actually i think it's a rich man's place cos all i see is rich ang mohs with their kids running about the super super nice pool.. and i've never seen a condo unit that big before..

we had sushi, pizza, and yusheng.. and sang some songs and played some games..

then we went to visit seth, who is at SGH cos he just had his appendix removed yesterday.. being at the hospital just makes me ponder how nice it is to really lie around doing nothing.. but i'm sure the pain and the cost isn't worth it.. and i could enjoy an even nicer bed at home in full comfort.. but aiya, thoughts do come by once in a while..

and i really hope i will never get appendicitis.. he said it was so painful and it causes vomiting and muscle cramps.. OUCH.. and he lost a lot of weight.. and my terrible terrible church friends all said that i should get it so i can loose weight.. gosh, what friends!! but ya, i know i should loose weight.. argh..

2009-01-31T23:42:00.002+08:00

had KTV at church today!! it was such a surprise for everyone.. we set up a full KTV system and the person in charge downloaded 27,000++ KTV songs and loaded it into his harddisk.. and even had a professional software for KTV.. and we set up the full sound system for it.. and walla, it was perfect.. i don't go kbox or any ktv often, but my friends who do, says that the system is much better than ktv's sound system..

but i kinda regretted not listening to chinese songs.. cos i don't know how to sing all the latest hits.. and i realised that my last favourite chinese song is actually 童话, which is soooooo passe.. and i haven't been listening to oldies like quanyou does too.. so i don't know both new and old songs.. so, i'm pretty much handicapped at this ktv.. not that i really sang too, cos i have terrible vocals.. nonetheless it was fun..

then spent the night at coffee club with aloysius and talking about school, and life.. and it's really enjoyable for a one-to-one talk at night, over coffee and muddy mud pie..

2009-01-30T21:27:00.003+08:00

i woke up super duper early today for an interview at this company which is quite near my place.. the interview's at 10am, so i had to wake up at 8am.. gosh, i've never woke up that early except to go to church on sundays.. gRRRR..

nonetheless i arrived there to locked doors and no intercom and no nothing!! actually it's not locked per se.. but i heard that this company is quite "secure" cos it's a subsidiary of temasek holdings, i.e. semi-government.. so they got loads of stuff to comply to, just like MINDEF and the army..

but thankfully this guy (whom i actually think is one of the bosses), came in and was shocked that the few of us were "locked" out, and opened the door for us.. and i'm still wondering how can he be curious when there is evidently plenty of people who come by and realise that there is no bell or intercom or a receptionist to open the door??

not that i was very well prepared for the interview too.. i went in polo tee and jeans.. and just imagine rosel's expression when she heard that i just came from an interview.. actually i think she saw me after interviews quite a few times already.. the only time i wore something really outstanding to an interview was that of Manulife financial - to be a financial consultant.. (don't laugh).. it was during the beginning stage of my jobhunt that i decided to try everything that comes my way.. i didn't really know what kind of jobs are temp, and what kind are executive.. but to think about the manulife one, that guy was intent to keep me there!! gosh.. when i had no experience, whatsoever..

and on my way out of the place after a supremely long talk by one of their directors.. i met this young malay girl who's standing at the intersection not knowing where to go.. and since i've briefly seen her at the interview, i just said "lost?" to her.. and that's where the conversation started and we were happily chatting all the way to eunos station.. she's a fantastic girl, very cheerful and funny.. and within that 30 mins or so with her, we talked so much more than i would have known for any other stranger given an hour or two.. whoever she marries would be very blessed indeed..

then i met up with rosel and we had lunch together at suntec's fish and co.. i actually wanted just noodles for their budget meals.. but the $9 fish and chips lunch offer was too tempting.. for both rosel and i.. and once inside, i found that their new york fish and chips is just a dollar more!! then as i flipped, i saw combo addons for $3 more.. then something else with drinks, soup, etc.. gosh, everything is super cheap.. and that's then i realised that their marketing tactic was working.. and thankfully rosel reminded me that she won't really need those.. and i concurred.. so we had our fish and chips, with some calamari rings as sides.. but the things that we talked about are quite.. weird.. but insightful about the person i'm having lunch with.. to quote a few, being religion, dates, premarital sex, and whether people should contact each other after breakups.. gosh! but i actually prefer talking about such stuff, than the usual simple, shallow, laughter-fulled things that some other friends talk over meals..

kinda reminds me of esther.. who said that i turned more serious after going into JC.. and i was always wondering whether being serious is a good thing or not.. it's thought, and the constant thinking about stuff.. and it's the things that keep our brain interested.. but not being so jiggly and funny also makes one look too serious at time.. and sometimes i feel that i really need to lighten up the mood when there is a need to.. otherwise, it'll be a social disaster..

ok, and the highlight of the day - yuanchang's tour.. conducted by his loyal fan, rosel tan.. gosh, even trying to recap the whole thing is funny!! well, rosel brought me to esplanade and showed me all 18 ( i think ), posters and articles that has yuanchang's photo in it.. and of all, i still think that the open stage has one of the best photos of him for posing.. rosel stood (and posed) where the girl was, but she refused to take a photo.. and we tried to sneak into the theatre too, but it was all futile - expectedly..

and to think that rosel had badminton in the morning, WENT HOME, came out for lunch, IS GOING HOME, and returning to esplanade to meet her beloved GAY yuanchang.. she really does seem to miss home a lot.. this is the extent someone would go to prep herself up to meet her star..

a first time for me.. thanks rosel, for the very enlightening post-lunch guide..

and oh, halfway through rosel's yuanchang tour, trusted hub called me and told me that i'm selected for the post of an indexer.. i have no idea what that is, but somehow it's just looking into a scanned image, and typing the words out.. something like a manual OCR (optical character recognition).. but i'm just glad that they use LCP monitors.. i really hated and hated the big but small CRT monitors (the big boxy one filled with radiation and heat) that they used at DP Information.. those are the eye killers..

starting work on monday.. looks like i'm gonna be busy from now on!!

2009-01-29T22:31:00.008+08:00

went out with quanyou, weiyu, yanyi and qiumei to toa payoh.. to celebrate the birthday of yanyi and me.. actually so far this is the only group of people who arrive on time (beside Jesse, whom i'm greatful for being my good friend).. gosh i LOVE LOVE LOVE people who are on time.. because i like to be early, and when people are late, that adds on to the waiting time.. that itself is a great birthday present already.. and i can't imagine yanyi was at toa payoh since 1pm already!!

anyway we went to ichiban sushi for dinner.. i ordered the chicken katsu don together with quanyou, and weiyu and yanyi.. while weiyu ordered this meal with TWO rice.. so we were laughing that she's a 饭桶.. yanyi shared with qiumei this super cheezy chicken chop ( i think)..

and gosh they got this HUGE cake for us.. i was almost swearing it could have been 1kg.. but they said it wasn't.. anyway the 5 of us can't finish it and yanyi brought back the rest.. sadly it was cherry cake, and gosh, i haven't told anyone that i don't really like cherries.. i can eat them, but eating too much makes me wanna puke..

and unbeliveably, they got me this super duper nice lonsdale sling bag.. it was love at first sight, and i was surprised i didn't spot it during my shopping rounds.. i had wanted to buy a sling bag of that size and colour and design, and they read my mind!! ohmygosh..

it's nice going out with these people.. especially when yanyi is with weiyu, gosh yanyi will just keep suan-ing weiyu until it's actually painfully funny.. of course, something more fun than that is to suan back the "master of suans - yanyi".. but when it backfires, i'll just have to face the orchestral-music..

thanks thanks thanks to quanyou and weiyu for this wonderful birthday dinner and the nice bag.. it's probably the best birthday present i ever had coming from a friend.. and it's defnitely the most useful one.. until rosel gets me a car that is.. wahahahaha.. ok, i know that's never gonna happen.. nevermind..

2009-01-25T21:26:00.002+08:00

i must quote this very memorable quote from my newly found China friends:
预祝: 我们这些表面风光内心彷徨, 容颜未老心已沧桑, 似乎有才实为江郎, 比鱩骡子累比蚂蚁忙比岳飞更忠良的80后有志青年, 春节快乐!

follow me, say.. OHMYGOODNESS!!

one, i actually managed to type it all in.. i cheated and checked the dictionary for a few words..

and two, it's sooooo cheeem!!

but it's very interesting "表面风光内心彷徨", "容颜未老心已沧桑", "比鱩骡子累", "比蚂蚁忙".. these words so accurately described the 21^st century youths..

and from myself:

a slightly advanced 新年快乐 to everyone!!

short and sweet, and basically that's all i know..

2009-01-24T22:23:00.003+08:00

met up with the khao lak (rebuilding l.i.f.e.) people.. namely shuling, alan, jieyang and chengen.. i actually thought that we were going out to celebrate shuling's birthday (on 27th jan), but they all didn't know about it.. so we gave up the idea.. otherwise, our lunch location at fish & co glasshouse would have been quite ideal for birthdays..

they decided to watch red cliff 2.. but i already watched it twice.. nonetheless i decided to watch it for the third time, because it has been nearly forever since we last met up.. and since the show was at 5pm and we bought the tickets at 2pm, we spent 3 hours at cathay basement talking and talking and talking.. and talking..

and watching red cliff 2 for the third time was kinda weird cos i don't usually watch them on the big screen and yet i watched it 3 times on the big screen.. but it's good enough that i didn't fall asleep.. and in fact, after watching for the third time, there has been much more thoughts and understanding.. about how they planned, and how people react to things and situations.. plus red cliff is such a nice show, so i guess i should support the directors and producers for making such a brilliant film..

today's interesting cos i met many many many people.. i met jingda at cathay ( i spotted his car going into the carpark and met him at the box office - although he was with his darling girlfriend so i didn't want to disturb), i saw enqi "rushing off" when i entered cathay basement.. i saw jo pok at raffles city, then i met her again, with omela, alycia and one other familiar face (but i forgot her name).. it's a tiny tiny tiny world indeed..

2009-01-22T21:06:00.001+08:00

let me share a really small secret.. i've been jogging since tuesday..

it's no big deal to some, but for me it's such a big deal that i didn't dare to tell anyone till me own doubts are sufficiently cleared.. in fact, it's the first time (outside National Service during BMT) that i ran at night.. nights have always been reserved for videos, movies, and online chats, and (for a moment) little nyonya.. plus i had the thought that if i ran at night, my physical fatigue would cause a positive interference (or otherwise a reinforcement) to the mental fatigue that gathered through the day..

now that little nyonya's out of the way, and my weight issue is getting out of hand; i decided to run..

and i'm met with great difficulties too.. for anyone who has stopped running for some time, the first run would always come with that irritating itchiness all over your legs.. and the more you scratch, the itchier it gets.. so i usually stop at this stage and admit defeat.. this was what happened on tuesday..

but i tried again on wednesday, and it got me a little further.. the itch gave way to genuine muscle fatigue.. it happened so fast that when i was soooo tired, i looked back and can still see the underpass which i took to cross over from my house to the park.. it was barely 1km!! and it might even be an overestimation due to the night..

today i made it quite far (i think).. i managed to reach Ski360.. ok, not very far (i used to be able run to bedok jetty and back - but that was during the peak of my fitness - when i was skinnier than my mum and had a weight circumference of 28 inches).. i did walk a bit on the way back, but nonetheless, reaching Ski360 on foot was quite a miracle for me already..

tomorrow's church so i probably can't jog.. but i hope to be able to do it on sat & sun & every day from now on..

i haven't actually lost weight though.. cos i had a beef murtabak & 3 plain pratas & a choco-cone ice cream for supper right after running yesterday (i wanted to reward myself - just a little, but it got overboard).. but i think i got a little healthier.. i guess..

2009-01-20T21:48:00.002+08:00

was looking through friendster birthdays and was starkly reminded of Rahmat's birthday.. 1^st Feb.. Rahmat was my good friend while in BMT in p.tekong.. we were bunk-mates and we slept just a bed away, with kian siong in between.. he was a very friendly and care-free guy, and yet always volunteers to clean up the bunk for us.. a family-orientated person.. nonetheless we were both very lazy and so we often "teamed-up" together to avoid doing something, and formed alliances against our officers and sergeants so that they would not catch us "slacking".. too bad i can never celebrate his birthday any more.. because he passed away in a motorcycle accident last year.. i only heard from guramrit singh when i met him at SSDC when i collected my civilian license.. a life, so fragile.. a friend who seemed so real and so close, became so distant in an instant..

it's kinda cliche to say that we must treasure everyone and every friendship.. but at times when things gets tough, it's really hard to appreciate those that have been there all the while.. and very often, we neglect those who are there quietly helping us, and praying for us.. it's only timely that we remember our friends, before it's too late..

life is so unpredictable..

2009-01-19T22:43:00.004+08:00

i thought today would be a simple day for me to sleep in and rest well.. but i was disturbed by this phone call - from unilite.. and the person grilled me for more information pertaining to some job which i applied for.. and being a very blur person when i just woke up, i'm not even sure whether i answered her questions correctly..

but nonetheless, with that little consciousness, i managed to take down her office address and got an interview appointment with her within 2 hours from the call.. and that got me really awake (even though i very much wanted to remain on my bed for another 2 hours)..

i hope i manage to get the job.. it's at SPRING Singapore, doing something like frontdesk customer service.. sounds boring.. but it's good pay.. if i get the job, i'll scream at alyson because i would have shared the same building with her had james cook university not moved out earlier!!

2009-01-18T23:33:00.002+08:00

went out with tuanqi people for cycling at east coast park.. and we had a great great time.. we cycled from macdonalds all the way to moe changi adventure centre (nostalgic, yes, renewyearn camp) and then ahead to tanah merah ferry terminal (nostalgic, for me).. we also had a good time, with jackie taking time off his projects to join us in cycling, and amandine too, who cycled in a dress (don't think about it)!! and the funniest parts are often the most dangerous, like how we raced through the thick sunday crowd at ECP, and about how we held hands with one another on the move, and how we cycled on the main road with heavy trucks going past us (cos the pedestrian pathway was under repair)..

we then went to astons for dinner!! after some people leaving, we still had 10 of us left for astons.. so it was a great joy to see the waiter in shock (erm table for 3? eh nope, 10.. WHAT??).. we made astons a loud and unpleasant place to be for dinner tonight, but we had great fun so who cares..

after that jackie and aloysius decided to go shopping for new year clothes (in an attire soaked with dried-up sweat).. and amazingly jackie dared to try on several shirts and even bought one of them.. absolutely gross, but he said he had no choice because he ends work very late on weekdays..

a fun^fun fun^fun fun^fun day today!!

2009-01-16T23:47:00.000+08:00

ohmygoodness i went to dintaifung again!! and ate xiaolongbaos again!! this time i went with my church friends to celebrate Aloysius's birthday.. we ordered our own food + 4 longs of XLBs to go around.. althogether, we spent over $150 on dintaifung.. gosh..

then we went over to the esplanade waterfront to listen to some live band performance (said to be by Riverlife Church).. but they were playing non-christian songs so we couldn't really tell.. but they were great.. of all the rappers, and punk-rock artists that played there, i think today's band was the best so far!! we sat there for nearly an hour, immersing in nice audiophilic music..

then we went tcc for coffee (yes rosel, not coffee club).. they wanted to go to Harry's @ Esplanade, but it was booked for some corporate function.. so we had to resort to the other alternative.. i kinda preferred coffee too, because i stay near aloysius.. and if he was to be made drunk, i'll have to bear the consequences of bringing him home.. and that'll probably be bad..

it was a nice time out with my fellow christians.. and Happy Birthday Aloysius!!

2009-01-15T23:38:00.000+08:00

went out with rosel, minjia and trey for dinner to celebrate Trey's birthday.. and we had super yummy xiaolongbaos at dingtaifung.. it's not as "soup-y" as the ones rosel and i had some time ago, but it was still nice.. we ordered 3 longs of xlbs, making it a total of 30 (whoa!), but considering rosel and i had 20 on our own + pork chop fried rice the other time, 30 doesn't sound that much.. we also had a super large 500gm cake for trey, but we managed to finish it (gosh!)..

went to coffee club for a drink.. trey got the green apple mojito, minjia got the passion fruit mojito, and rosel got some peach tea and i got some mocha tropicana (which i ordered on impulse cos they all ordered but i haven't made up my mind yet).. but it turned out better than expected..

and trey was nice enough to drive his larger car instead of the sports car so he could send all of us home.. thanks thanks thanks trey!!

thanks minjia for the nice muffins + cookies!!
thanks junie for the candy cane!! and thanks trey for wishing us Merry Christmas when it's much closer to Chinese New Year.. wahahahaha..

nice night out with the vivo people.. funny we never went back to vivo.. i'm missing that place already..

2009-01-13T18:47:00.003+08:00

watched Red Cliff II today.. and it's no less exciting than Red Cliff I.. in fact, i think Red Cliff II is better (because it gives a proper conclusion to it).. i think that Red Cliff should be integrated into the classrooms in schools because at 20 years old, i've never had any interest in the Chinese history. Red Cliff made me interested in the Chinese History.. And it also gives a good understanding of how things happened back then.. I'm not sure about how accurately Red Cliff really portrayed the battle of the Red Cliff back then, but i think that it is a rather good edu-tainment attempt..

oh and i got a free bus ride there! i don't know why, but all the EZ link readers on the bus were faulty.. so the bus driver told us that it was free.. so i sat there watching passengers get on board and get surprised, just like i did.. finally SBSTransit decided to do something good.. i hope the EZ link card readers break down more often =D hehe..

2009-01-12T21:53:00.001+08:00

The Little Nyonya 2 is out!!

Albeit not on TV, but directed by pen and paper by a marvelous director. Click HERE to read it on MobTV Forum.

2009-01-11T22:06:00.004+08:00

i think the little nyonya: the final chapter ending is such a letdown!

but i shouldn't have expected much from the 3 minute clip.. there's no change in storyline, and to think that i was actually hoping for an alternate ending or something, but no such thing.. haix.. but it's good that it brings a proper conclusion to the little nyonya.. yueniang passes on the nyonya tradition to future generations, and chen xi becomes successful in his career.. i thought it was standard and guess-able from the last official episode of the show.. i hope mediacorp produces little nyonya 2 (perhaps when yueniang grows up - about the nyonyas in the 21st century?)..

i've uploaded the digital record of the show on youtube. View it HERE and hope it doesn't get forcefully deleted.

for now, it's goodbye to mediacorp and their mostly-terrible local-produced dramas..

2009-01-11T20:20:00.003+08:00

came home from church and was walking into the marine parade library when i bumped into yoyo and julia.. what a coincidence! but i was walking too fast, and by the time i realised that it was them, i was already in the lift! but ohwell, i managed to find out yoyo's number and smsed her.. then somehow julia found out my number and smsed me back.. oh and these two people are friends who recently joined our church.. and somehow, julia's my "大哥" and yoyo is julia's "daughter".. the irony is that i'm the oldest, followed by yoyo.. and julia's a girl.. so it's all super duper mixed up.. ohwell, this is the result of crazy fun at renewyearn camp.. but at least it's fun =D

2009-01-10T22:35:00.003+08:00

it's been ages since i had 3 posts in a day.. but ohwell, i was at home today and really having nothing to do and not wishing to spend the day outside.. sometimes it's just nice to slack around at home.. and today is one of those days..

was reading through my older blog posts and realised that it's really been a long long while.. well, i was reading about how rosel and i was mentioning about "fate".. and whether fate was actually scientific or not.. and now to think about it, "fate" is really a very interesting word and if it were to come from man, it'll be a very interesting "work" of that man indeed..

not to think whether "fate" is scientific or not, but to think about the effects of the introduction of this word called "fate".. well, for starters, this word dissipates all responsibility from a person.. by using "fate", one can disown one's doings and actions and blames it all one "fate".. that's the negative side of it.. but it's also one which pulls in-a-sense, more responsibility when used in "it's fate that brought us together".. so "fate" is used to refer to things that are out of our control, and perhaps things and events that we do not want to own up that we have a hand in..

and to think of it, fate (although referring to a series of events sequenced or ordered by time), it somehow is outside time.. because we can not put a definitely start or end to "fate".. so it's an irony because fate is perceived as a event sequence according to time, but yet it is not limited by time.. so it must somehow be godly or supernatural.. no wonder the plethora of people claiming to be able to "read" and "explain" fate..

then the question to ask is (what rosel has been asking since the moment i knew her), does it exist? i.e., does fate exist? or is fate just a matter of human perception or human creation.. perhaps as a means to throw away our responsibility for our actions? or perhaps to sweeten the deal to get ourselves a mate? or perhaps to make our earthly and human relationships seem godly and supernatural so that we can gain whatever amount of advantage that it can give us.. perhaps fate is just a lie and things just coincidentally happen all the time? but if that's the case, then many people are going to be jobless; and many people (knowing that fate is a lie) loses their aim in life..

or perhaps it's their "fate" to know that "fate" is a lie after all..

what an irony in life!!

2009-01-10T21:14:00.003+08:00

Yes! Man.. Yes Yes Yes!!

Well, i kinda agree with him that we sometimes need to be more sensitive and recognize opportunities.. many times, our reluctance to change has caused us distances in friendship, and even many other problems along the way..

and from a christian point of view, our reluctance to follow the will and the law of God is certainly a big problem in our daily life.. so yes to men, and yes yes yes to God!!

2009-01-10T15:41:00.002+08:00

met ms lam (my secondary school biology teacher) not long ago while buying popiah at parkway parade.. and most surprisingly, when i called out her name, she still remembered! "oh, benjamin right?".. she's really one of the most inspiring teachers around.. she was the one who sparked my curiosity for everything science, and she was most happy when i told her that i'm going to NUS Faculty of Science..

2009-01-09T23:38:00.002+08:00

had just-acia's tori katsu for dinner today.. with fude.. haven't met him for some time, and it's nice to meet up with him again!! once again, it feels so similar to be hanging around with him.. just like hanging out with jesse, we have the same topics and same thoughts..

surprisingly, fude agreed to going to church with me today.. so we went, and it just happened to be the kneeling down prayer meeting.. so i was praying very hard that he would be ok, and he seemed fine with it.. thankfully.. god works wonders, as long as we open the golden mouth of ours..

then we had "supper" at yakun and walked around cathay after that.. even ventured into the cathay residences, for fun.. then we decided that it's still early so we ventured around and walked to bugis.. wanted to wait for weiyu, but i guess it was still early so we left..

nice time out with fude.. hope there'll be many more to come =D

2009-01-08T17:10:00.002+08:00

Satyam declared US$1b in excess of what they had. But few people know that the US$1b was actually 94% of their total company value!!

sometimes in life, we may seem like we're doing a lot; but at the end of the day, are we really doing that much or are we just shrouded by the things that seemed to matter most.. we may not go to the extent of cheating people of our personal "value", but aint' cheating ourselves an even bigger con? this new year, let us pursue it with a dogged determination for the right purposes in life!!

2009-01-04T21:47:00.006+08:00

my church friends are all scribbling over their blogs, thanking people for 2008.. and i guess i should too.. because after all, they made up my 2008.. and this is just to make sure that they will forever be remembered, if not in my mind, at least written so that i can still thank them when i revise through this blog when i am, say 60 years old??

so here it is, in no particular order..

Esther, thanks for all the lessons. Thanks for all the scoldings and all the quarrels we have over the phone. Through all these, i've learnt a billion and one thing about life that i wouldn't have if not for them. Thanks for sharing about your beliefs too, because i've grown to see the truth and usefulness in the beliefs that you've held, and adopted them as my own too. Of course, i loved the good times we had together, and when we learnt the true meaning of God's Agape love. Even though we're no longer as close, i do wish and hope for betterment in our friendship, as we strive towards God's kingdom, on earth.

Rosel, thanks for the fun. Even though after so many years i still cannot connect with your tennis and your celebrity-chasing jardon and hype, there's still that many ways which we can feel connected as friends. And i really love the care-free outings with you, and your presence just make going out more pleasurable. Even though our friendship has loads of ups and down, but you're one that i know, that the phrase "friends forever" will more likely apply to.

Min Jia, thanks for the craziness. Yeah, the lazy old bum tan min jia! You're so giggly and fun to be with. Even though you sometimes seemed so emo, but 99% of the time you're sky-high crazy; so that makes up for it! Your smses never fail to light up my day with laughter - either laughing at you and your silly mistakes, or smiling at how you enjoy life the way children do. Looking at you reminds me of my childhood, my beautiful, joyful, stress-free childhood. You too, are a friend i want to keep with me forever and ever.

Trey, thanks for never sending me home. Wahahaha.. Ok, because you drive a sports car so i'll have to be a "gentleman" and let you fetch either one of the other two ladies home.. but you're a joy to be with too.. you and minjia really make everything seem so carefree and enjoyable, and makes me want to go all out and enjoy life.

Going out with the "vivo group" keeps me sane, and happy always. Thank you all!!

Eric Baboon Neo, the creature who gets drunk all the time. But when he's (or it's) not drunk, he's a terrific friend! Thanks for the rainbow that you've painted in my life that stayed there since JC =D

Jesse, the artist both of language and art. You brightened my JC life, and continue to do so after JC. Every moment out with you, feels out a moment out with a clone of myself. It feels so similar with you around, and i love love love love cracking jokes that only the both of us understand. hehe..

XueCong, i'm secretly happy that you've changed into a christian. even though i'll be even happier if you join any other church rather than city harvest. but nonetheless, you're still a great friend to be with!!

Aloysius, you are the saddest creature i've met on earth. Because you represent the pinnacle of Murphy's Law about whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. It's sad to see you suffer and fumble through life's "challenges", but no matter what, you'll brave through it and make it so enjoyable to be with you. You're "secretly" hardworking and caring too. So that makes you a supremely brilliant person. And especially being friends with you for decades, i can only thank you for the great time we had since we were very very young.

Jackie, the cool one. a Quiet Thinker. You can stay silently around the corner, but when you start doing anything, it is HUGE.. I didn't know when you started joining our "clique", but it's certainly a very good thing that you're a close friend of ours. Your presence can certainly replace XueYing and Qinghui's leaving for overseas studies.

WeiJie, the hip-hop cool dude. Actually, i don't really like the "funky" you. But i don't have a choice do I? I know deep down, you and i have the same ambitions, to do everything well and make the world a better place. But sometimes the world is not that nice to us, and we really meet a lot of challenges in life. Nevermind, we'll conquer it, and emerge a better person through all these "shit".

And even my "new" friends too..

Huang Fude!! sorry i just like to shout your name.. and it's not dual-syllable Fu-De, but as one word (like fudge, without the "g", and almost like the vulgar word), Fude!! You light up my life! well, to be honest i hated army. I hated the people in HQ Transport. "ET" is like a playboy who goes around "taunting" people, and thinks that he has a lot of powers. and "W" is like the dog who willingly follows "ET" the master in his fun. "Ku" is such a slacker that i sometimes feel unfair that i has to do so much, and he gets away sleeping all day in camp. "Kh" is nice, but he's almost as new as you. I may appear very happy in camp, but that's because i do not want to think about the many faces that people put on in camp. Office politics is one which i don't want to clog up my mind with. Then when i got to know you, my life in HQ Transport changed. I finally got a meet a real person with no hidden feelings and who genuinely cares and loves. That's precisely the reason i spent so much time with you and even bringing you around places in camp (remember badminton? and our "bedsheet" collection thursdays?..).. You're the only reason why i don't want to leave HQ Transport, and i thank you thank you thank you very very very much for it!!

and even Grace (sze ern), whom i've known her name in tuanqi for ages, but i've just gotten close to her and to know her really well. You're just soooooooo fun and yet you are absolutely serious about work.

And Joyce (sze ern's sis), whom i've known together with sze ern.. jojo is as funny as her sis and is equally responsible. It's hard to find someone as responsible as you and sze ern around. If i ever get the chance, i would love to work with the both of you. It would be a very enjoyable time working with you all.

and perhaps sharon too, who never fails to remind me about "amandine" ( the new french girl who sat beside me when she first came to tuanqi, and eventually they started gossiping that she was my girlfriend).. and even during the recent renewyearn camp when i was talking to the 4 new chinese girls, and she just popped out and said that i was mixing with other girls behind amandine.. she's super irritating, but nonetheless very fun to be with (that is when she stops talking about all these nonsense)..

and weiyu and yanyi, both of my super cute and cuddly god-sisters whom i always look forward to every outing with them..

and enqi, for being so helpful all the time (remembers the collection of tuanqi t-shirt)

and yeeler, for being so fun all the time

and ruth, for helping to plan the camp together with me

and minghui, for helping to plan the camp together with me

and junjie, for NOT helping to plan the camp together with us

and khairul, for being my understudy so that i can ORD

and phoebe (jiyao's 3-month-old baby), for that 2 very entertaining nights that we spent in renewyearn camp

and joel, daniel, clement, kim mun, yi han, and the rest of providence presbyterian church "Ministry of Sound", for the fun (and tiring) times we had figuring out whether it was the wire's fault or the DI box's fault

and yijia, for accompanying me and being funny so i can stay awake during the most boring sermons

and the rest of my friends, who collaboratively painted the beautiful masterpiece called Year 2008!!

Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart!

Have an even more colourful 2009!!

2009-01-03T17:23:00.003+08:00

was talking about new year resolutions to my cousin, chelsea.. and she said that new year resolutions for 2009 is so hard to think about, because it's the same as that of 2008!! i can't agree more..

my 2008 resolutions were:
1. loose weight
throughout 2008, i've merely gained weight!!
2. start studying again
nowhere close!!
3. make more (guy) friends
i've known new guys like fude, joel, daniel, clement.. i got quite close to fude, but i also got close to people like amandine, yijia, joyce, and even the 4 new chinese girls who came to the tuanqi camp.. argh..
4. stay closer to God
i guess i did it.. just a little..
5. stay single
the only one which i can proudly acclaim to be completed!!

i really don't know about 2009.. i've read books like "i kissed dating goodbye" which taught me to not know too much about people from the opposite gender.. and yet i still find it easier to talk to them.. and of course, i WILL start studying again (just whether it's before or after Aug 2009).. losing weight is always the question.. and staying closer to God is an ever-lasting goal and resolution.. i'm still wondering whether i should stay single in 2009.. but before i can answer that last question, i must see whether i'm ready for such a thing yet.. at current state, no.. in the foreseeable future, no..

my new year resolutions for 2009 will not be said, but i think i know what they are already..

2009-01-02T23:14:00.002+08:00

i thank God for friends..

friends who are smart and super duper intelligent and will brighten up not only my day, but will also light up the neurons in my brain.. these are the really fun group of people to be with..

friends who are super duper irritating.. they will dampen my day, but they remind me that i am such a person in the eyes of others; and that i'm probably worse off in the eyes of the Lord.. these friends teach me life skills of patience and love..

friends who are really casual.. we say hi, we say bye.. in between those two words, we throw in some rubbish that would not matter whether we actually said it or not.. but it's good to have them around because without them, life would have too much ups and downs and would be so unpredictable..

friends who are really close.. they point out my mistakes without fear of making me angry.. they tell me things that they know, concerns them and concerns me.. they are like a mirror in my life, except that this mirror is never stationary and is never silent.. they teach me most of the things that i need to learn..

but i thank god that he kept a decent proportion of the different groups of friends around that keeps me sane..

2009-01-01T19:35:00.002+08:00

RE NEW YEARN camp is over!!!

I'm just so thankful to our great God because he's a miracle God time and again. For the very first time in my life a camp felt better than planned. For the very first time, we didn't expect so much, but it turned out better.

Miracle one was that this was a rainy season and we had a camp during this period. NEA website confirmed morning and afternoon showers when we checked it the day before the camp. But throughout the camp, there was no rain; but only a slight drizzle during the free & easy period on the second day. There was dark clouds, and reddish skies that signaled imminent rain. But we prayed over it, over and over again. And the clouds just passed us by.

Miracle two was that our campsite was incredibly near Changi Airport so the noise from passing planes was quite a nuisance. But thankfully during our outdoor worship session, there was little interference by the planes. In fact, during the critical video playing period of about 20 minutes, only one small plane flew by!! We were all thankful we brought the whole sound system from church to the camp.

Then of course, there are many others, but i just wanted to write a little about the amazing grace of our Lord. Words cannot express my happiness in the never-failing love of God. Glory be to the Lord most high!!!

Indeed, 2008 has been a great year for me! I completed National Service, I started my first job in my life, I learnt a lot from the people around me; most importantly, i learnt how to love others just like God loved us. This is one lesson that took me 20 years to learn, and i've just started on lesson one.

For 2009, may i continue to manifest what i've learnt in 2008; and my goal would be to be a blessing to others as much as i have been blessed! This is what Jesus asks us to do, and so i should set my target to be aligned to his.

HAPPY 2008
HAPPIER 2009!!

2008-12-22T21:44:00.004+08:00

working as a telesurveyor at DP Information.. it's really fun because i got to participate in the STartup EntrePrise Survey (STEPS), in interviewing Entrepreneurs and finding out the problems that they face in setting up a company.. there's really a lot of things that i wouldn't have learnt and known if not for the survey.. and above all, i had a lot of fun doing it.. now we've moved on to another survey, but it's still quite relevant.. i had fun talking to the director of huge companies like Air India, and Bank of India; and to be even more surprised to find that they are very very nice people who entertain surveyors.. i remember the director of Air India spending 40 minutes explaining to me the rough operations of Air India.. it's not something big to boast about, but through this, i've really learnt a lot.. thank God, thank God!!!

2008-12-17T20:57:00.002+08:00

went out with the "vivo group" ( i didn't want to call us that because we're no longer going to vivo, but since rosel and minjia used it, i guess i should follow with the flow).. but ya, we met for dinner at Manhattan Fish Market to celebrate MinJia's birthday.. the food was nice, but i guess rosel was busy trying out her new CAMERA-with-phone-functions; and trey was busy disturbing minjia..

nonetheless we had fun.. we played truth-or-truth (the last time was at vivo - duh) at tcc.. and i discovered that rosel is also quite conservative.. got to know a lot more about my good friends.. and ohwell, i'm very happy that trey is together with junie and minjia with kk.. good for them, good for them..

i was just telling rosel how nice it would be if all four of us were to get attached some day in the future and still meet up for regular dinners.. haha.. i certainly hope we can be friends forever!! what a nice wish, too bad i wasn't the person celebrating the birthday..

2008-12-17T10:46:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIN JIA!!!

Wishing you the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.. And may you be happy all the days of your life!!

2008-12-14T21:39:00.003+08:00

blog-reading for the truly lazy!!

i've created a script that allows people to jump straight to sections of my blog without going through the front page. beta-testing has been completed and there shouldn't be any more bugs with the script.

click on the appropriate links (and maybe bookmark them if you wish): BLOG TAG LINKS

Enjoy!

2008-12-10T20:34:00.003+08:00

ok my work has been nice.. i've met nice new people.. yi yee, sarina, shi hui, etc etc.. most of them are around my age, and so we can click quite well.. then there's also the people sitting in the other table, zhenghui, murni, jessica and thomas.. basically we call all day, but we also laugh all day.. because the nature of our job is really very funny.. especially when we get people who can only speak chinese (rosel says it's mandarin) or indian (rosel says it's hindi) or malay (rosel didn't say anything, thankfully).. we'll be trying to speak to them with the very little amount of that language that we know.. eventually either they give up, or we do.. but indians are generally very patient.. chinese, haix.. i just hope we chinese can be as gracious as the rest of them.. but ohwell, i do hang up on telemarketers all the time..

2008-12-08T16:02:00.002+08:00

these few days have been busy busy busy.. after sleeping at 2am on saturday night / sunday morning, i woke up at 6:30am to prepare to go to church to set up the audio equipment.. then with that 4 hours of sleep, i survived church, fellowship, meeting to discuss about the camp and the christmas programme, then rush home to change to go to jingda's house to help him and silas fix up their laptops.. that took quite long, so we stayed overnight at his place.. very very tiring..

2008-12-06T23:53:00.001+08:00

went to tung lok signatures for lunch with silas.. was supposed to go to the Line for lunch, but jingda cannot make it on time so we did a very last minute impromptu booking with tung lok signatures and went there at 1:30pm..

it's all fantastic food that really can't be described by words.. but let me just describe the desert.. it's called 榴莲望返.. basically it's coconut juice with a sprinkle of lime mixed and placed in a test tube; and an empty coconut husk with vanilla ice cream and durian flesh on top of the ice cream; and a nice sago cake.. all served on a 1-feet wide by half-feet high glass bowl full of ice!! and with peppermint plant planted in the ice as decoration.. one for everybody.. i'm not very good at describing food, but i think you get what i meant already..

then we went to walk around central.. and after that went to cathay picturehouse.. jingda parked his car in church and i met bernice and henry.. but we found none.. then plaza singapura, none.. then after wasting some time, we decided to head over to astons at joo chiat for dinner..

after dinner they came to my house for me to take my laptop (cos they wanted to "steal" some stuff from my laptop and hard disk).. then we headed over to jingda's house.. silas copied over almost 12GB of songs from JD and mine combined, all into his new itouch.. then we watched clips on youtube and just hanged around his house.. till now..

i really hope i can wake up early tomorrow to help set up the sound system for 2nd service.. i have to reach at 8:30am, so i have to wake up at 6:30am.. i'm sooooo gonna be a zombie tmr..

2008-12-05T15:32:00.002+08:00

ORD!!!

it's supposed to be something big, but i'm not feeling much. maybe it's because it's just a shifting of office from one to another. there won't be much changes cos i go to camp wearing home clothes anyway.

but i thank my boss and my colleages for the wonderful experience that i had "serving the country" - as rosel puts it. i really think it's more appropriate putting it as "country serving me". but it's not that much difference right?

i got a nice parker pen with my name engraved on it. i got a nice swissbake brownie and swissbake ginger cookies from fude. i got my certificate of service with a grade of "outstanding", and a testimonial too. i can look forward to using it for easier job hunts.

somehow i think i will miss all of them..

2008-12-04T23:04:00.002+08:00

i love youtube symphony!! Tan Dun can really compose a nice song for the youngsters and reflects youtube's collaborative mix from all over the world..

2008-12-02T21:57:00.003+08:00

Badminton with Rosel, Minjia and Trey ROCKS!! like i told them, i haven't exercised like that in a year!! we played from 4-6pm, then from 6:20 to 7pm again.. we actually booked for an hour only, but since nobody was there we carried on playing.. so it's the feeling of weakness, but that actually translates to happiness.. i don't know why..

minjia wanted to go to the gym, but somehow we didn't.. maybe it's because trey and i played badminton for a long time.. or maybe not going to the gym was the reason why we played badminton for so long.. nonetheless i feel too tired for the gym session to work out..

and we had a fantastic meal at sumo-house @ clementi.. minjia said that there was cheap japanese food.. and i ate the super cheap katsudon for $2.90!!! with free flow green tea too.. and the most amazing thing is that we were all wearing CJC shirts, and so we got 2 rolls of sushi, FREE!! compliments from the restaurant for students.. and the joke is that none of us are from CJ anymore!! and i'm even "working"!! gosh we MUST wear CJ shirt the next time we meet up for badminton at clementi.. wahahaha..

2008-12-01T21:32:00.003+08:00

celebrated the end to the series of exams for Rosel at Din Tai Fung.. We had 20 (!) xiaolongbaos, 6 yam xiaolongbaos, and a plate of pork chop fried rice.. we actually ordered 10 xiaolongbaos, but it was FANTASTIC so we ordered another 10.. no regrets =D

but the main thing, was the shopping part.. ohmygosh it's the first time i went into such shops in my whole life!! it all started with rosel asking me to go to tiffany & co, and i asked her "eh you feeling rich ah?".. then we gave up on the idea and went into almost any high-class shop in the area.. then the price tag just made me think that i'm suddenly living in the monopoly-money era.. then again, it might not be enough for that too.. nevermind, i'll stick to my hang ten and baleno clothings.. i don't think i'll be going into those shops for a long time to come, if ever..

christmas lights are on in orchard, but they are super plain.. ohwell, happy holidays!!

looking forward to badminton tomorrow!!

2008-12-01T11:57:00.002+08:00

Eric got me interested in OCBC's Cycle Singapore event on 22nd Feb.. 50km around Singapore, and i'm thinking that it'll be super fun to go with friends.. BUT it costs a bomb at a terrifying $168.. Even with OCBC credit cards and early birds, it goes down to $125.. it's crazy above crazy, both of FUN and PRICE..

2008-11-24T21:37:00.000+08:00

my whole life, i've never seen a stranger offer another stranger sweets and to talk to that stranger on the bus.. but today, i've experienced it, first hand.. well, i was going home and i sat down beside this girl (probably 16 - 18 years old).. then after a while, she asked me if this bus passed by east coast already.. i answered her "erm not yet, but why are you going to east coast park at this hour?".. and the conversation went on and on and on.. and somewhere in between she took out her sweets and gave me some of it.. i don't know whether it's her asking of whether we passed by East Coast, or that i answered her more than she asked.. but oh well, it was nice entertainment considering the lousy tv mobile wasn't working again.. thank God for the fantastic journey home..

2008-11-21T22:30:00.002+08:00

finally a happy template!! i really disliked the previous black-ish template, but i was too lazy to change.. till today.. finally, a new beginning..

2008-11-20T22:44:00.002+08:00

i just realised that this new person (Kevin) in my camp has the same birthday as me!! ohmygosh these few days i keep discovering that there are so many february babies around me!! and in Feb 11 too, it's just a miracle.. we realised it when he saw my NRIC when i passed it to him to help me register to play LAN at Katong just a while ago.. then he started shouting across the place, "Ben you born on Feb 11 too???".. ya, i guess my reaction to that is pretty much expected.. "ahhh!!! you too???" i love today, yet again!!

2008-11-18T15:42:00.002+08:00

i love today =D

i was having lunch at eunos, and when i ordered desert, the uncle remembered me (as the army guy who always bring different people to eat together at eunos) and decided to give me more stuff for free.. i eventually carried away two extremely large bowls of ice jelly, and a big grin across my face..

then i was at ICA, and the person who served me was exactly 1-day older than me!! she was as shocked and happy as i was, and i had a great time collecting my passport.. the funny thing was when she asked me "hi, when is your birthday?", and i said "erm do you need to know?".. and she said "ya, cos we have rather similar birth dates".. it didn't exactly dawn upon me that it was for verification, but oh well, she has access to that data on her PC already, plus i presented my NRIC as proof that i'm benjamin.. but it did brighten up my day, so thank you, miss immigration officer!!

and coming back, i got a call from this person from ManuLife insurance, asking me to be some "Financial Services Professional".. and even after i told her that i'm only 20 years old and i can only work for 6 months, she said that i was still eligible!! so now i'm wondering if i should take up this fantastic job, and at the same time, i'm wondering how experienced are the guys wearing suits and working in banks advising our parents on the various insurance schemes that the bank is offering..

but nonetheless it's a great day!!
Thank God!!

2008-11-10T22:10:00.004+08:00

The RE NEW YEARN (Reunion) Camp is here!!

30 Dec to 1 Jan 2009
MOE Changi Adventure Centre

Click HERE to visit the website.

Oh and did i mention that new friends get to go for FREE???
(only when you're interested in joining a group of semi-crazy Christians, and only if you're a fan of high rope elements and hanging by a harness 10 metres off the ground)

2008-11-05T18:01:00.001+08:00

Congratulations to the Man who has always put God first in his life, and Thank God for his blessings upon this Man. Hurray to Barack Obama!!

2008-11-03T17:00:00.000+08:00

I GOT MY CIVILIAN CLASS 3 LICENSE ALREADY!!!

Yes, i'm probably one of the very rare few who got their civilian license before they complete national service.. and even rarer to have an application approved within a week.. in comparison, most applications take 3 months to process.. the reason, my letter originated from GS Branch in HQ Transport; and this is the branch that issued out the order and gives permission for application for civilian license.. But nonetheless, the glory goes to my God for all the blessings that he has given me..

2008-10-31T23:09:00.000+08:00

i got terrified by gmail's mail googgles experimental addon.. i was trying to send some mail to people when it just popped out.. and the questions that popped out wasn't easy.. i eventually resorted to using the windows calculator function and i had only 3 seconds to spare before i sent it out.. a very very scary experience.. i disabled it because i needed it no more!! gRRRRR..

2008-10-30T21:05:00.004+08:00

i enjoyed venezia's ice cream with aloysius today.. no, that didn't happen.. but that was a question in doubt of many people who complained that i didn't update my blog.. and i'm inclined to wait till the script tells me that it's been 20 days for me to start blogging again.. but then again, i'm too lazy to wait.. erm, did i just say that??

ok, basically i've been job hunting these days.. and also been sitting on the plentiful amount of OFFs that my boss gave me.. basically i go back to "work" once a week, and i spend the rest of my time either watching videos at home, or going out with friends, or trying to test out - in utter failure - a whole new complex password script based on MD5 hashes and some mechanism that will be impossible to crack by reading source codes.. but ya, i failed on that.. i've also been working on creating videos for my fellowship new year countdown camp that will be from 30 dec to 1 jan 2009 where we will count down to the new year at MOE's Changi Adventure Centre..

these are the things that has been keeping me busy, and bored at the same time.. so there's really nothing much to blog about..

my job hunting progress has been slow.. i started on the road with a bump like most first-timers.. i went to a MLM company and wasted 2 hours listening to solid crap.. but what i felt meaningful was that i told the whole bunch of them (before they commenced on their propaganda-ish talk) that this company sells fake products; and hence i probably saved a few young chaps from falling into this trap.. then again, they must be wondering why i attended even when i knew about the flaws in the company.. the reason was that i found out while surfing via GPRS on my phone just a short moment before the start of that talk..

speaking about that, if anyone has any great deals for a jobless person; please inform me asap..

and now, on to friends.. somehow i've been going through rough patches in friendship too..

i had to approach her at the worst time, but then again, she was being stressed by her other friends.. and hence when i asked Rosel out to celebrate her birthday with minjia, trey and I, she most-unexpectedly said No.. nonetheless she managed to resolve her conflict, and we went out yesterday to Crystal Jade Ginseng Chicken & BBQ @ CentrePoint for a fabulous dinner.. and we had a nice time chatting after dinner at tcc.. an excellent conclusion to a terrible start.. Happy Birthday Rosel..

there are other problems with other friends too.. but somehow things are more complicated and should be better left in memories.. and thankfully, all friendship problems have been resolved as of today.. hence, perhaps, the blog post after so long..

i'm just most thankful for this particular friend who has went through thick and thin with me; and who has stayed by my side for the past year or so.. and we almost had disputes to the point of a complete annihilation of the friendship.. but God saved it, and through it, many lessons were learnt.. and we were now closer than ever before.. and we thank God for it..

but on the good side, i played badminton with minjia on tuesday.. it was super duper fun for me because i haven't played my favourite sport for ages.. and i'm looking forward to an even more fantastic badminton outing with rosel, minjia and trey some time soon..

2008-10-12T21:10:00.003+08:00

i enjoyed venezia's ice cream with aloysius today.. even though i walked past it at least a hundred times before, it's my first time actually sitting down and enjoying their smooth and rich ice cream.. i ordered dark chocolate and belgium chocolate; and even though it was absolutely sinful, at the moment when i ate them, it felt guilt free.. until the brilliance ended and the fact that i ate down a large serving of chocolate ice cream dawned upon me..

but i must have it again, it's really nice..

2008-10-12T20:40:00.005+08:00

My church is starting on this test called the "gray-wheelwright-winer type indicator test". Apparently you answer some questions online and it tells you about your character. So i did it and found it to be exceedingly true. You can do the test here.

ESTJ -- Extraverted Thinking Aided by Sensing

Main Characteristics

ESTJ'S are very much in touch with the external environment. They know their community and usually are pillars of strength. The best adjective to describe ESTJs would be responsible. They represent about 13 percent of the general population.

ESTJs are outstanding at organizing orderly procedures and in detailing rules and regulations. They like to see things done correctly. They tend to be impatient with those who do not carry out procedures with sufficient attention to those details, prescribed by those with the most experience, that will get the job done right.

ESTJs are comfortable in evaluating others and tend to judge how a person is doing in terms of standard operating procedures. They may, at times, be abrupt with those who do not follow rules correctly. ESTJs are realistic, matter-of-fact, and more curious about new devices and processes than about new principles and theories.

Career

ESTJ's generally are loyal to their institutions, work, and community and make excellent, faithful mates and parents. They see where their duty lies and are not likely to shirk the doing of that duty, even when this requires considerable sacrifice on their part. They frequently rise to positions of responsibility in their jobs, in the community, and in their religious affiliations. They very often belong to several civic clubs, and support them both through steady attendance and through their spoken attitudes. ESTJs themselves are punctual and expect others to be also.

ESTJs may not always be responsive to points of view and emotions of others and may have a tendency to jump to conclusions too quickly at times. They may not always be willing to listen patiently to opposing views; they are especially vulnerable to this tendency when in positions of authority. They may need to make special effort to remain open to input from others who are dependent on them - their children, spouses, and employees.

ESTJs are so in tune with the established, time-honored institutions and ways of behaving within those institutions that they cannot understand those who might wish to abandon or radically change those institutions. They follow routines well at home and at work, tending to have a place for everything and wanting everything in its place. They are usually neat and orderly at work and at play.

Home

They approach human relations through traditions and rituals, promoting harmony and contentment in their relationships through creating well worked out routines and procedures. Family traditions have meaning for ESTJs, and they willingly participate in observing these. They enjoy opportunities to see friends, former colleagues, and relatives at functions such as retirement dinners, annual picnics, Thanksgiving gatherings, and weddings. ESTJs are relatively easy to get to know; they do not tend to confuse people by sending double messages. They are dependable and consistent, and what they seem to be is what they are.

Mid-life

At mid-life ESTJs may find new challenge in concentrating on better understanding the emotional reaction of others. If they do not develop this sensitivity, they can become bad-tempered and highly impatient with others as the years pass. They probably have been holding a tight rein over their emotions in the service of their careers and family; now a freer expression of these emotions, especially the positive ones, might be exercised. Travel to new places should have particular appeal if the ESTJs make special effort to absorb different cultures and lifestyles.

Mates

To preserve the establishment, to keep it healthy, steady, balanced, well insured, that's what is enjoyable and satisfying to the ESTJ. Yet the ESTJ is attracted to the disestablishmentarian, the ISFP! Does he hope to redo this bucolic spirit in his own image? Seemingly not. Perhaps he sees in this person's extreme laissez-faire a respite from the great responsibilities he manages to accumulate.

He can and sometimes does find another sort of complementary opposite, the INFP "monastic." This is very infrequent, there being 15 ESTJs for every INFP. It is doubtful if the ESTJ finds any rest in the INFP, because underneath the monastic is a fierce crusader - hardly what he bargained for. He may soon find himself asked to increase the "depth" and the "meaningfulness" of the relationship without being given even the slightest clue on how to proceed. His renewed efforts to "stabilize" and "solidify" the relationship will only be taken as signs of superficiality and/or meaninglessness.

ESTJs have careers like government employee, pharmaceutical sales, auditor, computer analyst, technical trainer, project manager, officer manager, factory supervisor, credit analyst, electrical engineer, stockbroker, regulatory compliance, ...officer, chief information officer, construction worker, general contractor, paralegal, industrial engineer, budget analyst, data base manager, funeral director, cook, security guard, dentist, etc

Please tell me if you're in ISFP (Introverted Feeling Aided By Sensing), i want to get to know you. According to the text above, apparently i would be attracted to ISFPs.. However, from what i know of myself now, i would want an INTP (Introverted Thinking Aided By Intuition). And checking the details of INTPs, i found it exceeding true of what i expect of my future spouse too!!! But read on, INTPs form just 1% of the population!!! I'm so gonna remain a lonely bachelor for the rest of my life manz..

INTPs exhibit the greatest precision in thought and language of all the types; they tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies in thought and language instantaneously. The one word which captures the unique style of INTPs is architect - the architect of ideas and systems as well as the architect of edifices. This type is found in only 1 percent of the population and therefore is not encountered as frequently as some of the other types.

INTPs detect contradictions in statements no matter how distant in space or time the contradictory statements were produced. The intellectual scanning of INTPs has a principled quality; that is, INTPs search for whatever is relevant and pertinent to the issue at hand. Consequently, INTPs can concentrate better than any other type.

Authority derived from office, position, or wide acceptance does not impress INTPs. Only statements that are logical and coherent carry weight. External authority per se is irrelevant. INTPs abhor redundancy and incoherence. Possessing a desire to understand the universe, an INTP is constantly looking for natural law. Curiosity concerning these keys to the universe is a driving force in this type.

INTPs prize intelligence in themselves and in others, but can become intellectual dilettantes as a result of their need to amass ideas, principles, or understanding of behavior. And once they know something, it is remembered. INTPs can become obsessed with analysis. Once caught up in a thought process, that thought process seems to have a will of its own for INTPs, and they persevere until the issue is comprehended in all its complexity. They can be intellectual snobs and may show impatience at times with others less endowed intellectually. This quality, INTPs find, generates hostility and defensive behavior on the part of others, who may describe an INTP as arrogant.

For INTPs, the world exists primarily to be understood. Reality is trivial, a mere arena for proving ideas. It is essential that the universe is understood and that whatever is stated about the universe is stated correctly, with coherence and without redundancy. This is the INTPs final purpose. It matters not whether others understand or accept his or her truths.

Career

The INTP is the logician, the mathematician, the philosopher, the scientist; any pursuit requiring architecture of ideas intrigues this type. INTP's should not, however, be asked to work out the implementation or application of their models to the real world.

The INTP is the architect of a system and leaves it to others to be the builder and the applicator. Very often therefore, the INTP's work is not credited to him or her. The builder and the applier gains fame and fortune, while the INTP's name remains obscure. Appreciation of an INTP's theoretical work frequently comes posthumously - or the work may never be removed from library shelves at all and thus lost.

INTP's tend not to be writers or to go into sales work. They are, however, often excellent teachers, particularly for advanced students, although INTP's do not always enjoy much popularity, for they can be hard taskmasters. They are not good at clerical tasks and are impatient with routine details. They prefer to work quietly, without interruption, and often alone. If an organization is to use the talents of an INTP appropriately, the INTP must be given an efficient support staff who can capture ideas as they emerge and before the INTP loses interest and turns to another idea.

Our "architect" is not merely a designer of buildings. There is the architect of ideas (the philosopher), the architect of number systems (the mathematician), the architect of computer languages (the programmer), and on and on. In short, abstract design is the forte of the architect and coherence is the primary issue.

Home

INTP's take their mating relationship seriously and usually are faithful and devoted - albeit preoccupied at times. They are not likely to welcome constant social activity or disorganization in the home. In all probability, the mate of an INTP will initiate and manage the social life. If left to his or her own devices the INTP mate will retreat into the world of books and emerge only when physical needs become imperative. INTP's are, however, willing, compliant, and easy to live with, although somewhat forgetful of appointments, anniversaries, and rituals of daily living unless reminded. They may have difficulty expressing their emotions verbally, and the mate of an INTP may believe that he/she is somewhat taken for granted. As a parent, the INTP is devoted; they enjoy children, and are serious about their upbringing. The home of an INTP parent is usually calm, low-key in discipline, but well run and ordered.

INTP's deal with the environment primarily through intuition, and their strongest quality, the thinking function, remains relatively hidden except in close associations. Therefore, INTP's are often misunderstood, seen as difficult to know, and seldom perceived at their true level of competency. They are inclined to be shy except when with close friends, and their reserve is difficult to penetrate. They are very adaptable until one of their principles is violated. Then INTP's are not adaptable at all! They may have difficulty in being understood by others because they tend to think in a complicated fashion and want to be precise, never redundant in their communications. Because their feeling qualities may be underdeveloped, they may be insensitive to the wants and wishes of others, often unaware of the existence of these wants and wishes.

Mid-life

At mid-life the INTP might do well to work on increasing awareness of emotional responses, responding to the value preferences of others, and verbalizing to others the INTP's awareness of these values. At mid-life one of the tasks of the INTP is to develop an ability to play for play's sake; not to learn something or to somehow improve a skill. Working on the sensual side of his or her nature may provide a source of new pleasure and excitement.

Mates

Why would this abstractionist find the ESFJ "seller" attractive? Think broadly of selling. This amounts to persuading another to receive something of value to the receiver. The seller is essentially caring for the receiver (quite apart from the fact that the receiver pays). This is the essential attitude of the ESFJ seller, and this attitude is perceptible to the receiver (buyer); he feels this nourishing approach. That is what is attractive to the INTP architect-philosopher - the nourishment which anchors him to the real world.

What attracts the ESFJ "seller"? Here is a person who, like a balloon filled with hydrogen, is likely to escape the earth (in his abstract attitude). He needs to have a string attached so that he can be hauled down to earth now and then. In a sense, he needs to be "sold on reality," so indifferent is he to it.

The INTP also has a second likely target to attract him: the ENFJ "pedagogue." What is a pedagogue? A catalyst of the growth process, someone who has that uncanny ability to "bring out" the other, to activate the differentiation or "unfolding" process in the learner. All NFs seem to have this capability in some degree and the accompanying desire to exercise it, but the ENFJ seems to have it in abundance. This relationship - the ENFJ-INTP - can be "deep and meaningful" for the former and anchoring in a charismatic way for the latter.

The INTP has careers like strategic planning, writer, staff development, lawyer, architect, software designer, financial analyst, college professor, photographer, logician, artist, systems analyst, neurologist, physicist, psychologist, research/development, ...specialist, computer programmer, data base manager, chemist, biologist, investigator, etc.

Please tell me if you're an INTP!! And take pride in the fact that you are an extremely rare jewel that forms just 1% of the total population in this vast ocean of non-suitable companions for benjamin.

2008-10-10T22:13:00.002+08:00

had yet another tuanqi camp meeting today with jun jie, ruth and minghui.. it was slightly less productive as the first meeting because i couldn't get the quotation from MOE CCAC yet.. i really do hope that they can give us a good and cheap quotation fast, otherwise things can't get going at full speed.. it's like we WANT to plan, but we don't dare to commit too much because there might be a chance that our efforts might be wasted.. but we still discussed on several issues today..

jun jie went off to prayer meeting first because he was the pianist.. so minghui, ruth and i went to paradiz (again) for macs.. then ruth decided that she wanted to go for prayer meeting and so i went with her.. and it was no mistake.. even though it was just prayer and more prayer, i felt rejuvenated and ready for tomorrow already.. even though i entered prayer meeting very tired.. i thank god for it..

2008-10-08T22:44:00.002+08:00

had dinner with rosel minjia and trey at popeyes at singapore flyer.. to a surprise of up-priced meals..

we ordered 2 sets of 3-piece chicken strips and an 8-piece chicken set.. and a large cajun fries.. and we were so full that we couldn't finish the biscuits..

i had a severe lack of sleep last night so i was very tired and trying my best to stay awake.. and rosel has to rush home by 10pm for some group discussion.. trey has to meet his girlfriend.. and minjia just has to go home to sleep early cos she got driving lessons tomorrow.. for me, i got ample time so i waited with minjia.. and eventually took a slow long walk to suntec city for my bus 36..

i guess we should just meet up another time with no agenda after that.. so that we can really hang around and talk and enjoy each other's company.. just like the good old times at vivo city when we sat at the grandstand and talked and talked and talked..

2008-10-07T23:52:00.002+08:00

i met up with aloy and yee ler for dinner at dhoby exchange's just acia, and we had the crispy chicken noodle meal for $5.90++.. and i had 5 cups of expresso, mixed with chocolate ice cream to give a very creamy and hearty and thick mocha.. my favourite kind of drink..

watched house bunny, and for the first time, i've watched a movie with an acceptable storyline, but little moral lessons.. not that i'm there to watch an educational show, but this film is all about comedy and nothing else.. not too bad an effort for the director, but this film is best put as entertainment only..

then we slacked at macdonalds, and had a nice time of catching up..

2008-10-05T20:51:00.003+08:00

someone came to this blog by typing "benji in chinese means stupid chicken" in AOL search.. and rosel, you're not alone in wondering why would people type ycroxmyworld into google and enter your page; i have 5 people coming to this page by typing lettingloveleadtheway into google just from Oct 1 to Oct 4.. and i'm still intrigued about the person who actually typed that into the search bar..

2008-10-02T14:41:00.007+08:00

This is a nice christmas-themed game that tests your patience.. really nice game that can get quite emotional when the rabbit falls from too high a height.. it's the game i've been playing all day long in office today.. Enjoy!!

Click HERE to play this game in full screen.

2008-10-01T10:54:00.000+08:00

HAPPY CHILDRENS' DAY!!!

to all the young, and the young at heart

2008-09-29T23:34:00.003+08:00

last friday, i joined in the fellowship meeting for christmas celebrations.. today, i joined in another meeting for the tuanqi camp at the end of the year..

and we all agreed that it was a very productive meeting.. with junjie, ruth and minghui, we discussed initial aspects of the camp at paradiz macdonalds.. and contrary to what the brother often says, junjie is one great leader.. he manages to keep the group of us focused whenever we digress into our small talks.. he has succeeded in what many people have failed to do..

and with just the four of us planning, it was very efficient.. we came up with ideas quick, and decided on them even faster.. just that i really didn't like having a higher board of people to approve of what we have planned and worked out.. but i guess it's only rightful of them, because we're dealing with donations from church members and we can't use them just as we wish..

i hope we can get the MOE Changi Adventure Centre, it will be great..

2008-09-28T23:42:00.003+08:00

had dinner with some of the fellowship people, namely Jackie, Edmund, Amadine, Joyce and Sze Ern.. at "Fresh Bulggogi" at Changi Airport T2.. and most surprisingly, it wasn't very expensive.. the 6 of us each paid $12.50 for a filling portion of beef / chicken and ribs..

but it's not amongst the best, or even matching local standards.. they used sub-quality beef that's cut so thin it got stuck to the hot plate.. and the ribs did not taste fresh.. only the beef bulggogi tasted good (hence the name of the restaurant - fresh bulggogi - because ONLY the bulggogi is fresh)..

but we had a nice time together.. and we certainly made a lot of noise in changi airport; with us screaming and laughing in the lifts and almost everywhere else.. kinda makes me feel like a kid again.. but i really don't mind because i never had so much fun for a long time already..

thank you all, for making my day..

2008-09-28T22:52:00.003+08:00

Asia Conference 2008. 19-23 November 2008. Singapore EXPO.

It's a "conference" conducted by City Harvest Church but featuring a lot of talks and workshops ranging from "Social Etiquette & Personal Grooming" to "Marketing & Branding" to "Starting a New Business", etc.. Of course, they also invited singers like Don Moen and other bands to lead us into a time of worship.. But i'm more interested in the workships and Don Moen..

The website is at www.asiaconference.org.sg but i recommend clicking the link only when you're using google chrome because their shockwave file is not properly defined and will definitely crash your browser. Using google chrome can disable shockwave and hence browse the page relatively normally.

Anyone who wants to go, please email or sms me.. I'm very interested to go, but i need company..

2008-09-27T15:10:00.003+08:00

I just watched "Keith".. It's a USA-only film, but i think that it should be watched by everyone..

The Synopsis is below, and you can watch it at http://www.watch-movies.net/movies/keith/

Anyway, this film is so touching cos it really shows us the meaning of life.. and acts out the fact that sometimes what we try to hard to achieve might not mean anything at all.. it's a romance film, but i think the real lessons behind it is about how we can live life however beautifully, no matter how shitty it seems from the outside..

the synosis is below:

The film begins with Natalie (Elisabeth Harnois) lying in the back of a yellow ute, which is about to roll off a cliff. When the ute is just about to fall off the edge, Natalie wakes up from a dream. The next scene is of Keith (Jesse McCartney) speaking to Al (Tim Halligan), in an informal manner.

The film progresses with Natalie in her chemistry class. The class is being assigned lab partners; Natalie is assigned Keith, who is not in class at the time, but turns up mysteriously late. After having a short conversation, Natalie and Keith begin to argue due to Natalie wanting to focus on her future whereas Keith wants to focus on the present; they have different views on life, and Natalie is angered by this argument and requests a partner change from the teacher, but her request is refused. After this, Natalie bonds with boyfriend Raff (Ignacio Serricchio). She later parties with other students at The Brick (an outdoors place where students go to have fun).

Realizing that she has a lab report due the next day, Natalie goes to find Keith to help her with it. While helping her with the lab report, Keith takes her into his carefree life and goes to an office building to do their report. Throughout this time, Keith and Natalie become closer. Keith reveals to Natalie that he lives at an old white house with the big porch, which she likes. She even pushes aside Raff to be with Keith. Later in the day, more of Natalie's life is revealed; she is also a talented tennis player currently ranked 14th (presumably in the state). Later in the evening, she is at The Brick again with Raff.

Keith persistently asks Natalie to go out with him as friends. He takes Natalie to a few places and talks to her about random things, which she learns to get used to. As time goes on, the two continue to hang out in this fashion and become closer and closer. One night, Keith decides to send a part of a car engine to Natalie's house while she is with Raff, which she is angered by. They have an argument, when in the middle of it, Al and Billy (a child neighbor of Keith's) turn up. Billy speaks to Keith about bonding with him, which causes Natalie to think that Keith is "a softy" and to get back into the car with him. After driving for a short while, Natalie tells Keith to turn into a dirt road, which just so happens to be Keith's favorite spot; a cliff overlooking The Brick, separated by a river. They sit down and talk, afterwards exchanging a small kiss. The next day, Raff asks Natalie to go to The Brick, but she says she does not feel like it. Instead of going to The Brick, Natalie decides to go to the cliff she went to with Keith. She has become comfortable wearing Keith's jacket at times when alone with him, and discusses with him their future dreams. While Keith and Natalie talk while lying down in the back of the ute, Natalie notices that the ute is moving. She panics and gets out of it, trying to stop it as she screams at Keith to jump to safety. Keith, however, remains lying down, relaxed and rambling on, despite the fact that he is about to roll off a cliff. Just before rolling off, Keith swiftly moves into the driver's seat and hits the brakes. Natalie is furious with Keith and asks him if he wanted to kill himself. When Natalie gets home, she is still wearing Keith's jacket and finds antidepressants in his pocket.

The following day at school, Natalie wants to speak to Keith about the medication, but he is not at school, nor is he there the day after that. Because of his absence, Natalie begins to worry and becomes slightly depressed. She tries to get his contact details from the school, but the school does not allow it. Natalie then remembers that Keith said he lived at the old white house, and decides to go visit. But it turns out that Keith lied to her about his residence. Because of Keith's mysterious disappearance, Natalie begins to lose her tennis matches, which is her key to a scholarship at Duke University.

Two weeks later, Keith appears just as mysteriously as he had disappeared. Natalie is irritated about the lies he fed her. She decides to find out his real address by breaking into his locker. As a result, she is suspended from school for a week. Her friends all believe that Keith is trying to destroy her life, but she disagrees. Without anyone to turn to, and without anywhere to go, Natalie decides to go visit Keith at his house. There, she meets his father and finds out that Keith also lied to her about his family (his siblings and his deceased mother). Keith refuses to come out of his room to see her. Desperate to talk to Keith, Natalie hides in the back of his ute. Later that night, Keith comes out of the house and drives off to his favorite clifftop. While there, Natalie expresses her love for him, and they end up having sex in the back of the ute. While Keith drives Natalie home, Natalie is excited to begin an official romantic relationship with Keith, but Keith says that what happened between them that night was just for fun and is not something to make a big deal about, which infuriates Natalie.

In the next few scenes, Natalie's downfall, from her perfect life to a life filled with sadness and confusion, is apparent. Her tennis rankings have dropped, and she is on the verge of losing her scholarship opportunity. In addition, she dumps her boyfriend Raff. While driving without an idea of where she is going, Natalie sees Al (the man Keith talked to at the opening of the film), who was Keith's counselor, and asks him about Billy (the boy she watched talk excitedly with Keith the first night she and Keith went to the cliff), and it turns out that Billy died because of cancer and Billy knew Keith because they went to chemotherapy treatment together. Natalie finally realizes that Keith is dying of cancer, and is informed that he does not have much longer to live. She tries to go to Keith's house again to talk to him, but she is rejected once again. Then, one night, Keith mysteriously appears at her house offering to go bowling with her. On the way to go bowling, Natalie leads Keith to the airport so that he can follow his dreams, telling him the sky is the limit. At the airport, after some resistance, Keith finally expresses his true feelings for Natalie, and Natalie tells Keith that she wants to be with him even though he will die one day soon. They kiss and embrace.

The film then cuts to when Natalie graduates; Keith is not mentioned and has presumably died from cancer. Throughout the film Natalie has changed. She has almost become a replica of Keith; she has become a grease monkey, loves the yellow ute. There is a scene where Natalie is fixing the truck with Keith's father. The film cuts back to its first scene, where Natalie is slowly rolling towards the edge of the cliff. Just before falling off, she swiftly, like Keith did, jumps into the driver's seat and hits the brakes. Afterwards, Natalie drives to an intersection on the way to London, Ontario where there is a classic truck festival held each year. Attending the festival is what Keith always dreamed of. A long aerial shot of the yellow ute drives away as the film ends.

Above synopsis taken from www.imdb.com. Requested to be added in by Rosel. =D

2008-09-26T23:00:00.002+08:00

i prayed really hard for rain today cos i don't want to go for IPPT.. and it really did rain.. in fact, it was one of the heaviest rain this year.. so much that my camp got flooded, the seats at the bus stop at min jia's house got flooded to the seat level, and my ma'am got stuck in CTE till 10am.. there must have been many people who didn't want to go for the IPPT today.. lol..

that was just a passing comment to remind myself of how much my God loved me.. even though it's completely nonsensical and coincidental to everyone else, i have faith that my God listened to me.. Thank you Lord, for letting me slack through this.. I will work hard in other areas..

Like badminton, which i just arranged to go for, with minjia on the 15th.. and running, which i subconsiously told myself to do so tomorrow.. i hope i can wake up..

and to wake up early tmr for the run, i need to sleep now..

2008-09-21T21:11:00.003+08:00

ohmygosh!! even the white rabbit milk candy that i ate since i was a kid had been contaminated with melamine!! i drink dutch lady occasionally, although i can temporarily rejoice in the fact that i only drink the unflavoured one, but it's probably a matter of time before they find malamine in it.. but the white rabbit milk candy?? i was still eating loads of it during chinese new year this year la!! it's like my all-time favourite sweet!!

i was just telling people that i can be proud to be chinese for once after watching the beijing olympics and also after the movie "Red Cliff".. but seems like the chinese citizens can't keep any good reputation flying for long..

so much for people heralding about not eating genetically modified food when they're eating toxic food!! and so much for us to eat organic products when all we actually need are clean products..

yet one more reason for me to eat less!!

but i doubt i will..

2008-09-20T23:50:00.000+08:00

went out with jesse, xuecong, eric, weiting, and quanyou.. xc and qy came later, so it was the usual 4 of us playing LAN at dhoby ghaut again.. but this time, we played battlefield 2 instead of CnC 3.. so it was much more fun.. plus the crazy jesse set 4 of us on one team and the other team has like 30 people?? so on certain maps we got defeated, but on second tries we won..

then we went to changi airport for popeye chicken before returning back to orchard to walk around.. minus the travelling time, we basically spent approximately 2 hours together?? but ohwell, it's a nice time out together after so long.. and it's one of the rare times that quanyou and xuecong could join us..

i'm so tired, i know i should sleep yet i'm not getting myself into bed.. i sure hope i won't be too tired tomorrow for sermon and tuanqi.. and once again, i wish that esther will be successful in bringing her friend to christ.. jia you!!

2008-09-19T23:17:00.002+08:00

The below-mentioned person, Madi, is MY DRIVING INSTRUCTOR in my camp!!! Believe it or not!!

Sep 19, 2008
Fined for causing death
By Elena Chong
AN army driving instructor was fined $8,000 and banned from driving for four years on Thursday for causing the death of a pizza deliveryman.

Madivanan Kuppusamy, 49, a regular in the army since 1977, pleaded guilty to causing the death of Mr Muhammad Zaid Abdul Razak, 18, at the junction of Yio Chu Kang Road and Yio Chu Kang Link on Jan 7.

He failed to give way when making a right turn from Yio Chu Kang Link into Yio Chu Kang Road, resulting in a head-to-side collision between his car and Mr Zaid's motorcycle travelling from the opposite direction.

Mr Zaid was riding a Canadia Pizza delivery motorcycle at the time.

Madivanan was in the car with his daughter and was on his way to pick up his wife at Tampines when the accident happened at about 9.30pm.

He could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined for the offence.

2008-09-19T22:45:00.002+08:00

today's an adventure..

went to camp in the morning for run, but it was cancelled because of rain.. so i stayed around in office settling some stuff.. pretty busy for a friday, because there were lots of calls to be made..

went to NUS for Rosel's psychology survey thing.. and i took the death blow from the never ending fleet of stairs in NUS.. to put it in exact terms as i smsed rosel, i lost count of the number of flights of stairs while trying to find my way to an air conditioned place.. indeed.. i was heading towards the central library because it's the logical place to have aircon.. it does have aircon, but i can't go in cos it's only for NUS students.. so i went downstairs to the forum bookshop to get some air con.. and when i came out, i saw xuan ting.. don't ask me, i'm as shocked to see her as she was in seeing me.. she started out asking a thousand questions.. but ohwell, i found out that she's in FASS too, together with liyun and sze ming and audrey.. all hell broke loose when she heard that i'm in NUS to do some survey for rosel.. but i shall not go into details..

the survey thing is weird.. because out of the people in the room, all are either female-female close friends, or boyfriend-girlfriends.. and so we were the only pair that is male-female that is not attached.. but i did notice that the female-female pairs talked a lot, while the boyfriend-girlfriend pairs kept quiet.. one of them even sat far apart when everyone tried to stay as close to their partners by sitting along the asle.. hmm.. but it's all worthed it, because simply by doing a survey rosel can get 4 out of 12 points for the module.. it's really quite worthed it..

then i headed over to clarke quay.. and arrived at 5?? and that's when sze en smsed me saying that the meeting will be delayed till 8pm.. so i went to funan to look around.. and found a shop and bargained for my laser printer toner from $130 to $110.. and since she's so nice, and she's a christian, i stayed there and talked to her for about half an hour (partly cos i have nothing to do too).. and most amusingly we talked about a lot of things, ranging from her two daughters in NUS Business and Singapore Poly to her shop at funan, to trying to find me a job somewhere.. the thing that i picked up from this, is that everyone is generally willing to talk, if we start first.. all i did was that i saw a christian document pasted on her wall and asked if she was a christian.. then we started talking as if we knew each other for years.. a very nice and rewarding experience indeed.. and rosel, please don't say that i love talking to strangers..

and by then it's 6pm.. so i walked over to church to join the fellowship people for a meeting regarding the church's christmas celebration.. i wasn't supposed to be there, but i decided to crash it cos it's just too boring trying to wait.. might as well go there and contribute and make time pass faster.. and oh, guess what, i met ben liew's mum again!! can see that she's very very shocked that i keep getting offs, and this time we did not talk about ben, but about my fellowship and my most blessed army life..

after the christmas celebration discussion, we went for friday's prayer meeting in church.. actually we did not plan to go there, but today it's led by new heart music ministry, so we decided to go.. and indeed, it was really quite a good session with God and singing the songs and praying really refreshes the mind..

then we had supper at cathay's ya kun..

today's a really fun-filled day.. from my camp to NUS to clarke quay to funan to church to park mall to church to cathay.. wow.. really a day well spent..

2008-09-18T21:20:00.002+08:00

these few days were very relaxing because most of my bosses aren't around.. so for once i had plenty of time to spare in camp.. it may or may not be a good thing, cos time passes very slowly.. sometimes i wish there is slightly more things for me to do.. but things will change on tuesday when everybody comes back..

i'm also preparing for my ORD already.. if everything goes according to plan, i'll be looking at 12 working days left.. but i highly doubt so.. nevermind about it, there's just under 80 absolute days to ORD..

i'm supposed to write my own testimonial, and i'm having half a mind to ask CTO to sign my testimonial.. even if it's a load of bullshit, i can keep it to remind myself of the great times i had working with him from december to february.. but he's a very very very strict man..

and i'll be really busy tomorrow.. i've gotten half day off tomorrow, so i'll be going to camp tomorrow for a nice run, then bathe and change and get to NUS for Rosel's psychology survey, and then to clarke quay to meet the tuanqi people..

saturday will be a nice time out with my classmates, meeting jesse and the rest at dhoby ghuat for some games and going over to changi airport for popeye chicken and sightseeing in the evening..

on sunday, esther's bringing her friend over to my church.. they'll be looking for another contact in my church, and i wish them all the best in winning that friend over to eternal life in heaven..

i'll be loving this weekend..

2008-09-17T20:51:00.002+08:00

i just realised that weng hong is ben liew's "classmate" today after looking through ben liew's friendster photos.. weng hong and i lived in the same housing estate, and almost literally grew up together.. we were in the same class from nursery all the way till K2, and went to the same school although we ended up in different classes.. after primary school, we talked less.. we went back once to find ms jenevy chew (aka pikachu), but after that we kinda lost contact.. i would see him playing soccer at the house void deck once in a while, but commications were often limited to simple greetings.. it's nice to know that it's such a small world.. but sad to know that he's changed (like everyone else).. i don't know whether it's for the better or for the worse.. but according to ben, he's like an uncle.. drinking 4 cups of coffee a day, whole day sitting around reading newspaper and talking about PAP and politics.. and he's 20.. but it's really nice to know about him after so long..

got half day off today, so i can move my field pack home.. i've been keeping it in camp just in case of any emergency mobilisation, but since i'm gonna ORD, i have good faith to believe that nothing will happen.. kumar fetched me to queensway, where i bumped into ben liew's mum!! yes, it's the same ben liew that i mentioned above.. very very coincidental.. and we talked about ben, and his plans to go to japan for half a year.. i'm gonna miss him, just like how i missed qinghui already.. these are the people who grew up with me in church from young, and seeing them go one by one, it's really very very saddening.. weijie would be enlisting on oct 24, and so after that he'll be more and more busy.. so by then it'll just be me, aloysius and jackie.. a very sad fact indeed..

2008-09-15T21:23:00.009+08:00

Photos of my room!! It's finally done after more than a month of renovation..

i love the blue background behind my bed, and oh i love pink =D

my cabinet, with two very very heavy panels of glass

my supposed book shelf, but i'm not putting books in them yet..

2008-09-15T20:54:00.002+08:00

Weiyu reminded me that it's mid autumn festival yesterday, Fude told me in the afternoon at the moon was very bright last night, and Rosel told me that the moon was beautiful tonight..

And at one look i felt in love with it.. I've never seen a moon that nice.. Actually i couldn't see the moon, because the clouds covered it all.. But that's the beautiful part!! The bright light from the moon actually got diffracted by the coulds and formed a brilliant round circle of rainbow around the moon.. You can barely see it in the photo, but with your eyes you can see it clearly..

And from far, it does look like a portrait from the 长娥奔月 story.. very very very touching..

2008-09-14T19:55:00.001+08:00

OVER 300KMPH AND STILL GOING ROUND IN CIRCLES.
LET GOD DRIVE YOU!!!

This was up in a banner in my church, and i felt that it was GREAT!! And serves as a great reminder to all of us.. About how being successful isn't everything in life.. what if we gained the whole world, but yet lost our own soul?? What if we pursued excellence in the wrong things in life??

It's better to go slowly in the right direction than to go fast in the wrong direction..

Let God drive us!!

2008-09-11T20:54:00.003+08:00

If you know that you have one hour left before you leave this world, who would you call? And why are you still waiting?

i read this somewhere, and it made sense.. why must we wait until when we're about to die then we decide that we should do or tell somebody something..

i gave it some thought and realised that there are just some things that we don't dare to say.. like appreciating the cleaning auntie in my workplace by saying a simple thank you.. but we don't do that cos we think that it's her job to do so..

then again, it may be too trivial for now.. how about telling mum and dad that you love them once in a while.. the thought of it might irk a little, because we haven't been saying that often.. and suddenly saying these "mushy" words may warrant a little more time and more talk from them (which we sometimes try to avoid)..

so ya..

to quanyou, thanks for being the ever-available encyclopedia that guided me all the way through JC
to jesse, thanks for being the one who propagates your revision energies to the ones around you, such that i may get more motivated to study
to eric, thanks for being the friendly baboon friend who makes the oh-so-dull schooling so enjoyable.. you are one of the reasons i come to school for!! serious!!
to xuecong, thanks for bringing the balance to work and play
to weiting, thanks for being the maths genius (whom i copied tutorials from all the time)

to minjia and trey, thanks for defining fun for me

to weijie, ben, qinghui and aloysius, thanks for watching me grow up

to weiyu, thanks for the many nights spent studying together.. i couldn't have revised as well without you around..
to yanyi, thanks for keeping me physically fit by coming early (and forcing me to) to school and running together with me

to rosel, thanks for the many nights spent during night study which ensured that i studied and not played; and thanks for the marvellous friendship that's filled with learning and adventure

to esther, thanks for being my sister-in-christ, my friend, my role model, and my teacher all these while.. never giving up on my absolute lack of faith and being so patient with me..

to everyone else, thanks for you being you..

i realised that the above sounded almost similar to the one that i wrote slightly under 2 years ago.. but still, these are the people who have shaped my life and who i am.. and i am truly indebted to them..

thank you, dear friends..

2008-09-08T21:20:00.002+08:00

time really flies when you're enjoying yourself.. it's a much used cliche, but then again, the reason behind it is that it's true.. so cliche or not, i'm sticking with it..

the point being that my 12-day long "term" break (if we count the weekend from the week before) from national service is coming to the end.. today marks the start of the week that i return to work.. this thursday to be exact.. and i'm so totally dreading it!! but truth be told, i don't know why too.. logic tells me that i should be celebrating because i'm coming to the end of NS already.. half of me is telling me to do what everybody else does and to disappear without a word and leave the organisation to clear up the debris, but something within me tells me that i have to be a little bit more responsible to the organisation that paid me an amount significantly less than a foreign construction worker..

the greatest irony is that i went jogging almost every morning during this period, and i gained weight.. perhaps using "gain" is a gross underestimation, but please let's just stick with "gain".. i think i ate a lot more during this period..

which is not untrue, knowing fully well that i bought 2 frozen pizzas from NTUC yesterday and microwaved them into delicious pastry and consumed them for dinner.. on top of opening (and finishing) a full bottle of red wine together with it.. and add that to loads of fruits.. it was a dinner for gluttons, yet i have dinner of that sort every night..

or perhaps it's the packing of stuff, that got my lungs filled with as much dust as smokers with tar - and it made me super bloated and hungry.. i finished a large carton of nutrisoy while packing this afternoon..

oh and yes, it's done.. my house's renovation is done!! on saturday.. the contractor came, my uncle came, and everybody else came.. it's like an uninvited mini-housewarming party for all.. except that the host is totally clueless about it all.. but nonetheless, i'm just glad that the house is done and we can start getting rid of dust..

i don't know why, but i'm suddenly missing my JC friends.. we actually met up not long ago for LAN, but i wouldn't really consider it an outing because we basically get so submerged in the computer that we didn't really enjoy each other's presence.. i want to go out with all of them soon!! and my "family" too.. weiyu, yanyi, quanyou.. i guess they're just too busy now, but haiya, i just miss them..

was very surprised udrena smsed me last night, but ya, let's meet up during your hols in late oct!! that's when i'm clearing my off and leave too, hopefully..

still not over the fact that my holiday's ending.. gRRR..

2008-09-07T22:01:00.013+08:00

Here's a little bit of javascript for those who want to know how to add the blog post date count on the upper right hand side of every blog post (that says "PUBLISHED TODAY AT 11:30AM" or "PUBLISHED 10 DAYS AGO AT 5:30PM")..

Click HERE for the script. Kindly provide a valid blog or email address for me to know who has used this script (so if i ever start a javascript company, i know who can i get my first bucks from - just joking)

Simply open the file and follow the instructions on it!!

2008-09-07T19:24:00.002+08:00

The Beijing Paralympic 2008 opened yesterday with much lack of fanfare in singapore.. in fact, i didn't even know about such a thing until i read up about it online.. and i wonder why TV mobile chose to continue it's stride of screening terrible shows instead of just carrying on it's good name by broadcasting the paralympics live.. or at least do a repeat of the beijing olympics..

searching for a good video of the opening ceremony of beijing paralympics is equally tough.. most were short poor quality videos, so far the ones at crunchyroll were the best..

2008-09-03T19:58:00.002+08:00

ok, i haven't blogged for eons.. Cos in the day i'm super busy unpacking stuff and cleaning the thick layers of dust off them.. at night, we watched the many movies that i've downloaded.. Ya, my parents finally appreciate the meaning behind the "constant wastage of power" by my laptop..

well, my room is done.. now it's just waiting for one final delivery of bed frame and cupboard for the master bedroom.. it's actually ready in the workshop, but it's been raining for the past few days so the workers refused to deliver the items..

i dug out my iPod cable (i can finally sync my iPod to August Hits, instead of the June "oldies" i have in the music player), and my audio cable (to rip music off youtube and imeem players), and my laptop-to-TV cable (to project the movies from my laptop to the TV), and my 3.5mm audio splitter (to connect the laptop audio to my TV speakers)..

i went to comex with aloysius.. and bought a Western Digital Elements 320GB portable harddisk, and so i was busy transferring data from my supremely overloaded laptop harddisk to the portable harddisk.. considering that my laptop had a all-time low disk space of 12MB, it was worth the buy.. But coming at $131.20, it isn't exactly a bargain.. But what the heck, it'll cost me more to travel to Sim Lim and get the same one for a slightly cheaper price of $130..

i wanted to buy creative's X-Fi player.. but it costs so much, and somehow i still think (and hope) that my antique iPod Mini 4GB can last me a little while longer.. plus the $131.20 burn in my pocket does hurt quite a bit..

downloaded google's chrome browser today.. and it impressed me.. first off was it's superb speed (imagine the long wait before firefox starts - gone), and simplicity (just think of the crappy internet explorer toolbar).. but but but.. several pages didn't load properly.. some parts of my blog got misaligned, and i couldn't access channelnewsasia.com on it.. well, it's a first for google, and a plus point on their side.. i'm sure the first release of mozilla firefox didn't turn up as well.. for now i'll stick to firefox, till the improved version of chrome gets churned out..

2008-08-23T20:51:00.002+08:00

my house is 90% complete..

they just finished polishing the marble flooring in my house.. i really thank god that i got this great contractor.. cos i'm sure this guy doing the polishing did a perfect job, considering he went over every patch of marble at least 10 times.. and not to mention the scrubbing by hand after that.. and he patched up the holes with concrete that melted only under the blowtorch.. (i usually assumed they mixed the concrete mixture to water to make concrete itself) this is utterly amazing..

and they added in the new metal gate.. and i was totally shocked to see that the gate has keys that looked like the key to the safe in my camp!! i was really shocked to see that they went to that much extent to make a gate key un-copy-able.. it doesn't have grooves like the normal key, but plenty of holes of different depth edged into the flat plane of the key itself.. and it's as huge as a car key!! i told my parents that i didn't have to wait till i'm 21 to get a car key.. i got a car key-lookalike already!!

now it's just lacking the installation of the gas stove, and the running of the gas pipes.. and the painting of the 2nd layer in my house..

oh and i love the blue tint in my room!!!

2008-08-23T20:44:00.002+08:00

i love the way cashiers stare at me when i tell them that i'll be paying for purchases using my fairprice plus card..

to quote an example.. today, i went to ntuc to shop for about $100 worth of groceries.. then i brought it to the cashier.. then i passed her my fairprice plus card..

she swiped it for linkpoints, then told me "sir would you like to pay by NETS or VISA???"

then i said "erm, linkpoints."

the moment came, of utter disbelief and the kind of "stop pranking me, i've worked in NTUC long enough to know that no one has $100 worth of linkpoints in their card" look..

but out of courtesy, she said "oookkkaaayyyy, let me check how much linkpoints you have in your card first..."

i gave her a smug look when she saw the figure (sorry, i really couldn't resist)..

"you really shop alot, sir"... from that moment on, she treated me like a king.. "is there anything else that you need??" "please check your receipt before you leave" "have a nice day sir"..

they normally don't give this 20-year old an extra glance (not that i want glances from these aunties).. but ya, people are practical..

i hope my linkpoints last long..

2008-08-21T20:48:00.002+08:00

oh i'm back at my own house already.. not because the renovation is complete, but because my grandmother came to singapore for some treatment and she has no place to stay.. so she stayed at my aunt's place and we moved back home.. partly cos most of it was done already.. we're just waiting for the furniture from my uncle..

and it's much better than staying with my aunt cos we have so much more freedom to do whatever i want.. i just have to wake up earlier cos i fumble alot in the unfamiliar new home.. and on top of all that, i got back my internet connection.. today.. i have no idea why, but we can have voice calls previously but not internet.. but today i decided to give it another try and it worked.. i can't express how happy i am.. wahahaha..

but i still have no TV to watch olympics!!! i really really want to watch olympics cos it's very very very motivating and encouraging.. the effort that the athletes put in really shouts out loud to me to work hard and to never give up.. watching the olympics (even though these are not the olympics for the disabled as it was initially catered for) really brings out the spirit of determination and never saying die.. and i love it..