Wishing Upon a Star

Module Planning

2012-02-24T23:46:00.002+08:00

The BOSS office is dangling incentives for us to complete our module planning, so they can better allocate slots. I took half a day yesterday to plan it out with some of my friends, mine's still not complete. It is such a pain. How to map it properly?

I was thinking after that, why hasn't anyone created something called a Module Advisor. MA. Since there exist Financial Advisor who advises and manages the assets of clients, why not someone to manage my module planning for me?

By definition of planning, I mean really planning. Taking charge of everything concerned with module planning and degree progress. Making sure everything goes on smoothly. Just like how a Financial Advisor works.

I threw around the idea a little. I will gladly pay for such a service. So will almost all of the people I asked. It is a lucrative service, but I can't enter the market yet - don't have the relevant knowledge.

Any Year 4s or alumni interested? I have a master plan to sell.

~wished upon a star~

Down on Luck

2012-02-19T17:39:00.003+08:00

The other time my SSD failed. Half of my data was gone. But much thanks to Sony who totally went beyond their SOP to get it back in full working condition within half a day. Lucky managed to pull back some of the (back dated) lost data from my storage array.

The other day I pass one of my HDD around and somehow it got infected from someone's computer. My over zealous anti-virus and firewall kicked in wipe out the infected files. And some of those files just have to be my important archived stuff that I put into that HDD. Ok, probably my fault too, I should have known better to pass around the actual HDD, next time I should just copy it out onto a memory stick purely for file transfer purpose and pass that around instead.

My computer never got infected before, but this is the 4th time something I passed around came back with virus. Why don't people scan their computers properly and stop clicking on 'the 1 millionth visitor' button. And please just install an anti-virus, even if you're a Mac user. Yes, I've gotten virus from Mac before too.

Anyway, I used data recovery files to do a full surface sweeping and it just returns me the .lnk files. I know the data is still in there cause it's occupying space but I just can't retrieve it out. If anyone knows how to do it, please let me know.

I think time to reorganise my backups. Apparently spanning 3 HDD, 1 network array and 2 cloud isn't a very good idea. Especially when they're all complementary instead of redundancy.

~wished upon a star~

How To Reject A Rejection

2012-02-17T09:07:00.003+08:00

I thought this is interesting. Someone try it for their internship or any application and tell me if it works.

via

~wished upon a star~

Week 6

2012-02-16T14:46:00.003+08:00

It's the end of week 6 now. It has been a good week. Hmm... maybe not, cause there is 2 midterms, but still, it's a good week. Fine. I'm not making much sense.

Anyway, I just booked myself another holiday again. This is exciting. So it means I'll be flying twice this summer vacation. Aunt call me the other day, SIA's on half price to Korea this summer. I was extremely tempted to go, but well, there is quite some things I have to do during the vacation. There is he OCSP to Kashgar, almost 3 weeks. Then I'm scheduling for an internship when I return, which means I can't go during the June period. Might as well, don't like to squeeze with all the June holiday crowd. So in the end, I'm flying like 2 weeks before school starts, and coming back the day before school. So there, my summer is all filled to the brim.

The week's just as busy, still trying to catch up with the lagging behind work. Got very paranoid for my accounting midterm. So much marks for just a little bit of working.

My friend told me on Tuesday morning that there is a mock quiz that day. Got me all panicky and started rushing through all the slides. Eventually it was just showing us the sample questions for the exams. Shorten my life for nothing. Went out s too.

Another test on MC, was controlling my urge to throw out long complicated sentences with tons of cheemology. I think I did quite alright in the end.

Ah well.. End of my 3 day work week (haters gonna hate). Anyway, got to catch up on projects and the lagging behind work.

~wished upon a star~

Another Week~~

2012-02-10T22:08:00.001+08:00

This is more of a obligatory post. Busy busy busy.

I thought after business law presentation last week there will slacken slightly. But out pop more things to do and I'm up to my neck in work again.

Sunday had new year gathering at van's. A few amongst us seemed to get over passionate with her dog and sort of violated it.

Monday was pretty normal. Rushed project after my evening class and dropped by Ion on the way home to do a little shopping for something.

Tuesday was normal. Did project again.

Wednesday was supposed to be an off day, but ended up in school for project. Met s in the evening.

Thursday was gone in a blur rushing out other stuff.

Friday met with the company for our project.

Saturday... oh... Saturday's tomorrow.

Midterms starts next week... Faints.

~wished upon a star~

All In A Week's Work

2012-02-03T00:24:00.005+08:00

The week seems to pass by in a flash. Probably cause I was in school everyday, even Sunday.

Mainly the week was taken up by my project meetings. Much to do and analyse. In fact, we seem to be over analysing the case, according to prof. The presentation was pretty nerve wrecking. 20 minutes of presentation and 45 minutes of questioning. The prof went from the first to the last slide, asking about every sentence and law. We were the first group to present, by the first five minutes of questioning, we can see the expression of the second group that day - jaw dropped.

What else happened during the week? Can't exactly remember, all the bandwidth taken up by law.

Ah... lunch today with daddy. Then studied in school before the audit interview in the evening and wait for s to go for dinner.

Nice...

~wished upon a star~

The Demise and Revival of My Laptop

2012-01-31T20:55:00.003+08:00

I thought the title sounds sort of cool.

Anyway, like I mentioned, the computer went into a coma some time last week. I put the laptop to sleep and suddenly it just wont wake up, telling me that the operating system was not found. Well, it's not Sony's fault. Apparently the problem lies in my 3rd party SSD.

It was fortunate that all my school stuff was automatically backup onto my NSA and the cloud. But it wasn't so fortunate that I lost a lot of pictures and some music which the backup wasn't set to automatic. Need to tweak my backup settings soon.

The SSD was only less than a year old. Just a month ago, jw's also spoilt. This type of thing are not designed to fail so fast, thought it was just his model being faulty. Turned out that the problem lies with OCZ, so next time not going for this brand ever again, at least until they get their act together and fix this problem. Anyway, I decided that someone's going to receive hell for this. Well, have to right? I'm put into so much inconvenience and the lost of data. The 'hell' part paid off though, I exchanged my faulty unit with the manufacturer for the latest model.

Sony side was great. Since my laptop was quite customised, the warranty's not supposed to cover it anymore. But the people there very kindly extended their support to all the 3rd party stuff, and seeing that I urgently need it back, got everything up and running again in 2 hours. So did someone say some fruit provide better service?

Which brings me along to another thought. It made me ponder about what people do when they lost their data. I've seen people getting angry over it, being frustrated, complain and make a lot of noise. No idea why. Shouting and stamping is not going to get back the data anyway, so why expand all the energy doing that?

I'm thinking I should name my laptop Lazarus.

~wished upon a star~

Chinese New Year Week

2012-01-29T01:06:00.003+08:00

It's the season of red, gold and food, along with "you're so tall", "where you studying now" and "got girlfriend already".

I have still been eating a lot during these few days. The junk food and every meal being a feast during the eve and first 2 days. It's the constantly self reminder that this only happens only once a year, so it's alright to indulge a little. The only problem is that this reminder continues on throughout the entire year. It's a wonder that I still keep my weight. Time to make myself feel guilty and cut down on food.

The new year was pretty good. It's good investment going around just sitting and practicing my hand-eye-mouth coordination. I won't mind doing this as a job, seeing the high hourly rate it yields. The injection of always welcomed FDI. The only little peeve I had to endure this time round was the mixing up of my school with certain establishment near Bukit Timah. It's not good to name, but I would put it somewhere in between Maju Camp and Ngee Ann Polytechnic with the white building frontage. It's fine, we'll see who has the last laugh from the graduate survey.

The rest of the week was quite hectic. Similar to the past 2 weeks, didn't have much of a breather. Coupled with the demise of my laptop's SSD, it was quite hellish. Still, managed to have lunch with daddy and grandma at Orchard Hotel yesterday.

Back in school on Saturday again. Quite an achievement. 3rd weekend in school, and it's only week 3. Well done. Then it's the annual new year steamboat with S405. A good time spent talking, catching up and kaypohing into this and thats.

That's it. 2 meetings again tomorrow. Looking forward.. Of course.

~wished upon a star~

Pre Chinese New Year

2012-01-21T23:54:00.002+08:00

New Year's coming again! It feels pretty rushed this year. Perhaps cause it's early in January and school just started. Or I had already started spending the weekends of week 1 and 2 in school. Either way, didn't prepare much for the new year, didn't do any shopping too. Enough clothes anyway.

Had reunion dinner for the maternal side on Friday night. 3 tables at Grand Shanghai. The food there is generally good, except for some snow pea dish which was pretty tasteless. Though I regret to say that a couple of sharks were sacrificed. Atmosphere was good, they have a songstress who was singing those oldies, captivating. Much better place than Global Kitchen on Tuesday.

Supposed to wash the car, have not washed it for some time already. Brought it to the car wash this morning since I was lazy. Up price during the new year period never mind, end up they were just rushing through the job. Didn't bother to wash the car properly, foam machine not working, still dare to charge more. Discovered still got some patches of dust, so I turned back and made them wash it again. This time they got 3 staff just to foam the car up properly.

Mummy told me I can't wear red or green this new year. Apparently it clashes with something. Fine with me. Then she went on that I also can't take any alcohol this new year too, which mean the only time I can open my wine is tonight. Suddenly this sounds a bit suspicious. Ah well, I think xp see already she will agree totally.

Got to prepare for reunion dinner.

~wished upon a star~

ASoc CNY Dinner

2012-01-20T23:36:00.002+08:00

It’s here and over after months of planning. According to various sources, it went pretty well too.

All the hard work paid off well. The entire day was spent running all about the place making sure everything was going according to plan, all the items and people arrive on time, decorations go up properly, nothing is missed out.

Some minor last minute changes but everything turned out well. Much credit goes to the fantastic organising team.

~wished upon a star~

Randomness

2012-01-18T20:39:00.002+08:00

I'm supposed to be reading law now. Ah well, after a whole day of interviewing people, just feel like slacking for a little while.

Chinese New Year is coming so fast. Been busy with school, no time to go shopping for anything yet.

Had dinner with aunts and cousins at Pan Pacific yesterday. The standards at Global Kitchen has fallen by a lot. The food is very common, nothing special. The quality dropped by a lot. The free flow alcohol took forever to come and refill. The service is bad, so bad that we were considering not paying the service charge portion. My cousins kept doing the 'small plate test' which was rather amusing. Their reservation is also pretty irritating. Shan't go too much into that, otherwise 没完没了.

The whitening kit I ordered from the US arrived earlier than expected. Nice, now I can have white looking teeth during the new year. Haha... Had been wanting to go for teeth whitening at those clinics but those are so expensive. Anyway, let's see how effective those self whitening kits are.

Tomorrow's my ASoc Chinese New Year event. Spent so much time over the past 2 months planning for it. Yep. It will be good. Hopefully.

~wished upon a star~

Week 1

2012-01-15T22:16:00.002+08:00

Hectic week. Just week 1 has been hectic enough. Rush out some of my OCSP's stuff, finalise and iron out the details for the upcoming ASoc Chinese New Year Dinner which is happening this coming week. Meeting for drafting out the idea for another CSP.

My modules this sem all seem to be pretty interesting with interesting profs. Which is good. Timings are also not bad, well sorted out throughout the day and also mean 3 day work week. Fantastic.

The week wrapped up with me ironing out one of my module. Finally managed to sort it out, meaning I will be able to max out the allowed credits. Also fixed another of my screw up. Things are going well again.

It seems to be a good start to the sem. Hope this will continue on.

~wished upon a star~

ASOC Goes To JB

2012-01-08T14:46:00.004+08:00

Johor with the accounts school!

Signed up initially for the karting and seafood dinner, but due to unforeseen circumstances, the dinner has to be changed. At least still got go kart.

First stop at Desaru was kind of boring. The weather was pretty hot and I spent most of my time hiding under an umbrella. There was a small animal farm there with animals that look kind of malnourished. Naked chicken, skinny goats and rabbits that seem to have turfs of fur missing. I guess the most interesting moment was when one of the goats opened the lock of their pen door, and r and her group ran screaming out of the pen. Ah well, wait till you get chewed by a goat.

Lunch was at Jusco and it was A&W. Sadly the only thing worth it was the root beer, the fries and the burger was a big disappointment.

Go kart after that, which was something I was looking forward to. It isn't the tortoise kart that we have here, those things can reach almost 100 km/h. I've always wanted to go on one of this and I can't wait to start. First thing, I spun my kart the moment I exited the pit lane, luckily wearing full face helmet, don't think anyone recognised it was me. Think the tyres aren't hot enough yet. Warmed up the tyres and started doing my laps. My practising on the roads paid off, overtook almost everyone at least twice. After couple of laps I think I managed to clip all the apexes correctly and follow the best line, even drifted a little around some corners. I was clocking my own lap time too. My best lap was 1 minute 10 seconds, the bottom of the professional leader board was 54 seconds. Means I was doing an average of 72 km/h around the stated 1.4 km track. Not bad I would say, seeing that the kart we were using are those lousy stock karts.

There were some Singaporeans there playing. Learnt from them a entry level tuned kart will cost about $8000. 2 stroke 120 cc engine, rear 4 piston disc calliper, aerofoil and can nearly reach 120 km/h. Sounds legit. Maybe I can consider being a part time racer. Still, one of my dreams would be to have a car capable of attending track day at Sepang without blowing the engine or gearbox.

Dinner was good, though we may have ordered a bit too much. But no matter, after that there's always room for desserts, cause desserts goes in the other compartment.

School's starting tomorrow. Can't decide if I'm dreading or welcoming it more.

~wished upon a star~

Mood

2012-01-08T11:25:00.002+08:00

Jittery over things that rounds of fiendish level Sudukos can't get rid of.

Rah!!!

~wished upon a star~

New Year Week

2012-01-04T18:35:00.002+08:00

First day of the new year was spent at ber’s who kindly offered his place for the get together. Played Kinect, cards, board games and chatted a bit. Not much to chat about though since we were practically seeing everybody in school.

Food was too much that night. We got pizza, not knowing his mum also ordered pizza for us. While we were just sitting around after dinner, someone suggested reliving primary school memories. Reliving primary school memories means hide and seek, block catching, colour catching, marco polo and the likes. Since the princess brought along the prince, they went off for their own ECA while we ran crazily around the neighbourhood.

It’s pretty amusing seeing a group of uni students running around and playing such games. Guess it’s the difference between them N’US. Hmm… Or I would think that day was a time where we discover a different U.

Buffet again on Monday at Orchard Hotel. Kept eating and eating ever since I got back from China. Well, I also ate a lot in China, so that makes it go way back to during exams. Yes, I totally blame it on this card.

Went Orchard with xp yesterday afternoon. My original plan was to stay at home. Was about to sit down to an afternoon of Discovery Channel when she called and ask for company to get her shoes. Tried the new Calpis drink from Gong Cha, which wasn’t very good. Wonder why all the Calpis here don’t have the carbonated variety. The cold drink made me start coughing again though, got an earful from xp on why never take medicine and still drink cold stuff. Pharmacist…

~wished upon a star~

Resolution

2012-01-03T11:27:00.001+08:00

It’s the new year and everyone’s making resolution.

Why do people wait till the new year before listing down what they want to change? Shouldn’t change happen as and when it is necessary?

I’m thinking perhaps it has something to do with a reference point in time. The start of the year gives people the motivation to start anew. A definite time frame of 1 year to do what they want to do, what they want to change. Without a timeframe, most tend to procrastinate. Perhaps also the feel good factor people get when they know that they are making plans (for the better) in the brand new year.

Somehow, I been feeling kind of off for the past week. 七上八下.

So what’s my resolution? 3840 x 2160 QFHD. Cause 1080p is so last year.

~wished upon a star~

Year 2011

2011-12-31T14:09:00.002+08:00

This had been another exciting year. Finally started school after such a long wait. Good year? I suppose so, though it could have ended on a better note. I’m going to work harder to make 2012 a better year. Some items that hopefully can be accomplished in the coming year.

Thanks for everyone who helped me in one way or another. Especially in school. And to my new found friends from university, it has been great knowing and working with you all, look forward to the coming sem. Jack Sparrow~~

I lost some photos to the abyss of Facebook. There are some which I want to put here but I really can’t find it, though I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before. Nonetheless, the annual selective photo log of the outgoing year, in chronological order.

cousin birthday

yj birthday

chinese new year flower festival at Sentosa

universal studios

Marketing Executive at Kraft Foods

fun in Office of Undergraduate Admissions

lusandra birthday

lf birthday

‘graduating’ from the Office of Undergraduate Admission

Freshmen Team Building camp

ASOC camp

Inspirar Sentosa outing

van and x birthday

Convocation 2011

Jack Sparrow outing

ASOC Day

CT fun at Singapore Arts Museum

CT Marina Bay Sands retreat

xp birthday

brunch at Wild Honey

Creative Thinking final group presentation

using the prof’s Mac to camwhore like a boss

Financial Accounting final presentation

Technology and World Change final group presentation

shan birthday

Kashgar recee trip

Beijing R&R after recee

prawning midnight adventure

ASOC CNY 2012 Organising Committee

S405 brunch at Prive

~wished upon a star~

Last Week of 2011

2011-12-30T22:19:00.002+08:00

The final week of 2011. There are some things that I had wanted to do before the year ends but well. We are, after all, citizens of the largest nation on Earth. Almost the entire week had been spent eating and being out of house.

Dinner with family on Christmas. Sherlock Holmes with van, bwee and d on Monday. Then steamboat buffet dinner at Bugis. Had a meeting on Tuesday in school and Manhattan Fish Market for lunch. They had this one for one meal promotion till the end of the year. Sadly, they didn’t let me ‘downgrade’ my red snapper fish to a dory.

Wednesday was brunch with secondary school class. Or supposedly the secondary school class. Eventually only slightly under half of the people turned up. Had been pushing back a meal with diva and yj ever since midterms break. Brunch was at Prive, which was a beautiful location by the sea. Surprising, I saw 2 person from school that I knew there too. One was there with friends for a meal. The other was there to go out to sea. Diva got kind of excited when I pointed out the boating one out to her. Students nowadays sure know how to enjoy.

Mission Impossible with s on Thursday at Vivocity. After the Orchard week, this week seems to be the Harbour Front week.

Did a little bit of shopping just before Christmas too. Tailored some shirts with jw and ch. Actually, I’m the one who wanted to make shirts initially, but they were convinced into making too while I was pouring over the many cloths deciding which one to choose. I was at Orchard when the ‘ponding’ occurred. Anyway, that wasn’t the point. The point is, I bought a shirt that was extremely common. Ever since I bought it, I already seen 7 people wearing it on the street. 2 are even people from school.

Got the card from jw in the mail, which arrived pretty late. An extremely meaningful card. Miss the days where we talk in class and lecture. Making comments or conversations that seem totally i_l. but conveys stuff that lies 6 feet under. Those were the days.

~wished upon a star~

Spread of Religions a la GGS Style

2011-12-28T22:58:00.003+08:00

The other day I was pondering about the spread and movement of religion across the world. Somehow, it seems that the region whereby some of the more recent religions are dominant in are not the birth place of the religion. On the other hand, the birth place of these religion do not follow it.

Christianity originated from Israel. However, it is not the dominant religion in Israel or even the Middle East now. Instead, the Middle East is now generally dominated by Judaism, which originated before Christianity, and Islam, which surfaced shortly after the start of the Common Era. Instead, Christianity spread to Europe and America and gained foothold there. For a short period, it even displaced Buddhism as the dominant religion in China.

Buddhism was ‘founded’ in India. However, the belief of Hinduism in India was never really challenged. Buddhism moved upwards to gain majority status in China, Korea (which also widely embrace Christianity), Japan (a hybrid of Buddhism and Shinto) and the majority of Asia.

The Maya religion, despite being started later than Christianity, was subsequently ‘abandoned’ in favour of Christianity when it became popular in America.

The main thing I’m curious about is not how it spread, as it can be quite clearly seen from records. Rather why did it spread in this manner? Why didn’t Christianity became the dominant religion in the Middle East, Buddhism in India and the Maya retains the Central America foothold?

Is it due to the type of people and race living in the area? Could it be that as I am a Malay therefore I believe in Islam instead of my religion is Islam therefore I’m Muslim. Then again, what about Singapore? A multi-religious country where race doesn’t necessary determine religion. Why do some Chinese follow Buddhism, some Christianity and some Toaism?

In TWC, it is explained that Jared Diamond determined that civilisation developed based on geographic factor, contributing to other factors such as guns, germs and steel. Prof would point out that to bring it one more step forward, he would add in 2 other factors – freedom to think and productivity.

So, like the spread of civilisation, is there a reason on the scatter pattern of religion?

Unless…

~wished upon a star~

Prawning

2011-12-24T14:35:00.002+08:00

Went prawning at this Punggol Marina Club the other day. What a ulu and god forsaken place. Single lane road in with sparse lighting. Going up was during peak period, so had to take KPE to avoid the jam on CTE and I dislike taking KPE. Ah wells.

First time prawning. K taught us how to measure the water depth, adjust the float, hook the worms, catch the prawns. Prawning was quite fun, at the beginning that is. After some time nearing the end of our session I got a little bored of it already.

During the day mummy was still telling me how troublesome it was, and why not just buy prawns at the market. The prawns were extremely tasty though. Fresh from the water. Some of them were even still alive while we BBQ them. With 2 rods, we caught 32 prawns which was pretty good I guess.

I must make a note that next time got any boring activities must bring zh along. Some of the things she said were really epic.

We were sitting by the pond playing with the rod while waiting for K to settle the bait and the other rod, zh asked me if prawns will bite a bait-less hook.

zh : Ai… You think will have prawn or not?

Me : *gives weird look*

zh : I don’t know. I mean if I were a prawn, I see a hook I will be curious and bite it to see what will happen.

It just have to be around that moment where this prawn went to bite the bait-less hook. Seriously. I can’t believe such prawns exist.

Then there were :

“you think prawns will like my feet if I put it in the water?”

“the prawns here not hungry, where got hungry prawns ah?”

“I’m bored, let’s change tactics, we spear the prawns using the rod instead?”

There were more, but I can’t recall all. Just knew that I kept laughing all the time. Doesn’t help that i was constantly in danger of being spear by the rod.

Went around posing for pictures at 1am along the pier. And another photo opportunity along the road out of the club. Awesome.

Pretty late by the time we went home. But Punggol to home in 15 minutes. Hmm… Not bad.

~wished upon a star~

Who Would You Hang (Part 2)

2011-12-18T19:09:00.005+08:00

Some time ago I posted this question : Who would you hang? A rapist or a murderer.

After thinking for a while, I would hang the rapist. Couple of reasons.

There could be an underlying cause for murder, but there is no reason to rape. Then when someone is murdered, the victim is no longer 'concious' or 'suffering'. But in a rape, the victim might be traumatised for the rest of his life (his as in the generic he). Meaning that rape will have a more dire long lasting effect. It can be like the murderer has been tortured or humiliated etc. and snapped and decided to kill.

Then someone added that the reason for rape and murder could be the same, but the person could have chosen to rape instead of kill mainly because of the above reason - he wants the victim to suffer. This means that the person has proven to be more 'evil' and hence he will hang the rapist.

Just some points to ponder.

~wished upon a star~

Of Good Service and Half Naked Men

2011-12-18T17:07:00.003+08:00

Finally a restaurant with exceptionally good service here.

Lunched with whole family at Grand Park Orchard today. They are one of the increasing number of places who need to take down card information for large reservations. Well, fair enough.

Point is, their service is very good, probably among the best I encountered so far. Staff is attentive, always smiling, very fast, patient, no attitude etc. I forgot my soya sauce for the sashimi and they got one for me without me asking. Coffee's cold after being there for a while and they took the initiative to change a new cup for me. Took food and the staff offered to bring it back to my table first so I need not carry it. Sis forgot her chopsticks and they promptly got one for her too.

For some reason, almost half of their staff are Japanese. Kind of weird. Normally it would be Chinese or somewhere SEA. Isn't Japanese much more expensive?

Anyway, now hotel entrances are kind of hidden in one corner, with the front façade given to shops. Like how Mandarin's entrance is hidden at the side, Grand Park's one is also at the side. The front is given to Abercrombie and the others.

On the topic of Abercrombie, I realised they did a very good marketing with the half naked men. If that can be called marketing. Couple of friends gave this response.

Me : Went A&F already?

Friend : Huh? What's that?

Me : You don't know?? Tsk... Thee 30 half naked men la.

Friend : OOOooooOOOHhhhhhh! I know I know!! The one across the road from Paragon one right? So that is A&F...

Me : Yes~~~ =.="

Like many other high end stores, A&F also used their perfume to scent their outlet (I think). The smell is so over powering that I can puke standing at the junction almost 20 metres away from the door. Learn from Ferragamo, which I think did it best. Subtle scent of F for Fascinating Night lingering in the air when you enter.

Another rant before I sign off. The city's all jammed up. No train service. But I'm guessing the people who got stuck are pretty fortunate though, in a way. It was peak period but the stuck trains did not have the peak period load. Imagine being in the dark without proper ventilation for hours in that type of condition. Don't event have space to use the fire extinguisher to break the glass.

~wished upon a star~

Meeting Day

2011-12-16T21:38:00.003+08:00

2 meetings in school today. Morning all the way to mid afternoon. Quite a number of things to follow up.

Had a very late lunch with the group at Nando's. Wanted to try it out ever since I heard about it from Joanne Peh's complain. The chicken's good. I think only the wedges and peri peri chips are nice, the rest of the sides aren't worth mentioning about.

There's a wine fair going on at the atrium. Got myself 2 bottles of eiswein and another bottle for jw.

On a separate note, I wish I have a reset button to thump on. Time to do some serious reflections.

~wished upon a star~

All In A Week's Work

2011-12-15T20:50:00.005+08:00

Been back for a week now. Busy catching up with everyone that I had 'broken off with' previously due to finals.

Went buffet on Sunday with family. Daddy actually wanted to go eat on the last day of my paper, but everything was in a rush so didn't go instead. Not bad, with my hotel member and card promotion, 4 person pay the price of 1. Best discount ever.

Monday went with jw to go Ubi to change his SSD. What a ulu place. The road there is so confusing. Nice to have service centres located in such areas, half the people won't want to go there in the first place.

Had lunch with one of my project group on Tuesday, then met xp for 2 movies. Quite long since we watched multiple movies in a sitting. I bought a new toothbrush too. Didn't like the Colgate one I was using. Changed to that when the battery in my old Braun died. Wanted to get back Braun but I saw this new model - ultra sonic toothbrush. 7000 vibrations a minute, silver ions, infra-red technology, anti bacteria, anti plaque, whitening, ultra soft ceramics brush and made in Japan. Sounds like I'm buying some space or lab equipment. Not sure how true it is, all I know is my hand continues to hum for some time after I finish brushing my teeth.

Finally met up with my JC classmates after almost 3 years. It's been a long long time. Only half the class turned up though, cause the rest are still scattered all over the globe. Much to talk about and catch up on. Though I spent $1.07 on a 8 minutes parking. Entered the carpark 8 minutes before the per entry charges start. Rah~~! On after thoughts, I should have just stopped in front of the gantry and wait. I might also be doing the rest of the people behind me a service by saving them $1.07. They will have to thank me for making them wait.

My aunt came back from France today. 2 weeks holiday! Wasn't able to go with her cause I was in Kashgar. Ah well, another time. Still have a number of Christmas cards to write, and I kind of spoilt my laser printer while printing the words on the card. The cards are probably too thick for it.

~wished upon a star~

China – 30 November to 8 December 2011 [Part 2]

2011-12-11T00:11:00.003+08:00

Day 5 Urumqi --> Beijing

Prove that duct tape fixes everything together, even planes.

Finally made it to Beijing in one piece. Weather's very bad. There is heavy smog/fog and snow left over from the previous day. Took a train down to the city centre and spent almost 2 hours walking around in circles with our luggage looking for the hotel. Stupid Google Maps gave me the wrong direction. Not fun walking around pulling a luggage, holding a tablet in sub zero temperatures and risk losing your life due to the reckless driving. Damn you Google Maps. It also doesn't help that the direction the hotel staff gave was pretty vague and the smog/fog meant that we can't see any landmarks either.

I wanted dinner at Shangri La but my friends complained it being too expensive. Ended up eating at 海底捞 steamboat. Their service was excellent, extremely responsive and attentive. We concluded that we have been condemned as the 'noob' table as the staff kept stopping by to help us cook this cook that, pour drinks and stuff. The food and spread are very good and it only cost us SGD 11 each for that 'buffet'.

Day 6 天坛宫 --> 天安门 --> 故宫 --> 东直门 --> 王府井街

Took a train down to the 'round round thing that is always seen on TV'. It's the 天坛 which is the Temple of Heaven. A breeze walk through it took us almost 2 hours. Beijing is well connected by subway and the entire system is quite new. The trains are more crowded than Singapore and I think can rival Japan during peak hours. Each ride is extremely cheap though, a flat rate of SGD 0.40.

Hopped back on the train down to 天安门 after that. Had lunch at a peking duck restaurant behind the Great Hall of the People. The food's good and cheap. A duck, all the condiments, beef, 小笼包, soup, vegetable, fried rice, 老北京炸浆面 and drinks cost the 5 of us only SGD 12 each.

Went to the outer wall of the forbidden city after that, since we were rushing for time, we only stood around on the outside and took pictures. Headed over to Raffles City after that for a bit of shopping. Yes! It's. The Raffles City that our CapitaMall opened in Beijing. Nothing much special there though, mainly most of the shops that can be found in Singapore, and they brought in a lot of the local brands. Eric and ber went back to the hotel to pick up their luggage for their flight back while the rest of us took a cab down to 王府井街 to do more shopping, this place is something like our Orchard Road.

Day 7 居庸关长城 --> 明十三陵 --> 秀水街 --> 王府井街

Spot what’s wrong in the map

Managed to hire a MPV to bring us to the great wall. Good, can travel around in comfort and go wherever we want, no need to wait and squeeze in the crowded bus or their tiny taxi. My cousin actually recommended the 慕田峪 portion, with its cable car and toboggan. It's much further away so we decided to go to 居庸关 instead, and the Ming dynasty tombs are in that area anyway. At first I just thought that the great wall is just a flight of stairs to climb. How hard can climbing stairs be? Turns out to be very hard. As X puts it, it's not a flight of stairs, it's the stairways to heaven. It's amazing looking up and wondering how the people used to build the wall back in those days. We chose the easier side to climb and yet it's still difficult. Then there is the strong wind. Despite the sub zero temperatures, I was perspiring by the time I got to the top.

Go tomb seeing after lunch. It's the burial place and underground palace of the Ming dynasty emperors. Of the 13 tombs, only 1 was excavated as China experienced 3 major disasters after that was opened, so they decided to leave the rest untouched. The tomb was pretty deep down, again, amazing that something this scale could be done hundreds of years ago. Seems more secure and well made than those bomb shelters of today.

Got the driver to drop us off at 秀水街 to do more shopping. Bought a lot of shoes on this trip. 3 pairs in fact. A Zara, a Timberland and a Sebago. Met my cousin for dinner at 王府井街. She wanted to bring us to eat dog meat and dear meat but the restaurant had already closed. Quite surprised that they actually have ‘high end’ dog meat there. The restaurant was supposedly located in a posh shopping mall, similar to our Ion and Paragon. Ended up with steamboat again. Though it wasn't as good as the one we had on the first day in Beijing. My cousin accidentally left her phone at the restaurant after dinner, I was quite surprised that it is still around when she went back to pick it up.

Day 8 中关村 --> Beijing Capital International --> Singapore

Woke up early in the morning to go to their electronics market, somewhat like our Sim Lim and Funan, only that it is 6 shopping malls of it. Wanted to get some accessories for my laptop but thought otherwise. Probably more practical to change laptop in due time rather than to buy spare parts. There are a lot of cheap electronics parts and items there. Mainly their local brands which is like 60% cheaper than the international brands.

As usual, I exceeded my luggage allowance again. Fortunately x and bwee were well below their allowance. What surprised me though was that Air China only allowed 1 piece of luggage to be checked in for each person. I mean like why!? Isn't it supposed to be calculated using weight? Why are they not allowing me to check in more than 1 luggage? Not like the plane will be lighter if I were to carry on the bag. The flight back was like a China market. People chatting loudly, 2 kids running about and this old man who just have to use the toilet when the plane is taking off on the runway. Probably all the jingling is too much for his bladder.

Anyway, this trip to Kashgar has really been a good experience, an eye opener. Beijing too. It has been a fun trip. The food in the capital is good, though I dislike the air, the taste of the water and the constant traffic jams. Worth a second visit.

~wished upon a star~

China – 30 November to 8 December 2011 [Part 1]

2011-12-09T23:48:00.004+08:00

Day 1 Singapore --> Beijing --> Urumqi --> Kashgar

First time going to such a ulu place. But well, since it is for OCSP advance party trip, might as well take the chance to explore some place that I might never visit for leisure in my life. Flying via Air China since SIA doesn't fly to this type of place. While I was at the airport waiting for the rest to turn up, I saw the open concept kitchen at Ruyi Restaurant. It has some auto cooking stove and an auto noodle cooker. That thing flips and turns whatever it is cooking, the 'chef' only needs to pour in the pre-measured sauces and ingredients every time the beeper beeps. Like that anybody also can be chef.

I wanted the seats along the left window but by the time we check in, most of the seats were already taken up and we ended up with some ill positioned seats. Furthermore, the flight was delayed by slightly more than an hour, which means we fly off after 1 am, which also means problem later on at Beijing cause of the flight transit. The flight was pretty bad too, no personal entertainment system, seat's quite hard, not very broad, but not too cramped either. The food totally cannot make it though and it's like plastic utensils. No coffee, no wine. Anyway, slept and read a book to pass the 6.5 hours. I must say the skills of the pilot is good though, the landing was smooth.

Rushed off the plane after touching down at Beijing Capital International Airport, go through customs to enter China, picked up luggage, rushed to domestic check in, rush to gate. Next flight is a 4 hours odd flight to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang. It's a small plane, Boeing 737, which means uncomfortable seating, together with food that is even worse. The scenery throughout the flight is a beautiful one. Very tall snow capped mountain ridges, so it is visible for the entire journey, not sure what area we are flying over though.

The wait at Urumqi was longer though, almost 6 hours wait. Wanted to deposit our luggage to make a trip down to the city centre but we didn't know where to go there so ended up sitting at KFC for the entire time. finally boarded the once again delayed last connecting flight to reach Kashgar at 11 at night. I chatted with this guy sitting beside my on the last flight. He saw me reading an English book and was quite surprised that I'm bilingual. According to him, my Chinese was good. Like that also good? Well, if he says so.

Almost 24 hours of travelling, 3 flights in a day, feels like a high flyer. Temperature was higher than what we were expecting, hovering around -3. Checked into our hotel which wasn't exactly very nice and part of it was under construction, so it was kind of spooky. Only in China I think, where guest and building construction can coexist.

Day 2 Kashgar

Had breakfast at the hotel cafe which was just like a very normal meal. Our host then brought us around to have a look around the city. The air quality here is very bad, consistently have a burnt smell hanging in the air. Roads are also not very well paved. Then there is the people and wordings. It totally doesn't feel like being in China at all, more like being in Russia or Turkey. The people are not the Han Chinese but look more middle eastern type. Then the signs are in some language that seems more like a middle eastern language. What is common is the lamb everywhere, can see whole skinned sheep hanging at every other corner of the street. Then there is Chicken. Other than these, nothing much.

It's an extremely inland place with not much produce. Even the goods are not that cheap as according to my host, they are produced in other areas and transport cost here is rather high. We also saw this goat being slaughtered right in front of us. They slit the throat and let the blood spurt out, didn't know blood had such a bright red colour. The grasping sound that the goat makes in the last few minutes is also something that I had never hear before. But well, that's just how life goes, might as well enjoy the meat.

Visited this amusement park in their People's Park. It's pay per ride, though the sight of it makes me wonder if the rides are maintained at all. Still, it's cheap and certain rides I haven't see before. Should try it out on the next trip.

Able to spot what’s wrong in this Angry Bird postcard?

Had their fast food for lunch, which is quite tasty and cheap after their promotion. Portions are also big. The set in the picture’s missing 2 fries and a drink. All for CNY 88 and free soft toy. Something like their happy meal.

The goat that tried to eat me.

We then took a 20 minute bus ride to our cultural centre that we are going to revamp on the next trip. It's located at a farm whose animals seems to like me a lot and kept following me. There was also this goat which took a fancy to my finger and chewed on them while I wasn't looking. Bad goat. After that they all went away, probably that goat told them that the guy in orange wasn't so tasty after all.

The host brought us to a local fare restaurant for dinner. I must say that the local food sure needs taking use to. Most of the vegetables are pickled or preserved, probably to prevent them from spoiling since they are shipped in from afar. They have a lot of lamb meat though, almost everything or every meal has it included in some way. Actually in my 3 days there, I concluded that they only have 4 main dish – lamb, chicken, Japanese cucumber and xiao bai chai. Went to the local night market after dinner to look around.

Day 3 Kashgar Ancient City --> Dong Bazaar

Went to the ancient city. to have a look around. It's the older portion of Kashgar where the buildings are hundreds of years old and still made of mud and really old bricks. Apparently some Hollywood movies were filmed there too. I can't imagine living in those type of conditions though. Seriously no amenities and proper utilities.

Went to the Dong Bazaar next. It's a huge market where they sell almost everything that is available in Kashgar - from dried goods to hats to Pakistan vase to to hunting knife to animal fur. They have everything. we bargained and bought nuts and 'starburst' raisins. Well, it's not really called starburst, it's cause of the rich flavour and sweetness that seems to burst out when we bite into it, hence the name. I got a rabbit scarf from there. Tempted to get the fox fur or even the gigantic Tibetan Dog (I honestly thought it was bear fur at first) coat, but it's impractical and will be left to collect dust back at home and it means killing more animals for it. Similar to most people, all along I thought why the need to kill animals when we can have those man-made fur coat, but I finally understood it. The real fur is so soft, so smooth, so beautiful and can keep warm so well that it makes the man-made one feel like a piece of holey sandpaper. The rabbit scarf I got was so much better than my Timberland one and so much cheaper. Too bad I can't wear it at Kashgar as the design is only for ladies. No issues though, I will wear it in Beijing where nobody knows it. Now that I had experience how good it is, I wouldn’t say don’t kill for the fur. Rather, use only what is required.

X brought us to some restaurant that she went to on the previous trip. They serve fine food there with low prices, low to us that is. The food's very good and a lot. I will miss the kebab though, better than what we have back here.

Had a massage later in the evening. Cheap and good. Though bwee said that it wasn't the better ones. Still, it feels good and comfortable. I finally have my cravings for 康师傅 cup noodles (sadly, variety there wasn't a lot) and the Jay Chou instant bubble tea (now they added in S.H.E. along side him).

Well, this marks our last day in Kashgar on this trip. I must say that it is really an eye opener place. I would have never come to this place by myself. I like some of the food, dislike the rest. The people here are friendly and the way they do things are also very different. Their driving is still as horrible, as expected in China, but still much improvement as compared to places like Hainan. In fact I had an eye opener the other day, i actually saw a 3 wheel bike do a powerslide! Like it was a crowded place and it was going quite fast, a car turned out suddenly and the bike powerslided, made a turn and continued on as if nothing happened. Impressed. There is virtually no luxury here (at least to me) and all sorts of resources are scarce (except maybe lamb). Safety doesn't seems much of an issues in my 3 days here. In fact, I think it will be a safer place in Kashgar than in many other parts of China. The culture here is also a unique one that is totally different from the Han Chinese. Well, I'll be back again next May or probably earlier.

Day 4 Kashgar --> Urumqi

Another 2 flights and half a day from Kashgar all the way across China back to Beijing. Reached the airport early in the morning. Well, not that early for us, but early for the local people. the whole China follows Beijing time, but as Kashgar is 4 time zones behind, it is impractical for them to follow the time. Hence they have their own unofficial timing which is 2 hours later. So morning starts at 11 Beijing time, and the sun rises at about 9.30.

Just as we were boarding, our flight was delayed due to bad weather in Urumqi. Somewhat it was lucky that our flight was the first in the morning so it was delayed instead of being cancelled like all subsequent flights. Finally boarded the plane 3.5 hours later which by then we had already missed our connecting flight in Urumqi. I must say, I'm pretty impressed by the service crew on this flight, Xin Hua Airline. Their service is very good, comparable with SIA, though their planes are a little old. Probably I will try to arrange for this airline on the next trip rather than Air China. Sometimes it's those smaller establishment that provides better service.

Part of the list of prohibited items at the airport.

After much squeezing at the Air China counter at Urumqi, managed to get rebooked onto a night flight (which was also delayed by the snow), meaning we will touch Beijing at 3am. Well, better than sleeping in the airport. The snow at Urumqi was quite heavy, still we took a walk outside to 'soak it in'. Crazy bunch of people. Camped at the same KFC again.

Just when I thought it was problem solved, our flight was cancelled half an hour before boarding cause of heavy snow in Beijing. We were provided with dinner and hotel, which was good save for the all glass bathroom. I thought dinner would be the hotel food which I didn't want to eat, so we popped by the nearby convenient shop where I bought a 'feast'. The massage service sign in the hotel room. Starts me thinking on why they have Chinese style, European style and Korean style. Sounds dodgy.

Up And Away

2011-11-30T17:04:00.003+08:00

Finally last paper ended. Was a pretty good end, could have been better, but still pretty good.

I flying off tonight! Haven't exactly packed finished. Well, actually is just I can't decide which set of coat to bring. Do I look nicer in Timberland or Cold Wear? Choices... What a headache. It's currently -3 degrees there, hope it snows.

Anyway, 3 flights and almost 24 hours of travelling to do.

Be back next Friday!

~wished upon a star~

Finishing Soon

2011-11-27T19:10:00.002+08:00

I shouldn't be here. But...

.2papers

.3days

.3daystochina!

Dekashita~

~wished upon a star~

Food Distraction

2011-11-21T13:46:00.005+08:00

I was ~~supposedly~~ studying when my attention got diverted because of this.

Blacows Burgers, if it is too small. Here's the link to it's full foody glory.

It looks simply delicious. The basic burger start at 1500 en. I think the Bacon Cheese Avocado looks just perfect. It's along the Yamanote Line, near Shibuya, should have noticed it and gone there.

They have delivery for orders above 2000 en. Wonder if they can deliver to school...

~wished upon a star~

All In A Reading Week

2011-11-19T21:37:00.003+08:00

SMUgging. It's all I have been doing this week, for all non-asleep hours (save for preparing to get out of house and the short moments when I got home before plunging my nose back into a book or into the pillow), which typically range from 0700 to 0100.

It's kind of unlucky when you have profs that are content heavy, or practising profs that tries to pass on real world economics formulas. It would have been good only if,

1. I'm an economics student

2. I'm good at formulas

which sadly, I'm not for both.

Of course, it's not saying that my profs are not good, independent of course content and exam workload, they have been great in the seminars.

I had been in the library almost all of my waking hours this week. Daddy has also very kindly insist on picking me up at 11 so I need not wait for the bus home.

Not all hours have been productive though, there are instances whereby I just dazed off.

There was this other day where I got a little grouchy cause of certain people chit chatting loudly in the library. My friend was the one who got irritated by it first. I thought it was just an occasional chit chat so I bear with it. But when it went on for the next 10 minutes, I got irritated as well, considering it was during my more productive moments, and told them off in a pretty rude manner, which was my intention. They gave me a rude reply which I intended to retaliate with something that will shut them up when my friend cut in. I think he sense I was about to get into an argument, which probably would have ended with me calling up security. Van reckoned bwee got it right and I should have been more polite. Ah wells, noted and understood. The next time perhaps.

I left earlier today cause I had a dinner date with mummy. Daddy was busy so I brought her out for dinner. Long time since I brought her out to eat. Dinner was expensive, but well, anything is worth it. Guess I will have to eat grass for the next week.

On a separate note, on one of my unproductive moment, I changed my phone message tone. It's now the station arrival tone of the Tokaido Shinkansen. Acoustically attention grabbing.

Cheers for completing the consecutive 27th day in school. Wondering if I should extend it to 28.

~wished upon a star~

Who Would You Hang (Part 1)

2011-11-16T21:49:00.003+08:00

The other day my friend ask me this question.

Suppose you are a judge, and in your court you have a rapist and a murderer. Assuming that both their crimes are as hideous and that you can only sentence one of them to the death penalty. Assume other factors are not important and play no part towards the end result whatsoever.

Who will you hang? And why?

~wished upon a star~

Study Week

2011-11-12T21:10:00.003+08:00

All presentations are done! The last one's today and it was a good one. Presentations had been rather fun actually.

With all projects done, mugging officially starts. I think I'm doing pretty good too. Unlocked the best achievement yesterday - 13 hours in the library. Though I seriously think this is the maximum I should go, though the quiet library with the many sofas at night sure is very comfortable. And it's now 24 hours, with quite some people sleeping over everyday. Anyway, hogged a huge table by myself. Right, my friends were supposed to come but they took ages to appear. Not sure why, but nobody asked to share the table even though the rest of the tables are filling up fast, until mine was the last 'empty' one.

Anyway, tomorrow will mark the 21st consecutive day in school. Aren't I great? But again, like today, I think daddy's coming to 'drag' me out of school tomorrow too.

Perhaps

because lf says so. hahaha...

~wished upon a star~

Week 12 Relief

2011-11-04T21:01:00.002+08:00

It seems that I completed a lot this week. But actually not really. It's just the completion of a certain mod's presentation and report. I think it's the range and depth of the research that we need to do which is making it daunting. Honestly, I've never faced with so much data to sieve through and summarise to being so concise before. I shouldn't complain too much though, mine's probably the average. I have some friends who this mod was pretty relax, relatively relax that is. And some were shifting through and analysing data from over 400 companies across 11 industries. Faints. Still, it's a good thing that at least this is over, next week's class I can relax and listen to the presentation of the other groups. *ka-chick*

Not all is fun and games though. Haven't been catching up on any assignments over the past 2 weeks as all I have been doing is project project project. I still have 3 more presentations next week. All the best to me.

Someone told me weekend's here? Weekend? I forgot what it was 10 weeks ago. Going back tomorrow, going back on Sunday, going back on Monday. Wait, what do you mean Monday is a holiday?

Anyway, managed to complete the flight bookings and insurance for end of the year. Flying off immediately after the last paper. 3 flights and almost 24 hours of flying to that place. It better be worth it. No SQ flights there. It has to be CA, which my friend reminded me that it could have been SC, or some dodgy budget carrier.

The other day, I came home to find an injured bat at my door. I was kind of unsure of what to so I called daddy, and he told me to leave it to him to handle when he's back. Well, I couldn't bear to leave it there so I took a mooncake box and 'suited up' as I was kind of scared of it. That thing screeched and flop around everytime my hand neared it, so yours truly was reduced to squating there and trying to sweet talk that bat into my box. It finally flopped itself into a drain. That's when I gave up, spending 15 minutes like an absolute idiot talking to it was one thing, I'm not putting my hand into the drain. If it prefers the drain over my Fairmont mooncake box, so be it.

Today, I met someone cutting their nails on the bus. Can anyone tell me the reason for it. Why must a person cut her nails on the bus. I seriously hope the bus jerks and she cuts herself horribly with the nail clipper.

Alright. Time to build up on good karma again. Back to FA.

~wished upon a star~

Things I Learn in School

2011-10-30T22:31:00.003+08:00

School is not your second home. It's your first, or maybe only home for some.

Let's revisit my schedule for the past week.

Monday : 9am check-in, 10.30pm check-out

Tuesday : 8.50am check-in, 11pm check-out

Wednesday (public holiday) : 8.15am check-in, 7.30pm check-out (that's cause daddy came to 'drag' me out)

Thursday : 9.10am check-in, 9.45pm check-out

Friday : 9am check-in, 9.15pm check-out

Saturday : 11.30am check-in, 10pm check-out (that's cause meeting's at 9 in the morning at Wild Honey. At least there is a good breakfast)

Well, I learn that the school trains students very well for the working world. We will probably be extremely accustomed to overtimes. Perhaps overtime in the corporate world might even come as a relief.

I learn democracy in school too.

It was supposed to be a holiday. So classes are supposed to be shifted to Saturday instead.

Prof : This is a democratic society, let's have a vote on whether we should have class as normal. Those who wants class on the left, raise your hand.

*about 6 hands out of 20*

Prof : ok. That is half of the people on this side who agrees. Now the right side of the class.

*about 15 hands out of 20*

Prof : That's everyone agreeing on the right. Now 3 quarters of the class agrees. Good, lesson as usual.

If this is democracy, I kind of like it.

In school, I also learn that project work is like being pregnant.

There may be joy if you got the topic you want, shock when you didn't, confusion when you weren't expecting it. Over the next 9 weeks, it may give you sleepless nights, pain, arguments. Some feel nothing, some experience anxiety, some depression, some happiness. If everything goes well, lasting bonds are forged. However, there will always be the praying that your partner will never go astray. Hope that they will always be by your side, and not abandon you, leaving you feeling like a helpless widow. Then as the delivery date nears, you get jittery, jumping at any changes or notices. On the final day, you put up a brave face, with your partner supporting you, you face the Dr., giving your baby the final push, showcasing the fruit of your labour to the world. As you wrap it up, you feel proud and glad that you didn't abort it halfway.

It feels good does't it? Now try having quintuplets.

I'm so going to be "pregnant" countless times over the next few years.

Then I learnt there are project groups that are so bonded and get along so well, that nobody bothers to reply your SMS on work or scheduling cause everyone knows each other's schedule or where to ~~hangout~~ mug or just always hangout together. Or the group that can chat along so well that 60% of the time is spent on everything but the report. Or the group that is able to come up with report and presentation by having just 2 half hour meetings. Well, I guess they are first world problems.

~wished upon a star~

Not So Big Surprise

2011-10-20T00:16:00.004+08:00

Happy Birthday xp.

Nice dinner and catch up with lf, luu and xp.

But apparently my 'surprise' didn't really end up with much surprise. Still Happy Birthday! Ya... And I wish what you said will be true. Haha...

~wished upon a star~

All In A Week's Work

2011-10-15T21:07:00.002+08:00

It's back to school, and return of papers. Well, I did slightly better than average for them, but comparing around, it could have been better though. I guess the most epic was for BGS - Business, Government and Society that is. Apparently, my essay portion on CSR was so epic that it was used as an example of what not to do.

Prof : out of the 4 classes I have, 1 person wrote this in his essay which I would like to share and let you all know it should not be taken in this approach.

Me : *thought to myself* Oh... Interesting. Let's hear what this smart aleck has to say.

The more the describe, the more I realised 'that smart aleck' is me. Well done me. Win already. Luckily my other sections was managed to level it out. Well, he didn't say that it was wrong, just not right. I choose to believe that my argument was too controversial and 'cutting edge'. Yes, got to be it.

Yesterday, I was sitting at the first floor of the business school doing my projects. The school carpark exit is located there too. I was quite distracted by all the cars that were coming out. Audis, BMWs, Mercs, then there was this Ferrari and Porsche. Students... Seriously. Wait till I get my Carver... Maybe...

I had also been eating quite a lot this week now that I recall, especially yesterday. Help a friend finish her plate of carrot cake, pizza with vanny, grace and jn for dinner. Lunch with jw today at Ramen Champion. I didn't like the Bario Ramen though, prefer the normal noodles. Portion's huge, it's like back in Japan again. I'm trying the tsukemen from Tetsu next.

Jw mentioned that city campus might not be good, get distracted by shopping. Is it? I feel that it will more of distract my shopping instead. Bring books to Orchard, after shopping go back to school. I realised I should have brought my stuff out to lunch, might as well pop into school since I'm already nearby.

On hindsight, I spent a lot this week too. Should cut down. Students are poor after all. Well, some of them are anyway.

~wished upon a star~

MBS Project Retreat

2011-10-15T15:35:00.003+08:00

One of my group member had a room at MBS last Sunday, went there for a 'project retreat'. Pretty lucky cause we were given a corner room which are much bigger, with a walk in wardrobe and a 'living area'.

Did project, cam-whored, wandered around. Smugger style, the tables were all lined with notes and work at night. Lost the photos of smuggers hard at work though. Wanted to have the buffet breakfast at Rise next morning, but everyone slept till pretty late.

Going to school was fast though, 10 minutes and we're in school. Wish I can do this everyday. Probably, if I'm lucky.

~wished upon a star~

Malacca

2011-10-08T21:49:00.004+08:00

Just back from Malacca this evening. Basically it's nothing much exciting. Just went there for food and a bit of shopping with daddy and some of his friends. Going through customs was a breeze, since it's a Friday and most people are mugging/at work. Had a very good workout too. Wait, before you fall off your chair, allow me to clarify. It's the car, the car had a good workout, not me. I don't workout. And the dumb ERP-like thing that daddy got doesn't seem to work very well, almost hit the gantry cause I expected it to open when I arrive. End up have to make the row of cars reverse so I can turn into the Touch n Go toll booth. What Smart Tag, totally not smart at all.

Anyway, typical locals just have to bring some of the bad habits overseas. Tailgating at 90 is one thing, being tailgate at almost twice that speed is pressurising. I know your Sirocco and S350 very big, very fast, but keep a little distance off me while I switch back into the slow lane to let you pass. I'm a safe and considerate driver you know.

Google maps is fantastic. It knows all the little short cuts, back alleys and roads through those landed estates to avoid me having to go a huge circle. Since it's pretty quiet out there, I just sped pass those places. Unlike Newton's Circle here, a circle in Malaysia, or any other countries, is really huge... ... Fine, maybe it isn't funny. Though I admit I was considering doing a bit of off roading at one point. Well, the map drew a line across a field to the road on the other side, my front wheels were almost on the grass until I realised that it is asking me to cut through the carpark of the hotel beside that field.

I was almost constantly eating during the 2 days. Seafood, chicken rice ball, this coffee shop, that coffee shop. And I finally had my KFC chicken rice. I wanted to have the hotel buffet breakfast this morning, but daddy's friends wanted to go elsewhere. Sad. I always like to go those high class hotel to have their buffet when I'm overseas. Stop judging. It's just cause it's cheap after factoring in the exchange rate. For that type of food you have to pay much more back here ok. I still clearly remember the number of $50 apiece melons my cousins and I gobbled up at a buffet on one of my trip to Japan.

I also discovered I'm pretty productive when I'm on holiday. They went drinking yesterday night, I went back to the hotel, small bottle of wine and tibits in hand, to accompany my notes and tablet. I managed to complete quite some work, and I feel smarter, but that's probably due to the wine. I should go on holiday nearer to finals.

My GPS died on me on the way back. Luckily I know enough of Malacca to get onto the highway back home. The phone's GPS chip doesn't seem to be very strong, overcast sky and the satellite signal can't be detected.

Along some river, I came across this map. Most helpful map I have seen. Shows you where you are, the river and lines. What in the world do those lines represent?!?!

Anyway, when I told xp I'm driving into Malaysia, the first thing she said was don't speed. Got that bad meh...

~wished upon a star~

Mid Week and Other Randomness

2011-10-06T20:32:00.003+08:00

Half of recess is gone. Been going back to school everyday so far. The rest of the week is for relaxing though. I'm supposed to like finish my project stuff these few days but well, things somehow always drag.

Was able to do some cooking and housekeeping today, since I had a little more time. Well, it was supposed to be used for project, but somehow housework seems more attractive than looking at those research stuff.

Anyway, I'm going on a road trip to Malacca tomorrow. Daddy going up with his friends, ask me to come along. At first I didn't want since I still have so much stuff to do, but he mentioned food. So I added in I'm driving. How can let good food slip away, and the ~~fast~~ nice long drive up there. I'm probably going to pack my homework and project there.

The other day I was telling mummy that motorcycles get free parking in the school carpark. The ERP also cost less than me taking a bus to school. If you're thinking that I'm going to get a bike, you're wrong. Well, maybe half wrong. I still think anything with 2 wheels are too dangerous for the road. Furthermore, I want my aircon, stereo, shelter from the weather and safety. I was exploring the option of those 3 wheel bike. More specifically a Carver. It looks good enough, though I haven't seen any on our roads yet. I'm quite sure it will attract lots of attention, and stand out well among the BMWs, Benzs, Audis and that Porsche in the carpark. But the most important question is whether this thing can squeeze through the the motorcycle lane for the free entry.

~wished upon a star~

Recess

2011-09-30T12:58:00.004+08:00

Finally all the midterms are over. The past week have been cramped with trying to catch up on all the revision and undone revision assignment. Finally it's over and recess is here. Still, as they say, recess is also for the catching up of work and project, minus the presence of seminars to interrupt your concentration.

Midterms were pretty reasonable, except for the economics which I left an entire page blank cause, in summary, it asked me to derive total utility function from the mathematical definition of marginal utility and then derive the optimum consumption bundle. My friend asked what is that, I told him it's alright not to know, cause neither do I.

FA was better, I only didn't managed to balance the balance sheet. I only know of 2 person who managed to do it, one really did it, the other began writing down inventories until it balance. I realised I should have just opened another journal entry called the "allowance for incompetent accountant" and just chuck any excess credit or debit there. It will be adeptly placed under liabilities cause it's accrual world and it's presence will place an issue on an organisation's going concern, depriving it from obtaining an unqualified opinion. It seems that I may have to go opinion shopping for the finals.

Anyway, it's the unofficial first day of recess and I'm in school completing work and having project meetings. I allowed myself to indulge in an additional half hour of sleep this morning though, since the weather was so good. Finally a near 7 hour sleep.

Looking forward to dinner later.

~wished upon a star~

Sunday and Other Randomness

2011-09-18T21:21:00.004+08:00

Sunday, what Sunday?

I spent my Sunday doing project in school today. I suspect this might just be the first of many to come. Hopefully I'm wrong. Anyway, they changed the road direction in between the library and the business school, under the reasoning of building the Downtown Line. I still don't understand why building the train line needs the reversal of the traffic direction. Well, they took away the traffic light at the old junction, means the only way across the road is now jaywalking.

I went uTown on the way home to have a look at that place. There seems to be a Fish & Co Express there, looks cheap, can anyone confirm if it is good? uTown is huge, their 'campus green' is probably bigger than ours by a couple of times. But the place doesn't look as cosy, maybe cause it's new and still lacks 'personalisation'. The roads there is a nice place to drive - tight corners, ups and downs, some narrow single lane portions and 1 lap around it is pretty long, just watch out for those killer humps. Ouch.

I was researching suits for jw the other day. Came across suits made from horsehair fabric from Lewin. At first I wondered if it was just another marketing gimmick to justify for the ridiculous prices. After a little bit more of digging around, I realised it is actually very premium, more so than silk and there is only a handful of horsehair weavers left in the world. I told mummy I'm going see if I can make one horsehair suit when I go China at the end of the year, must be the inner Mongolia horse. She just told me not to get kicked, or safer yet, use my own hair. Very funny.

Luu was near my school the other day. It's been quite some time since we talked. Did some quality catching up, an enjoyable ending to what would otherwise have been just another tiring day.

~wished upon a star~

Take A Break

2011-09-17T11:37:00.005+08:00

While (attempting) to do my work, I wandered around the abyss of my hard drive and came across a long unopened treasure, within it containing dozens and dozens of chapters of entertainment, it is, what they call, the winter wonderland. And the rest, as they say, were history.

ADULT: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and now grows in the middle.

BEAUTY PARLOUR: A place where women curl up and dye.

CANNIBAL: Someone who is fed up with people.

CHICKENS: The only creatures you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

COMMITTEE: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

DUST: Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST: Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

GOSSIP: A person who will never tell a lie if the truth will do more damage.

HANDKERCHIEF: Cold Storage.

INFLATION: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

MOSQUITO: An insect that makes you like flies better.

RAISIN: Grape with a sunburn.

SECRET: Something you tell to one person at a time.

TOOTHACHE: The pain that drives you to extraction.

TOMORROW: One of the greatest labour saving devices of today.

YAWN: An honest opinion openly expressed.

WRINKLES: Something other people have. You have character lines.

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

Element Name: WOMAN

Symbol: WO

Atomic Weight: (don't even go there!)

Physical Properties: Generally round in form. Boils at nothing and may freeze any time. Melts whenever treated properly. Very bitter if not used well.

Chemical properties:

Very active. Highly unstable. Possesses strong affinity to gold,silver, platinum, and precious stones. Violent when left alone. Able to absorb great amounts of exotic food. Turns slightly green when placed next to a better specimen.

Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for dispersion of wealth. Probably the most powerful income reducing agent known.

Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands.

Element Name: MAN

Symbol: XY

Atomic Weight: (180 +/-50)

Physical properties: Solid at room temperature,but gets bent out of shape easily. Fairly dense and sometimes flaky. Difficult to find a pure sample. Due to rust, aging samples are unable to conduct electricity as easily as young samples.

Chemical properties:

Attempts to bond with WO any chance it can get. Also tends to form strong bonds with itself. Becomes explosive when mixed with Kd (Element:Child) for prolonged period of time. Neutralize by saturating with alcohol.

Usage: None known.

Possibly good methane source. Good samples are able to produce large quantities on command.

* Caution: In the absence of WO, this element rapidly decomposes and begins to smell

~wished upon a star~

Points to Ponder

2011-09-15T00:30:00.000+08:00

A person is intelligent and uses facts to substantiate his points.

A person lacks self-confidence and hides behind facts.

A person has a overwhelming desire to always win so he only keep to facts.

A person wants to flaunt that he is knowledgeable.

OR...

~wished upon a star~

ASOC Day and SHINee World Concert

2011-09-10T23:45:00.003+08:00

ASOC day was pretty fun. Mainly the chatting and camwhoring part was fun. Not to mention the food and beer were good too. Some French beer that I have never seen before, gotten the name down and should try to find it. Though I only drank half a bottle caused I drove there, well, between driving and drinking, I pick driving anytime.

Just gotten back not long ago from SHINee World Concert with my friend. The concert was great. Actually I had never attended such a fanciful concert before. I wanted to attend Ayumi's when I was in Japan, but even the cheapest ticket was so expensive that I didn't even bother considering it. Well, I'm not that K-POP inclined so my friend became the running commentary about what most of the songs were and who dances the best and who is the cutest and who has the smoothest voice. Enjoyed it! The parking was ridiculously expensive though.

On a separate note, I finally gathered up enough... 'energy' to do something. I felt it was right. Like it was back then. Ah wells... More time, probably.

Pondering pondering pondering.

~wished upon a star~

Randomness

2011-09-06T21:05:00.004+08:00

It seems that I am down to posting once every week or more. Life is getting that much busier.

It's week 4 already and it seems that everything is starting to be due. I just had my first presentation this week and it sure was 'exciting'. I just managed to keep it under 4 minutes when I had consistently been hitting 5 during my practice. Main thing is the prof said it was interesting and one of my friend mentioned that it was from a refreshing angle. Well, that sort of make things sound a little better.

Got back my first test today. Full marks. It's no big deal since it's just a small test, but it sure has a pesudo 'good feeling' in it. The last time I had full marks for a test was for Geography in sec 3. Hmm... I suppose it won't be too much to ask for this to continue right.

I just gotten a shock yesterday. One of my project group is going to be the first to present, which is in week 6. This is week 4 and we haven't done anything yet. Champion. Happy New Year!

Went dinner and singing with my cousins last Sunday at Aranda Club. More like I went there to hear them sing since I'm not familiar with most of the songs. Eventually sang a couple of Chinese and Japanese ones. Fun though. Should go again some day.

My sis got a tablet. She was complaining that the laptop is too heavy. Well, that thing was fun. Lots of games. Certainly I can now read my notes better than on my phone's 4.3" screen.

I'm going SHINee World Concert this Saturday! Apparently my dad has 2 free tickets from HP. Might as well, don't waste it. Sis already bought her tickets long time ago, front category seating, so very expensive, I could have put that to better use. Anyway, since I won't be sitting with my sis, she is drafting out a cue card for me - what to shout at what moment and what action to do. To make sure I shout saranghae instead of aishiteru. =.="

~wished upon a star~

Confusion Is A Sign of Understanding

2011-08-28T12:22:00.003+08:00

Saw it on cm's link. The following is from Eric Mazur's Keynote at ICER 2011 - Observing Demo Hurt Learning, and Confusion Is A Sign of Understanding.

Our keynote for ICER 2011 was Eric Mazur, famous Harvard physics education researcher. Mazur maintains a terrific website with his publications and talks, so the slides from his talk are available as well as the papers which serve as the content for this talks. His keynote talk was on “The scientific approach to teaching: Research as a basis for course design.” I was hoping that he might give us some advice, from older-and-wiser physics education research to up-start, trying-to-learn-to-walk computing education research. He didn’t do that. Instead, he told us about three of his most recent findings, which were great fun and intriguing.
The first set of findings were about peer instruction, which we’ve talked about here. He spent some time exploring findings on the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), particularly with respect to gender. In the US and Belgium (as one place where he’s explored this), there is a huge, statistically significant gap between men and women on the FCI. In Taiwan, he didn’t find that same gap, so it is cultural, not innate. With peer instruction, the gap goes away. Good stuff, but not shocking.
The second set of findings were on physics demonstrations, when teachers make spark and lights, balance weights, make things explode (if you’re lucky), and do all kinds of things to wake you up and make you realize your misconceptions. Do they really help? Mazur tried four conditions (rotated around, so students would try them each): No demo, observing a demo, observing a demo after making a prediction of what you thought would happen, and then having a discussion afterward. The results were pretty much always the same (here are the results from one study):
Yeah, you read that right — observing a demo is worse than having no demo at all! The problem is that you see a demo, and remember it in terms of your misconceptions. A week later, you think the demo showed you what you already believed. On some of the wrong answers that students gave in Mazur’s study, they actually said “as shown in the demo.” The demo showed the opposite! The students literally remember it wrong. People remember models, not facts, said Mazur. By recording a prediction, you force yourself to remember when you guessed wrong.
That last line in the data table is another really interesting finding — talking about it didn’t improve learning beyond just making the prediction. Social doesn’t help all learning. Sometimes, just the individual is enough for learning.
This result has some pretty important ramifications for us computing educators. When we run a program in class, we’re doing a demonstration. What do students remember of the results of that program execution? Do they even think about what they expect to see before the program executes? What are they learning from those executions? I think live coding (and execution) is very important. We need to think through what students are learning from those observations.
Third finding: Students praise teachers who give clear lectures, who reduce confusion. Student evaluations of teaching reward that clarity. Students prefer not to be confused. Is that always a good thing? Mazur tried an on-line test on several topics, where he asked students a couple of hard questions (novel situations, things they hadn’t faced previously), and then a meta-question, “Did you know what you were doing on those questions?” Mazur and his colleagues then coded that last question for “confusion” or “no confusion,” and compared that to performance on the first two problems.
Confused students are far more likely to actually understand. It’s better for students to be confused, because it means that they’re trying to make sense of it all.
I asked Mazur if he knew about the other direction: If a student says they know something, do they really? He said that they tried that experiment, and the answer is that students’ self-reported knowledge has no predictive ability for their actual performance. Students really don’t know if they understand something or not — their self-report is just noise.

Now I think about it, it does seems pretty true. Many times when you think you are confused, you seek to clarify it better and you can understand the concept. When you think you know, you sometimes realised that you know the wrong content, often at the wrong moment, which conveniently is usually after the exams. Students seem to learn better when after a round of discussion / exploration / thinking, the teacher link everything back to the main topic, instead of allowing the students to arrive at their own, sometimes skewed, conclusion.

If what Eric discovered is accurate, it means that the teaching style in school may not be the best - the pedagogical style will be good, but the seminar discussion style may not be the most efficient.

Anyway, on that bombshell, does it mean that approximately half the class of confused faces will be on the dean's list?

via

~wished upon a star~

Singing Foreign Language Songs

2011-08-27T23:41:00.005+08:00

I just came back from a function. Singing was part of the entertainment of the night. There were a number of singers but I realised the 2 who got the most applause are this Malay and Indian singers who sang Chinese songs. Or in my opinion attempted to sing Chinese songs.

But why?

Why didn't the other singers got as much applause? They sang better! People are just won over by the surface image. Stereotyping mentality. People think that non-Chinese can't sing Chinese songs, and if they can, it means that they have great skills. True? Ponder it over and I don't think so.

I'm sure most people knows how to sing a couple of songs of a language not native to them. Like myself, I can sing quite a number of Japanese songs, 3 Korean songs and 2 Cantonese song. So do you want to organise a concert for me? Throw in some fireworks too.

So what's the big deal about them singing Chinese songs?

Sorry, I'm a bit grouchy. Didn't want to attend the function but well, obligations. Brought some work there but it was so noisy and I can't seem to block out the noise properly so only managed to get a little stuff done, and no shan don't tell me to use earphone and tune my own music louder than them.

I know I haven't posted intellectual stuff for a long time. I have a list of things to write about, but everytime I come here, I don't feel like using my intellectual side anymore. Even the title reads so 'commonly'.

My brain is weakening.

~wished upon a star~

华语 Cool

2011-08-25T22:50:00.002+08:00

From Mr Brown.

"MOE has a new grading system for Chinese exams - A1, A2, B3, B4, C5, C6, D7, E8, F9 and TT"

~wished upon a star~

First Week of School

2011-08-19T18:35:00.002+08:00

Week one is over, it's T.G.I.T. I realised that having the free day on Friday isn't that good - most school activities and CCAs are on Friday. Well, I was supposed to have a 3 day work week but due to some miscalculation and graph plotting ended up with 4 days. Lessons has pretty fun so far, with the exceptions of 会计交代 111 (not cause of the prof, but cause of the questions). I got all the open ended practice questions wrong. So depressing, this seems worse than the start of JC where at least you have some (foggy) idea roughly what it is asking for.

Projects are starting soon. Looking at it, it seems that I will soon be overwhelmed with all sorts of meetings and stuff. 5 project work equivalents in less than 3 months. But others can do it, so why can't I. I can do even better than them. Yes I can!

People think the school is full of English speaking people, but I find that I'm practising more Chinese ever since I came here. My accounts group have a certain tendency not to start talking in Chinese, but start typing in Chinese. I haven't written, or more accurately typed, so much Chinese for a long time. Which is a good practice. Talking about my accounts group, it seems that we're getting closer and closer, hope it stays that way throughout.

Today's the school's CCA fair. Well, everyone's late again as usual. Left van and me to find a GSR. bw later came up with a nice S equation : agreed meeting time = wake up time. But anyway, I joined 4 CCAs - Audit and Advisory, Japanese Culture Club, Banking and Finance Group and Gourmet Club. Wanted Golf, Wine Appreciation and Investment too, but well, it does seems a lot. Everything seems so attractive.

School's pretty fun too. They have this T-shirt on sale. With the exception of the alien, all the rest did happen before.

But it's not just fun and games, school's pretty competitive too, in a good way I think. How competitive? Have a look at this and decide for yourself.

~wished upon a star~

Jump Show 2011

2011-08-14T20:12:00.002+08:00

Went to watch Jump Show at the Esplanade with jw, ch and my sis. Jump was good and funny. Very funny. Though I felt it was a bit overrated. There wasn't as much martial arts and fighting as I expected, but again, I may be over expecting due to the rave reviews. Still, it was an extremely good show.

School's starting tomorrow.

What about 'not really'?

~wished upon a star~

Convocation 2011

2011-08-13T15:33:00.004+08:00

School is starting soon. Unlike the other 2 schools, convocation here means the start of university life. Well, the school threw a major event at Suntec with everyone in formal wear. Standard formal wear for school students, white dress shirt with dress pants and tie. I thought the entire thing was pretty big budget. The stage setup and audience seating kind of look something like CCTV's New Year Gala. Everything is so professionally done.

Had a birthday surprise before convocation, which was a pretty big phail. Was supposed to meet up at one to buy cake and stuff but only bw and me turned up. Then the pizza people turned up early in school while we were still at Raffles City. Luckily br was already in school and went to pick up the pizza, but he locked himself out of the room cause he left his card inside. Called the princess and judging from the soft voice and quiet background I knew she was still at home. The birthday people ended up arriving earlier than half the surprise team so after trips to the toilet and school bookstore to 'look at textbooks' the party was finally underway. Well, A for effort, but D for punctuality.

Happy birthday van and xw.

~wished upon a star~

National Day

2011-08-09T22:25:00.002+08:00

Happy 46th Birthday Singapore!

It has been some time since I watch the NDP on TV.

Thinking back at the past 2 parades, I kind of miss the good 'buffet', finger food and the eagle eye view. Though I won't miss the late nights and early mornings.

~wished upon a star~

USS Again

2011-08-08T22:45:00.004+08:00

Crowded, crowded, crowded!

Brought my aunt and her family there today, and sure it is super crowded. You may ask since they're from US don't they have seen it there? They went Disney and Six Flags, but never been to Universal Studios, cause it wasn't as good. Anyway, so many people even though it supposed to be a weekday. I think half the world took leave to go down there. The place is seriously packed.

The queues are long too, and this time I didn’t get the VIP pass, so have to wait, With 40 minutes of queue time, I only managed to get on Battlestar Galactica 3 times, that brings my total ride count to 15 times! Someone beat that. Queued for 30 minutes for Mummy Returns, 30 minutes for Enchanted Airways, 25 minutes for Shrek 4D. Coupled with the hot weather, made me not in the mood to do anything more.

The only one with the faster queue got to be Madagascar, but that was a boring ride. Just a log ride through some place. Like Disney’s Nightmare Before Christmas, only 10 times less exciting.

~wished upon a star~

All In A Week's Work

2011-08-07T14:24:00.002+08:00

The week's been filled with anxiety and frustration. At least bidding is more or less done, for the time being. I'm having a 4 day work week instead of the previous 3 days. Then all my lessons start at noon, though I would prefer them to be on the earlier slot. Looking at the timetable of people from other schools, it seems that we don't spend as much time in lesson as them.

Brought the car to the car wash and to do sterilisation the other day. The one that I used to frequent. It used to cost only $3, now everything increase price too, now it also cost $6 like everywhere else. Waste my time and petrol to go there. Things are getting expensive, still once in a while must bring it to car wash, so can use a lot of water to wash away the dirt in those little corners that a pail of water can't reach. No choice, since daddy doesn't allow me to pull the hose out (neither does he allow me to go car wash).

Had an outing and dinner with my accounting friends on Thursday. The afternoon ended up with scenes of frustration in between sessions of Kinect and Wii at Playnation. Well, I was hunched over my laptop pulling bidding data while they kept calling me to do the dance. Such a joy. It seems like the group is getting closer, hope it's not something that is short-lived.

I managed to get hold of a few new laptops, especially the top model of Toshiba Protege R830. Being the speed obsessed freak, I did some benchmarking test on them. Basically, in geek terms, to measure the flops of the processor and graphics card. Hoho... It surprised me to find out that my laptop's Nehalem processor is actually marginally faster than those Sandy Bridges, so is my now slightly dated graphics card. Now Sony, admit it. It's not an Intel inside right? It's something more sinister right? Perhaps from Fukushima?

My aunt and family came back from US for a visit. Have not seen them for a long long time and had been bringing them around the pass few days for sightseeing and stuff. I'm going USS again tomorrow! Haha... I miss sitting on the roller coaster. This time I'm going to hog the seat for the entire day. And no more VIP pass. Waste my money.

It seems that I haven't post anything intellectual for quite some time...

~wished upon a star~

Pre-School

2011-08-04T09:48:00.004+08:00

I'm facing a financial crisis. Record inflation exist everywhere, purchasing power of money is diminishing. Starting school doesn't have to be this hard, does it? So, just take a leap of faith, what's the worst thing that can happen? Smacking your face on the pavement only mah.

Kouped from lf's. I think I had seen it before, I have all the animation clips too, but still, entertaining nonetheless.

Then since it's Youtube, one lead to another. Screw related videos.

My phone told me that for the pass week, I clock up 13 hours of sleep debt. Well done.

My friend just told me one of her classmate is getting married. The boyfriend proposed on the 21st birthday. Awww..... sweet! *glassy eyed*

~wished upon a star~

Food Porn

2011-08-01T11:34:00.004+08:00

I was asked to do a favour - to help take photo for food. The owner was the previous chef for the Turkey Ambassador, so now he's setting up a restaurant to sell Turkey food. Well, I have never done such thing before, and I have never handled a DSLR before either. Anyway, quoted from Jeremy Clarkson, how hard can it be?

Borrowed my uncle's Canon Eos 50D, with so many lens, strobe lights and a lot of other stuff for me to plug in and out. Why would people want to carry around so many stuff? Not heavy meh? That camera seems to have more things to press than the keyboard on my Vaio. Anyway, it took me just the better of 15 minutes to find out what to press for most of the settings and what I'm dealing with... I think.

Then finish taking the photos already of course must try the food. It's awesome. The cream caramel is fantastic and that brown thing that looks like dates is also awesome, though I would believe it's a bit too sweet for the local taste. The kebab is slightly drier than what I would prefer but it still taste great. The apple tart is extremely good. Then they have this very nice bread called simit. It's sprinkled with liberal amount of sesame and is super super super soft and aromatic, even after sitting in the aircon for some time. I can wake up to that every morning, probably it will give me a reason to have breakfast.

Food prices there are reasonable, slightly under the average price of a similar restaurant. So if you're interested, they are opening this Friday, it's located at Funsionopolis 3rd floor, Arkadas Cafe.

~wished upon a star~

Wednesday

2011-07-26T23:22:00.006+08:00

I followed daddy to one of his client's place today. Caribbean @ Keppel, nice, peaceful and beautiful place. I so like a house like that. The view's good, got the sea coming in, got yachts, got ships. I didn't go up to the person's house, just loitered around the carpark ogling at cars and on top looking at the sea. I quite like the penthouse unit there though, they have this small room on the top floor where the staircase leads to and the room opens out onto the rooftop. That room is made of glass! 4 walls and ceiling of glass! As some of you know, I do have a uncanny fetish for glass, how good if my room can come in that configuration. I will have that glass table and wardrobe from Ikea installed.

Anyway, went Sim Lim to meet with a supplier and then met with xp for movie. A Beautiful Life wasn't that good. Draggy. I still think Japanese or Korean romcom is better, with the exception of Nodame 2.

~wished upon a star~

School Briefings and Trainings

2011-07-25T23:01:00.002+08:00

Today's almost a 3 quarter day of briefings and training in school. It might be that I have not attended such long lectures for a long time. By early afternoon, I was pretty much trying not to doze off behind the computer.

The school also subscripted to a certain service that allows us to read/listen to the latest edition of virtually all of the world's newspaper. It's part of the library orientation programme and we were going through this service.

Me : Erm... I can't log in.

Instructor : Then you will have to wait.

Me : So do I log in with my school personal ID?

I : If you're in the school domain it will log in automatically.

Me : Sooo..... Why can't I get in now?

I : O... It means that the maximum number of concurrent users are already logged in.

Me : And that will be?

I : 7.

Me : 7!?!? In the entire school???

So, statistically and assuming a perfectly random situation, for every time I am able to log into the system, I should be able to win at least the consolation prize of the TOTO 2 times.

~wished upon a star~

Moushiwake Arimasen

2011-07-23T21:59:00.003+08:00

I remember during IT Show I was recommending to everyone who would listen that the Toshiba Protege R830 was the most value for money in the ultraportable laptop class. Of course there is the Vaio Z which I bought but it cost almost twice of the R830 and was currently delisted at that point in time. At $1899 , it was considered a a bargain then. I still remember how I told them that I would have gotten that without second thoughts if I am the one buying it. 2 people got it happily under my recommendation.

Now, imagine the shock when I open the school's laptop catalogue for the new academic year. The same laptop, with the same specifications, is now going for $1400 including 3 year warranty that also covers the battery. The moment I open it, I felt a need to find somewhere to bury my face.

Well, if I'm the one who bought it, I would have written it off an a unforeseen circumstances leading to a lost in investment capital. Afterall, based on historical data, I honestly didn't expected the school to carry this model. Luckily those 2 were quite understanding (or appeared to be understanding, for all I know, they might be making dartboards out of my face), but I still want to say I'm terribly sorry. Moushiwake arimasen.

~wished upon a star~

ASOC Amplified

2011-07-19T13:19:00.006+08:00

Best camp ever! Not that I attended a lot of camps through my schooling years though, but it's the one that I enjoyed the most. Well, whatever, I'm a dormant creature. The group mates are a wonderful bunch, especially the facilitators.

Somehow, someway ASOC felt much more enjoyable than any others. Probably cause of the more civilised location, or the more laid back pace, or the fun station games, or even the crazy things that we get up to. The build up to fright night was pretty good, the dumb excuse for needing to sit and wait for survey, the holding room with a horror movie playing, then needing to leave in heterosexual pairs to get up to the 5th floor for survey cause the lift broken down. I got a little suspicious when they started mentioning that the camp sponsors needed us to do a survey, my suspicion was confirmed when I saw the horror movie playing. Nevertheless, I must admit it's an awesome job coordinating the groups and the activities.

Then there is the many chatting sessions going late into the night. Then the things we did at 3.30 am in the morning. Awesome fun! Things that would usually be frown upon. Hiding from security in dark corners around school when discovered, keeping quiet and acting normal while panting from the exertion and excitement of the activity.

I was a dormant person, and still am. I never much like the idea of camps (or any other stuff that requires too much exertion except shopping), being away from basic creature comforts like a proper bed, proper showering facilities and proper food, but ASOC and the wonderful group mates really changed my impression of how fun a camp can be. A big thank you to the wonderful and best groups of Jack Sparrow and Spiderman.

On the side note, under peer pressure from certain group mates, I now have Whatsapp and Twitter! Once I loaded it in and my phone did the linking with my contacts, I realised that daddy is already on them long before me. Owned.

Now, when's the next round of 猫捉老鼠? And no, I'm now MRTのpobic.

~wished upon a star~

Children

2011-07-14T11:10:00.003+08:00

The other day, I brought up some discussions about children. Not exactly how many children to have but more like what are the roles of children.

Earlier on, I realised that nowadays there are people who feel that parents should not look towards their children as a means of support in their old age. In fact, such was the number of people who share this view that it made me uncomfortable. Of course, the opinion of the group that I was in may not be a good representation of the entire population but it still got me intrigued by this view.

The reason I got was traditionally, children are seen as free labour for parents back in the days of farming and also to take care of the elderly, to see children as a supporter during the old age now is considered selfish. Children should be allowed to do whatever they want after they have grown up and shouldn't be burden with such chores. My question is, if the previous generation requires 'caregivers' when they are old, doesn't the current generation have a greater need for it, given that human body are physically 'getting weaker' with all the conveniences technology provided us.

My idea was no matter how fit a person is, it is inevitable that one day he may need someone's assistance to get along with his daily routine. True. Domestic helpers will be able to do the job, or even an old folks home. But think of it this way, after slogging away for half a life, would you prefer your children to be taking care of you, or just any other domestic helper? Will a domestic helper or nurse be able to provide the personal touch and the psychological connection? Which brings me to the next point.

Children not just provide a means of financial support (even with CPF and savings, how many people have that much to survive up to 30 years of no income), but also psychological support. There are some who have strong mental independence who doesn't need mental support. Good for them. But the majority of people need someone to share and talk to. I think even the simple act of coming home for dinner brings much joy to the elderlies.

However, in my later discussion, I realised that we should never see children as a form of insurance. Children are like mutal funds, we can't guarantee a return on the investment, but it will be best if there are some forms of payouts. It is a fact that most people will need some kind of support in their later years. What can be done is to nurture the children so that they recognise the needs of their parents when they become old. To teach the children the virtue of filial piety.

Me? I most definitely will be taking care of my parents next time. I also don't want to be lonely in my older days, so I most certainly will be teaching the children to be filial. If not for myself, at least for the wife's sake, since based on statistics, most likely I will die before her, so she might end up being the more lonely one.

~wished upon a star~

Monday Relaxation

2011-07-12T15:10:00.003+08:00

Met up with jw, ch and ph for hi tea at Carousel and a bit of shopping yesterday. How nice to be able to sit down and have intellectual conversation over cups of coffee, tea and good food. I think it is a much better environment for the exchange of ideas and bonding to occur. I love their food, especially the cakes. But now they no longer have their delicious chocolate cakes for the hi tea. What a disappointment.

Anyway, they were able to know who I was from my phone number when I was making the reservation. Then I just assumed that they had my records in the system. While entering, the manager was able to address me by my full name, which kind of stunned me. I never give full name when making reservations and how did he know who I am. I'm pretty sure my Facebook is 'private' though, and I'm even more sure I despite my repeated visits, I never added Carousel as friend! My bill also has a 'pirority table' written on it, not sure what it means, but if it is some PR gimmick, they win. I'm glad to be a returning customer, just next time, I won't mind a welcome champagne.

Got a shirt and pants even though I told myself I had enough already. I was standing in front of it, my inner angel and devil fighting over each other, eventually the devil broke the crown of the angel and I happily went to pay for the purchase. I know jw was pretty disappointed by the failure to secure the 'whiskers', it might even reach the point of being devastated. But seriously, I like the look of the 'butt toning' one much more. haha...

Right, off to continue studying for test.

~wished upon a star~

Questions

2011-07-09T10:47:00.002+08:00

Which one will it be?

A person can be considered a chess master if

- He is a veteran who has played so many games, seen and remembered all the tactics that he knows what to expect in each of your move and counter attack back.

- He is a newbie but with tremendous brainpower and that once he knows the rules of chess, is able to simulate and predict your every move and how to counter it.

If a person has an acute sense of hyper self-awareness,

- He knows what exactly are his weak and strong points and is able to know his own limits and reach without even needing to carry out a task to 'explore and push himself'.

- He has build a mental wall around himself restricting what he can or cannot do.

~wished upon a star~

FTB

2011-07-08T23:46:00.002+08:00

FTB is over! It has been a fun, enriching an fulfilling 3 days. Been in an exciting group with a couple of individuals that seems to be breaming with energy even at 2am in the morning, radiating highly disruptive acoustic vibrations across the camp site, penetrating the self created abyss of quietness and recharge of the many others. Still, it has been an awesome group of people to be around.

Of course, not everything has been enjoyable, the hard floor and some of the meals for example. Also, the shower area was obviously designed by midgets, for midgets. Leaning my knee against the water release button and staring down at the top of the shower head, it looked to me more like a highly mounted foot wash rather than a place for the de-cleansing of the body. Seriously, it seems to me at that height, even the ladies will find it a problem, not to mention one of my group mate who is 13cm taller than me.

Daddy insisted on picking me up at East Coast, knowing that I sure have lots to ~~complain~~ talk about. It's mummy's birthday, so went for the first proper meal I had in 3 days and to watch the fireworks at Sentosa.

~wished upon a star~

End of Work

2011-06-29T16:32:00.004+08:00

My position as a Student Assistant at SMU officially ended. So now is a short period of no fixed work until the school activities start and the actual beginning of school.

Sieving through all those application details and interviews over the pass months, there had been amusing and unbelievable moments. Then there was also the time where applications was stacked all around, literally towering all around me the only direction I could move was roll my chair directly backwards. There are also things to be learnt from all those mundane tasks. Procedures, steps, the proper response. It is possible to learn from almost every task we do, it just depends on whether the person realises that there is some new knowledge there.

But looking back, I didn't particularly that enjoyed my time there, as compared to Kraft (I know what some of your thinking, but no, it's not about the chocolates, though it does help a little) or even back in Hub. I made some fantastic future course mates and school mates which I believe will have lots of contacts or even work closely in projects in at least the next 4 years. But there is just something that is not right about the air there that makes the job not as enjoyable. Still, it was a fruitful period, and I gained quite a lot. In fact I gained something that was extremely valuable.

Anyway, the school activities are all starting very soon. Next week is the university camp. Dreading it. Is there someway somehow that I can not attend it?

~wished upon a star~

Sunfish

2011-06-26T20:49:00.003+08:00

I was at the food fair at Expo today. Guess what I found? Sunfish meat! Well, not exactly meat, but sunfish skin!

I know, most of you will be out there will be wondering what is sunfish. I think most people has never even heard the name before, don't talk about seeing or even eating it.

Sunfish, or mola mola, is the heaviest bony fish in the world. It can grow up to 3.5m and weight almost 2500kg. Well, it's not exactly the prettiest fish, and here's a picture.

Main thing is, that thing is considered a delicacy. The Japanese first started eating it, then China, Korea and Taiwan. Best served either raw or boiled in soup. I didn't had a chance to eat it in Japan, apparently it seems rarer than fugu. Another reason why it's so rare is cause it is also poisonous, but like the fugu, if a certified chef prepares, it should be safe for consumption. From what I gather, as long as the ovaries are not touched, the poison will not contaminate the rest of the meat. The Sunfish is also seldom bred in captivity due to it's large size and demanding care regime. They are not very maneuverable and so aquariums have to be huge enough to prevent them from hurting themselves by bumping into the glass. I saw it once at Kaiyukan Aquarium, which is one of the few in the world that has the Sunfish, as well as a pair of Whale Sharks. This's a photo I took that time.

Anyway, there is only 1 company distributing Sunfish locally. It was sold out at the previous food fair and I couldn't get my hands on it. Then they told me that the meat is sold only to hotels as they are the ones who can afford it and know how to prepare it. Consumers are only able to buy the skin. Well, better than nothing, it's full of wholesome collagen. I forgot to ask them which hotel has it though.

On a separate note, Lo'real was having a sale at a side hall. The items are like on more than 50% discount! Sis also got me some Skin Food mask online for like 70% off.

And I'm not going Manhatten Fish Market anymore. Their fish consistently have that fishy smell.

~wished upon a star~

Saturday and Cooking Sensation

2011-06-25T23:11:00.005+08:00

Had lunch at Carlton Hotel before picking up grandma from the airport. They are having this durian season thing again and the durian cake is pretty awesome. Good coffee and cakes, makes the day. They also have this cone thingy with creamy and thick chocolate inside, could sit there and eat it whole day.

Grandma bought this huge mushroom from China. It's like really huge. It's dried but after hydration, it will probably swell to about 1.5 times the current size. Hopefully it's natural growth and not cause of some excessive growth hormones.

Anyway, my new phone is sort of crazy. A senseless Sensation with Sense, more like a cooking Sensation. First day of use, I unplug it from the power, by the time I step out of the house for work, the phone burned off 30% of the battery. Literally burning off and it feels too hot for what a phone should feel. Held it in my hands, felt uncomfortable in my pocket, and probably all that heat isn't too good for whatever's in there. By noon, the phone is dead. All that 100% of battery gone from doing nothing but being a hand warmer.

Now the battery continue to seem crazy, but on the other end of the spectrum. The battery almost doesn't drain when left alone - it was on the same level for over 2 hours. Stayed the same for so long until I thought there was something wrong with the battery app. Downloaded almost every battery app on the market and all showed the same thing. Until I found out that there is a 'sleep' mode that somehow cuts off battery usage when it hasn't been used for a while.

Daddy asked how was the new phone. Well, typically, I started with "compared to the Galaxy S2, the Atrix, the Optimus 2x and the brand new Nokia N9... ... ..." Well, all I can say that he regretted asking the question.

I was also having headache getting used to the qHD screen and the words, not unlike when I first got my Vaio. Such high resolution on a small screen does need getting used to, not to mention it make everything smaller. Small means more things to see in one look, good, except when age's catching on...

Not bad though, if the problem persist, maybe I can bring it back for a refund, though I still like the HTC software.

~wished upon a star~

All In A Day's Work

2011-06-21T20:24:00.002+08:00

It sure is a lot of work squeezed into the day. I must give myself a great pat on the back for finishing so much today. All the schedules have been conflicting with each other and after a day of hard work, I accomplished a lot.

Filled up the petrol (today's Tuesday and Tuesday means got 2x discount~~), watch 2 episodes of Megastructures on National Geographic, an episode of Mythbusters, an episode of Future Weapons on Discovery, some youtube videos and commercials, watched some NHK, came up with a wonderful plan deconflicting schedules for lunch some time later on. I think I missed out some stuff, yea, fill up the necessary forms for school, sign up the necessary programmes and deconflict the ~~!@%$#^%$&$*&%%$#@~~ wonderful CSP.

Anyway, came across this Japanese commercial that is surely jaw dropping.

Why does such advertisement make sense? The jingle (if it can be called a jingle) is catchy. Kue kue kue chocoboooruuu. kue kue kue chocoboooruuu.

I was also thinking which phone to change, since daddy's contract is ended yesterday. Yes, I will hijack the phone, well, others doesn't need to know I just changed phone last December. Anyway, I was contemplating between the Motorola Atrix with the laptop dock or the LG Optimus 2X. HTC Sensation is too new and I wasn't willing to spend so much on a phone anymore. But from deep within the bowels of Starhub site, purposely placed there so fewer people chance across it, I happen to uncover an online promotion for HTC Sensation. Since daddy's plan is a higher end one, the phone's practically free! Of course I ordered it, free delivery to home somemore. I was a happy boy, having done so much today and changed from obsolete 6 month old phone to the next top end phone - until 30 minutes later.

Nokia announced their new phone running on MeeGo, the N9, it seems to combine the best of WP7 and Android into the goodness of Nokia hardware. Its got to be a record. Well, daddy hasn't stopped shaking his head yet, more important is, can I have a refund back on my Sensation?

Kue kue kue I want a reeeefuuunnnddddd...

~wished upon a star~

Surprise Surprise

2011-06-20T22:55:00.003+08:00

Xp and I decided to spring a surprise on lf. Well, it was her idea and I was the accomplice. Got a cake and went to her house, only to find out that she is not at home. Champion.

Sat at the playground near her house to wait for her to come back. Well, I saw a car going by, the driver face looks very like the brother, but I can't see the passengers. Should have gone back and check then no need to stay out in the sun for so long. Anyways, managed to spring the surprise in the end! Photos are with lf though.

Once again, Happy Birthday! =)

On a side note, there was this Chinese telemarketer who call my house earlier in the day trying to sell me some ring that will make me rich. Ya right...

blah blah blah

Me : Not interested.

TM : I want to help you get rich.

Me : Not interested.

TM : We can control our fate, and I'm presenting you this opportunity.

Me : I think you can present your this opportunity to others, I'm not interested.

TM : Oh well, I want to help you but since you don't want to help yourself then I also have no choice.

Me : Is that so? Then probably you better start helping yourself first. If it is so good, you won't be sitting at wherever you are and trying to sell me this. You will be enjoying a tai tai life now. So save that ring for yourself. Thank you very much. Bye.

Of course, it's all in Chinese. I think I did pretty well uh. Haha..

~wished upon a star~

Flooding

2011-06-19T21:33:00.007+08:00

This is a little overdue, seeing that the flooding happened 3 weeks ago. I was just a bit busy and kind of lazy to pen it down.

After all the complains, raising of roads, building of flood gates etc. There were massive floodings again! Well done. 3 one-in-50-year floods, that makes us the nation with the highest average life expectancy!

I must say the road raising efforts certainly helped - it shifted the flooding from lower Orchard to upstream Orchard. As for Bukit Timah, I guess the construction of the train lines played a major part, seeing that they redirected all the roads and everything is like being torn up.

I find it most unbelievable that the agency in charge came up with the normal excuses regarding the floods. One article blamed the pumps in the shopping mall in being unreliable and inadequate in addressing the volume water that will be flowing in during the heavy storm. The landlord replied that the pumps worked fine until it flooded and failed. To me, the main point is water shouldn't even be flowing in at the beginning, and if your main drains are already overflowing, where do my pumps pump the water to? Outside the main entrance only to have it flow in again cause that is the only direction that it can flow to?

Another agency engineer commented on the raising of roads downstream doesn't have any effect on the shifting of the flood areas, since it is downstream area. Really? So if you raise the level of say a river downstream, it won't affect the upstream? Of course it will! It's like reducing the capacity of the river and then the upstream will flood or the water will pool somewhere in the middle cause it flows away less quickly. Try more complicated analogy if you need a smokescreen next time. This also applies to the Barrage. I believe I mentioned it before in some post. The official stand is that the Barrage help to reduce flooding, but how? I suspect it in fact will contribute to increased floodings.

It seems that before it is up, flooding only occurs when heavy rain coincides with high tide, now whenever there is heavy rain, it floods. Officially it has been said that the Barrage will prevent water from coming in and allow water to flow out when the level is too high. But did anybody considered that since now the bay area is a reservoir and it has to be at a higher level than the outside sea to prevent seawater backflow, so now the general water table in the entire central area is now higher than before the Barrage is built. When the general water level is higher, it simply means that the available room for additional water is lessen, so an increment of the same volume of water will have a higher tendency of overflowing than previous times. About opening the flood gates? Think about it, if free flowing water is also unable to leave the bay fast enough to avoid flooding upstream, what makes you think that it will flow faster when you have huge pillars blocking the way now?

I was also watching the video of water flowing into Liat Towers despite the flood barrier. What a joke. The spokesperson from the manufacturer mentioned that it slowed the water and it still flooded because their pumps not good enough. These people all from the same mould one is it? If I spent so much installing something like that, I would expect it to keep out water totally, not slow down the water, duh...

The new minister mentioned that he will work hard on it, and also work with landlords to see how they can prevent flood from entering the building. If I want to be more pessimistic, I would think that he is trying to push the cost of flood proofing to landlords. 'Force' landlords build expensive stuff like the flood barriers so supposedly water can't get in. Hence, when it floods outside, their buildings are 'safe'. In the first place, shouldn't they be doing something to prevent floodings?

I learnt that drains are built according to flood patterns. Small drains in residential areas are designed to accommodate once-in-15-years flood, bigger artery drains conform to once-in-20/25-years flood and canals like the Bukit Timah canal can accommodate once-in-50-years flood. Past histories and proven data are almost never wrong, but I believe the parameters of the data have changed since then. Grass become concrete and hence surface run off increases and hence more water gets into the drain... You get the point.

~wished upon a star~

OMG Part 2

2011-06-15T23:36:00.002+08:00

Hohoho... I went in to check again. I'm now 3rd (OMG! post) and 4th (the old one) on Google JP, 10th (OMG!) on Google SG.

Not to mention now the keywords are becoming more generic. Just the C-word can get you the link. Eh... Not very good... This blog is now like joining the ranks of how to be a C and people sharing C experience sites. Ewww...

I'm starting to wonder how this top Google queries are captured. Can't be so many people searching for it and dropping by here right? This was supposed to be like a quiet site with only a couple of people dropping by a day.

~wished upon a star~

OMG!

2011-06-14T20:52:00.003+08:00

Guess what? My blog is on the top 5 query sites on Google Japan! The 4th to be more specific. Ehh.... I don't know how it ended up there except for some unknown reason and certain keywords that seriously puzzles me.

Go to http://www.google.co.jp and query this - japanese crossdress site:blogspot.com

I understand people search for cross-dressing in blogspot sites, but how in the world did people ended up here with that?!?! It's not in Japanese, I'm not a cross dresser and I'm pretty sure I'm just a 'aisuru nippon' guy that doesn't warrant such large attention. I know I only wrote a post here on this cross-dress variety show series from Japan some time last year, it's not like this is a place for whatever cross-dress tutorial. And it's not that a good thing, listed alongside in the first page are cross-dress cafes, Akihabara, Kara and right at the bottom, an adult site. Crap...

I have another post which somehow a huge lot of people keep searching for it too, which I don't know why either. You can view it here.

Hmm... Is that also why my cbox is getting quite a lot of spam?

~wished upon a star~

P is for Procrastination Monster

2011-06-13T14:47:00.002+08:00

The time now is 15:07.

I didn't go to office today. On paper, today is supposed to be for consolidating all the school stuff that I want / need to do / sign up / plan / schedule / de-conflict / plan. I had been online since the morning and all the check-list stuff remains 'on paper'.

I wasted half my day surfing around on the very interesting internet and watching MVs, fail videos and funny commercials from Youtube on my new 150 inch screen and a long time during lunch tinkering around the kitchen. My neck is a bit sore, I think 150 inch is a little too big for the living room.

I learnt something though. Protection money collected by traditional chinese triads are in multiples of $108. It's based on a legend leading back to the roots of triads in China. Also, contrary to what we see on TV, people and businesses in areas who are used to paying protection money to triads do not feel victimised. Especially those people who are deeply religious, they see it as a form of tax to shield against evils. Well, maybe some of us do, but most don't see the IRA as a triad group every April when e-filing is due right?

Now, time to start work on that check-list.

~wished upon a star~

A Sick Note

2011-06-13T10:57:00.003+08:00

A fictional note to the boss from an injuried worker. Sure is good, I think the boss can't stay angry for long if this is real, what a way to start the day.

An after thought though, I would hate to be Paddy.

via

~wished upon a star~

PC Show

2011-06-12T14:20:00.002+08:00

I was at PC Show on both Friday and Saturday. The last fair before school starts and everyone seems to be buying new computers. I was supposed to buy mine during this period too but due to that promotion, I got it way back in February. Good thing too as it was delisted by Sony shortly after due to the rumoured upcoming refreshed model that is even thinner, lighter and more powerful. But anyway, I was telling anybody at home who will listen that what a great choice I had made, otherwise I will be 'forced' to continue using my old tablet when school starts.

Saturday went down with the usual hangout group. But ended up only with ch as one was 'imbally late' and the other was 'still at home cause of the rain'. Walked around while I contemplated on how to bring the huge projector screen and my projector down to the car and fit it in. That was when ch mentioned that to leave it till jw arrived, cause 'he is an expert in handling long and hard things'. Ended up lowering the seats and putting it from the boot to the front. Saw diva chan too, and the first thing she has to say to me is 'why you come here spend money again'. Zzzz... My reputation so bad meh.

Finally, don't recommend eating at the Aston's at Suntec. The portion's smaller and food's not as tasty at the one at Cathay.

~wished upon a star~

Saturday

2011-06-04T22:37:00.004+08:00

Supposed to go cycling today, but it rained. So plans immediately switched to lunch, movie session and shopping. Not that I'm complaining.

Lunched at Durty Nelly's. It's a pub at Marina Square. Food's good, but give the fish and chips a miss. Got a voucher from some magazine roadshow some time last week. They were giving out goodie bags for every magazine purchase so I bought one, and recycled the magazine - Men's Health, no food, no shopping, no cars, no tech stuff, why would I read it. It's a good deal, $6 for a magazine, plus $50 worth of goodies inside, including this free meal voucher. Then they have CitiBank 1 for 1 promo too, no service charge either, so the food is worth it. Service's good, but maybe cause it's lunch and there's only 4 other occupied tables. Still, good place to have lunch, some drinks and chatting.

Coca Cola was doing some promotion at City Link Mall too. They ask you to sign a little piece of paper pledging to be healthy. Then they proceed to give a few bottle of Coke and a 1 for 1 voucher for Coke Float at Macs. Well, I can't think of a more unhealthy combination... But, it's a free coke afterall.

Watched X-Men First Class and did some shopping after that. Jw needed to buy some present for his school camp, some present exchange thing. Well, I'm there just to do my part for the economy. Haha... GSS is here. But the keyword is control, get only what is needed.

I came across this too, celebrity endorsement, collect them all.

~wished upon a star~

Life Situation

2011-06-02T22:48:00.002+08:00

Let's say you find a subordinate surfing the net/doing his personal stuff during office hours, and you chide and black-mark him out for his actions. However, this subordinate knows that his other colleagues are also surfing the net, some even engaging in it much more passionately than himself. Problem is you saw him doing it but not the other colleagues.

Should he:

1. Sound out cause others are also doing it and bring it to your attention so as to bring about fairness?

2. Keep quiet cause he is in the wrong anyway and being in the wrong, he holds a lower bargaining chip in the subconscious mind of yours.

And as a boss, what will you reaction/thoughts to either option 1 or 2 of his actions?

~wished upon a star~

Sounds Wrong...

2011-05-30T22:43:00.001+08:00

At that moment in time... It just sounds wrong... So wrong...

~wished upon a star~

Lusan's Party and Other Randomness

2011-05-29T19:30:00.006+08:00

Went Lusan's pre birthday party yesterday. It was a BBQ but didn't eat much, spent more time talking and catching up. The host was pretty busy shuttling between the various clusters of guest so we just chatted among ourselves. It's sure a nice gathering though not a lot from the secondary class turned up.

The picture's a little blurry. My phone can't take good photos at night, no image stabiliser and the host has to hop out of the frame at that moment. Well, I will just wait for the other sets of photos to be uploaded. Gave them a lift to the train station after that with ch, cm and ja doing some aerobatics in the car to make way for the ladies. That area got a lot of black wolfs, no safe to walk alone at night.

This got me craving for a class gathering. Yj was telling me the other day to plan for one, got so busy and it seems that everybody is travelling all over the world. Aiya, wait till you return from Japan first la. Hmm... Just a dinner would be good, no need too elaborate stuff like BBQ or Universal Studios. Eh... It seems ages that we had our last gathering, I believe it was some time last year around CNY and it was organised by dear Ivy... Soshite, diva chan yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

Anyway, I dropped my phone again. I never dropped anything this many times before. I think this phone is cursed. Somehow, it will just keep slipping out of my hands. Thinking about it, I never dropped any of my previous phones before (it was always someone who dropped it for me). This is my most expensive phone till date and the least well taken care of. I know, I had more costly ones before but those are always bought on daddy's plan, meaning a top end model only need less than a hundred. Well, this is bought on a normal plan. Well, some like to say 旧的不去, 新的怎么会来. I have another plan ending next month, in time for IT Show. Haiz... Consumerism at it's best.

Weirdly, the car now makes squeaky sounds after the servicing. The front driver side suspension squeaks whenever I go over a bump. Eh... Anybody knows why?

~wished upon a star~

Sunday

2011-05-22T22:15:00.002+08:00

Went pass Cairnhill Community Centre this afternoon. This got me thinking... Why would they need a community centre there? Does it have any purpose there? I mean does anyone living in that area even visits the community centre, does anybody there even needs any form of help? They're not the rich, they're the super rich. Every single one of them.

Maybe. Rich men have rich men problem.

"Can you help me write a letter of appeal so I can buy the last Lexus LFA?"

"Can you help me write a letter of appeal so I can get the limited edition LV?"

I know. Maybe I can bring up the issue of why the parking space in some of the condos in Orchard are so small? Even I have problems getting out of my car, so those people in their huge sedans, they climb through the moonroof? Right, maybe it only applies to the visitor lots.

Anyway. Sometimes a surprise really brightens up the day.

~wished upon a star~

Personal Home Theatre

2011-05-21T21:08:00.003+08:00

Just came back from one of daddy's friend's house. He sure has a very beautiful house. 3 floors and a basement, with a lift and a home theatre in the basement.

The lift is something I can live without, but the home theatre is simply wonderful. Sound proofing, so many speakers, with a whole wall of controllers and tuners. I didn't even know you need so many of them. The projector is another marvel. Maybe it's cause the screen is quite near, but it seems that the images is a lot brighter and sharper than those in cinemas.

I sure won't mind having one at home. At least I would like to have that LED starry ceiling in my room.

~wished upon a star~

Link - The Horror of Blimp

2011-05-20T23:46:00.002+08:00

A post by a forum contributor on a toy blimp he got.

Last week while travelling I stopped at a Zany Brainy store and saw that they had a blimp for sale. It's called Airship Earth, and it's a great big balloon with a map of the Earth on it, and two propellors hanging from the bottom. You blow up the balloon with helium put batteries in it, and you have a radio controll indoor blimp.

I'd seen these things for sale in Sharper Image catalogs for $60-$75. At Zany Brainy it was on clearance for $15. What a deal!

Last night my wife was playing tennis and it was just my daughter and I at home. I bought a small helium tank from a party store, and last night we put the blimp together.

Let me tell you, it's quite a blimp. It's huge. The balloon has like a 3 ft diameter.

We blew it up with the tank attacched the gondola with the propellors, and put in batteries.

Then we balanced the blimp for neutral bouyancy with this putty that came with it, so it hangs in the air by itself neither rising nor falling.

It was easy and fun, and then I blew up another balloon and made Mickey Mouse helium voices for my daughter.

My three year old girl loved it. We flew the blimp all over the house, terrorized the dog, attacked the fish tank, and the controls were so easy my daughter could fly.

Let's face it, blimps are fun.

Alas, the fun had to end and my daughter had to go to sleep. I left the blimp floating in my office downstairs, my wife came home, and we went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

At this point it is important to know that my house has central heating. I have it configured to blow hot air out on the ground floor and take it in at the second floor to take advantage of the fact that heat rises.

The blimp which was up until this moment a fun toy here embarked on a career of evil. Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraithlike over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.

Running silently, and gliding six feet or so above the ground on invisible and tiny air currects it approached the bed.

In spite of it's noiseless passage, or perhaps because of it, I awoke. That doesn't really say it properly. Let me try again.

I awoke, the way you awake at 2:00 AM when your sleeping senses suddenly tell you without reason that the forces of evil on converging on you.

That still doesn't do it. Let me try one more time.

I awoke the way you awake when you suddenly know that there is a large levitating sinister presence hovering towards you with menacing intent through the maligant darkness.

Now sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there are large sinister and menacing things floating out of the darkness to do me and mine evil. Usually I open my eyes, look and listen carefully, decide it was a false alarm, and go back to sleep.

So, the fact that I awoke in such a manner was not all that unusual.

On this occasion I awoke to the sense that there was a large menacing presence approaching me silently out of the gloom, so I opened my eyes, and there it was! A LARGE SILENT MENACING PRESENCE WAS APPROACHING ME OUT OF THE GLOOM, AND IT COULD FLY!!!

Somewhere in the control room of my mind a fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse while smoking a cigar with his feet up on the table, watching the security monitors of my brain with his peripheral vision. Suddenly he saw the LARGE SILENT SINSITER MENACING FLOATING PRESENCE coming at me, and he pulled every panic switch and hit every alarm that my body has. A full decade's allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My metabolism went from "restful sleep mode" to HOLY SHIT! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE!!!! mode" in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per minute to about 240 even faster.

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution know this, too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

Without volition I screamed my battle cry (which is indistinguishable to the sound a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her dress (not that I'd know what that sounds like,) and lept out of bed in my underwear.

I struck the approaching menace with all my strength and almost fell over at the total lack of resistance that a helium balloon offers when you punch the living shit out of it with all the stength that sudden middle of the night terror produces.

It's trajectory took it straight into the ceiling fan which whipped it about the room at terrifying velocity.

Seeking a weapon, I ripped the alarm clock out of its plug and hurled it at the now High Velocity Menacing presence (breaking the clock and putting a nice hole in the wall.)

Somehow at this moment I suddenly realized that I was fighting the blimp, and not a monster. It might have been funny if I didn't truly and actually feel like I was having a legitimate heart-attack.

On quivering legs I went to the bathroom and literally gagged into the toilet while shaking uncontrollably with the shock of the reaction I'd had.

Unbeleivably, both my wife and daughter had completely slept through the incident. When I decided that I wasn't having a heart attack after all I went back into the bedroom and found the blimp which had somehow survived the incident.

I took it to the walk in closet and released it inside where it floated around with the air currents released from the vents in there. I closed the door, this sealing it in, and went back to bed. About 500 years later I fell asleep.

***

At about 7 am my wife awoke. She had been playing tennis and wasn't aware that we have assembled the blimp the previous evening, and that is was now floating around the the walk-in closet that she approached.

The dyndamic between the existing air currents of the closet and the suction caused by opening the door was just enough to give the blimp the appearance of an Evil Sinister Menace flying straight towards her.

This time the blimp did not survive the encounter, nor almost, did I, as I had to explain to my very angry spouse what motivated me to hide an evil lurking presence in the closet for her to find at 7 am.

I can order replacement balloons on the internet but I don't think I will.

Some blimps are better off dead.

via

~wished upon a star~

Huge Moon and Cabinet Reshuffle

2011-05-18T22:09:00.003+08:00

Today's moon is especially huge. Seems to me that it is bigger than that time the super moon. Saw it on the way home, but I couldn't get a good shot cause my window was a bit dirty, the camera keep catching the dirt. Time to wash car le...

Also, the new cabinet line up was announced today. The internet's already filled with people criticising the lineup, how it's all for show. Haiz...

We don't seem to be easy to please eh...

~wished upon a star~

Hmmmm...

2011-05-15T21:35:00.003+08:00

MM Lee mention that young Singaporeans no longer understand the sufferings and hard work that the first and second generation leaders put in to build the country. A few days later, the theme of this year's National Day Parade was unveiled. It will be centered on how we overcome the difficulties in the past 46 years and be what we are today.

We are looking at one of the highest COE prices and high inflation rate. Amidst the many complains of rising standards of living, we have now become the only country in the world where luxury car sales exceed the sales of mass market cars.

On a separate note, I 'murdered' 2 rubbish bins today. Was at my aunt's when I reversed into the neighbour's 2 bins. Well, it didn't come up on the reverse sensor, and I couldn't see it in my mirror. Pseudo bins... Not the first time. It seems that everytime I go there, somehow someway some bins will just have to pop up where I'm reversing into, doesn't matter how careful I am while reversing. You know, like any other estates, people put bins on the roadside to chop parking, but I only seem to bear a grudge at this estate's bins. Ops... They don't read this, and I don't think they know who I am and where my aunt stays bah? I'm quite sure they will hate me.

~wished upon a star~

GE 2011 Aftermath

2011-05-08T20:53:00.004+08:00

There we go, the ruling party remains the ruling party, the opposition gained a few more seats, in fact, they gained the first every GRC.

What is happening? Foreign Minister GY was voted out of parliament. Do you guys know what you just did? Of all the people you could have voted out, you have to choose GY. Why is that guy who raised the housing prices so high still sitting there smiling? (Pulls hair and stamps feet!)

Fine, I'm exaggerating. It has already happened. I think a lot of people are really too frustrated at the government to care too much. Though I still maintain that I would prefer him to stay on, I might even prefer that the ruling party lost 2 other GRCs just to keep GY in parliament. Actually, I would rather SM and that National Development Minister's GRC got voted out. The lost of SM is not really a big deal, since he doesn't hold any position that will have a direct and immediate impact on our future and since he is only giving advice now, it's not difficult for him to stay on as a Senior Minister Consultant (SMC! I think I can sell myself as a image consultant! Let the SMC rule serve your SMC). As a huge bonus, we don't get Miss Kate Spade in parliament. Then for the National Development Minister, I think few of us will be sad to see him leave. So we have 2 big groups of opposition, and yet we still retain the real good and capable people.

I really admire GY. I feel that he has been a really good Minister. One that really worked hard for the country and for the people. Many Free Trade Agreements were negotiated by him, among the more high profile one will be the one with the US. With FTAs, the many foreign companies will then be able to set up their high tech manufacturing business here, so indirecting, many of our high skilled manufacturing workers owe their jobs to him. His calm and reassuring voice has also been the face for us on the international stage, strongly protecting our interest in the face of many larger nations, and many world leaders are familiar with him. This is only during his term as a Foreign Minister, not to mention during the time when he was Health Minister, Trade and Industry Minister and Arts Minister (when he pushed for allowing dialect on programmes and R rated movies). He has always been a liberal person and is not afraid to push forward with new, innovative and sometimes controversial ideas in parliament. He is also able to reach out well to the young and most importantly, willing to listen and act on it. Not only in politics, personally, he also practices in giving back to society. Viva Foundation for cancer children was started and funded by him and his wife after his youngest son was diagnosed with leukemia. Fine, critics can say that he has a huge paycheck and it's cause his son had cancer before. But how many people remember the hardship and set out to help others? Most will just be relieved and carry on as per normal. Then his paycheck is rightfully earned by him, it's not like he rob or cheated the money. Hence, when he said that he will be the voice and he has the capability to bring about a reform in the party, I fully believed him.

Anyway, it's very sad to see the nation loose such a bright and talented person. But well, it's just the way. It's really too bad that his GRC people decided to vent the frustration of his party on him. I'm quite surprised that even leaders of many other countries, especially Asean ones, expressed shock and regret that he will not longer be Minister.

Judging from the results, I think it is clear that people are getting tired of the way the government is doing things. Hope the marginal win will reinforce the message that we are very unhappy with the current situation and time to start working on it. With some opposition in, I hope that they will keep to their promise to start speaking up, contribute constructive ideas and not keep quiet like what they had did most of the time in the past couple of decades. Well, digging out bones are not counted. Anyone can be an armchair critic (I think I'm a pretty good one by the way), but a leader has to have valid solutions along with his criticism.

On a lighter note, I find some people really amusing. First, they voted out the incumbent party, now they signing a petition to bring them back in again. I find it really weird.

Then there is another petition, this one I support - to disqualify TPL. She broke the cooling day rules and nothing happen to her. So there is a petition going on to disqualify her. Sign it here, you know you have to, I did. If not, we might find our next progress package in Kate Spade equivalents. 3-room and below, a Kate Spade tote, 4-room, a Kate Spade carrier bag, 5-room, a Kate Spade handbag, private properties, a Kate Spade accessory of your choice. Thinking of it, if it comes true, I'm going to throw my full support on the next candidate who pose with a BMW.

Then after kicking out TPL, they are planning to start another petition. Guess what? To bring GY back into parliament as TPL replacement and let him keep his Foreign Minister job.

I think we win liao.

~wished upon a star~

The Nation Votes

2011-05-07T20:46:00.003+08:00

I'm settling down in front of my TV waiting for the results. The nation has decided. I think there will be no question on who will lead us for the next 5 years, rather it is how many seats will the opposition take this time. I'm not sure, but I'm kind of interested on how some of the more hotly contested areas will turn out.

My views?

No doubt the ruling party will return to power. But I hope for a marginal victory in most areas, something in the region of 52 : 48 will be very very nice indeed. Give them a sense of urgency and 'letter of warning' that more has to be done for the people.

Well, I sincerely hope our Foreign Minister stays. I like him. I feel he has done a lot for our nation. True, we will loose one of our more credible opposition, but hey, too bad. All I can say is they picked the wrong area. They pale greatly compared to the Foreign Minister. I fully support our minister in this area, so between him and having a 'First World Parliament', I pick the Foreign Minister.

Well, there are some ministers that I don't wish to see anymore. The opposition should focus on areas under the Minister for National Development and the Coordinating Minister for National Security and DPM. Granted, our DPM did a good job during the SARS period, but it seems to me that he is losing touch with what is going on. These are some people that I would be glad to see them go, especially that one in charge of public housing.

Between the Minister for Community Development and that former senior government official, I can't decide who I dislike more. Just let them fight it out.

Lastly, I express deep regret that certain people who don't deserve and can't lead the country will be voted in, riding on the coat tails of their much more capable team mates. Well... Honestly we can blame them for coming up with this system, they are the ruling party, and honestly, I don't think we can blame them for coming up ways to safeguard their interest. This always happens to the big bosses.

Still, I really can't stand having a brainless, senseless, speechless, foot-stamping, Kate Spade wielding bimbo sitting in parliament.

We shall see...

~wished upon a star~

Inflation

2011-05-04T15:40:00.010+08:00

Everything is going up nowadays. Another big topic during the campaigns now is about the rising cost of living and inflation. I think I need not elaborate on this as surely everybody have to be aware of it. How the amount of food portion is getting smaller and smaller and how the prices are going the other way. How $50 on the Ez-Link card no longer sustain us through an entire month.

I stand by that what the government has said that they did help a lot by giving out the grow and share package. True. They did help by giving us a lot of additional payouts this year, and if you think through it rationally, again it is true that it is enough to cover the inflation from last year. Enough to cover meaning that the payout amount is greater than the incremental cost that the average household faces from inflation last year. However, looking at the way prices are going, I would think that there are much more that the government can do to aid the citizens through inflation. Moreover, people grumble cause such payouts are given only once, but higher prices are staring at us every single day.

To find out solutions for inflation, I think we need to look at what is causing them. Us being a small country without much natural resources, one would presume that imported inflation is the main or almost sole contributor to what we are facing now. True in a way. Look at worldwide inflation last year, among the hardest hit is China reporting a staggering rate of up to 15%, yet they are the world's major exporter. So, in a way, our policy of allowing the currency to appreciate paid off, seeing that our inflation rate is only a modest 4% compared to China's. Great job by the government? In a way, yes. However, I came across a report from a independent research firm that did a rough study on the causes of inflation (apologies I lost the link). They discovered that imported inflation makes up only 45% of our average prices, the other 55% comes from localised inflation. Meaning, things like transport, wages, levies, tax, rentals, red tape etc. effect more on the the price that we pay on that plate of chicken rice than the chicken and rice itself.

Some propose cutting GST and subsidies to ease prices. I don't fully agree. This policy looks good by itself, but if you cut GST, where is your revenue going to come from? There's a lot of implication for every move. Rather, I would think a better way is to have subsidies on the basic food necessities. Like some countries, prices of rice, sugar, salt and a few other basic items (of course subsidies should stop at good quality white rice, Japonica and multi grains should be considered luxury. Good quality cause cheap should sometimes also be good, be sincere when you intend to gift, something I learnt in my previous job.) should be placed under a price ceiling. Items that are essential for basic survival. Such subsidies do eat a bit into our spendings, but GST income should still be able to comfortably sustain such a budget.

Another area that should change is labour issues. Many talks about imposing minimum wages and cutting foreign labour. I believe cutting off foreign labour is not the way to go. As I mentioned in this previous post, we really need foreign labour to fill in the low skill and service related jobs. Hence, I'm willing to tolerate the higher influx of low skill foreign workers provided employers instil upon them the culture and 'rules and regulations' of being here. They are, afterall, visitors in a host country. Minimum wages is a good start off point. However, I believe it requires more work on it to ensure that it will not result in further inflation and it should be selective on what type of jobs should have a minimum wage imposed on it. Minimum wage should be something that a company gives through it's own means and not be passed on to consumers.

I strongly believe the government should greatly push up their effort in teaching companies on corporate responsibility. A company's success is dependent on the support the society and it's staff gives it. In return, it should at the very least ensure that it's staff are treated fairly and well taken care of - reasonable salary, benefits, welfare etc. A better step to take will be ensuring that the consumers are taken care of - reasonable pricing, good consumer support, safe products etc. An even better step will be to ensure that their environment is well taken care of and that they support sustainable practice. I believe in the mid term, all companies (providing public service) should have the interest of consumers as one of their main priorities. This also mean cutting back a bit on margins in order to provide affordable service and good staff welfare. Such subsidies should not be on the expense of the government and subsequently, tax payers.

Transport also have a huge impact on our standard of living. I strongly detest the fact that a company providing 'affordable and quality public transport for the masses' can report hundreds of millions in after tax profits and yet claim that they have to increase cost due to higher fuel prices, higher maintenance cost and a host of other ridiculous excuses. Of course, I still believe what I had again mentioned in this previous post as the ideal case for our transport system to be low cost, efficient and optimum. Yet, I foresee that such a case will never come true in our country. To be more practical, the government should clamp down on transport operators and really scrutinise their accounts, ensure they cut back on their margins to provide really affordable public transportation.

The government should work on these basic sources and housing before looking into other areas like healthcare. As a government, more should be done to address this issue that will only continue to get worse.

~wished upon a star~

Public Housing

2011-05-02T17:09:00.009+08:00

Our Minister says that public housing is an asset, that it is good that the price is appreciating and we should be glad about it. Well, if I can't sell it, is it still an asset. If I'm going to sell my asset, can I come and live in your house? I'm sure yours have plenty of room and space to accommodate a few more families right? Maybe you even have a few other house left empty and waiting for it to appreciate because it is an asset to you?

I don't see it as an asset, I see it as basic necessity. Honestly, I rather not have my house appreciate. It doesn't matter if I can't sell it for much, at least I'm sure I need not fork out another ridiculous amount to buy the next house. This also means that I will be taking out a smaller loan and a smaller percentage of my monthly salary will go towards the repayment of the loan.

So what about appreciating the value of our house? Investors will welcome that, the rich will welcome that, people who have multiple houses who bought it long long time ago at slightly above market value (to squeeze out the rest of the poorer people but still at low prices) will welcome it, simply cause they will be able to sell it off at a good profit now. Such an appreciating asset concept will never benefit lower to middle class people and definitely not the average working class who are buying their first home.

However, I do not agree with the opposition that housing prices should be brought down quickly by the government. Sure, it brings about immediately relief to the first time buyers, but imagine if the house that you have slogged hard to put in majority of your savings suddenly drop in value by half or more? That will be a few hundred thousands of hard earn money vapourising over few month's time. I think I will suffer a break down...

Neither do I agree with some who say that we should take more aggressive measures like Beijing. Beijing restricted non-Beijing residents from buying house in the capital, everyone who is not Beijing born will have to buy their home outside of the capital, if they're working in the capital, then take a bus in every morning. We can't do that, I don't believe in pushing PRs and foreigners to live in JB, it's just not that right. The current policy of ensuring PR own only 1 resale property in Singapore (while they can't have any properties in their home country) and is good enough. PRs are here to contribute to the economy, and I feel that it is right that we shouldn't make it too hard for them to settle down here.

More aggressive measures should be taken, but these should targeted at those who use public housing as a form of investment, or just looking at opportunities to quickly buy and sell and move onto the next house, in other words, using public housing as a true investment asset. There can't be a U-turn of housing prices anytime soon, hence policies should be targeted a slow down this rapid rise in prices. An example will be to increase the minimum 5 year occupancy term. Make it 10 or even 15 years. Impose a heavy tax on any profits that will arise from the selling within this period. A tax heavy enough to make profits almost non-existent. I think this will play a part in preventing speculation?

At least for now, I also feel that housing prices should be allowed to appreciate very very slowly. To be fair to the builders, at least the price should be able to more or less cover the inflation of building cost too.

~wished upon a star~

Rallies

2011-05-02T10:15:00.003+08:00

No, I haven't been attending them in person. So many people, expect me to squeeze with them? Hot and stuffy, no way.

I had been watching and reading them through the internet though. There are some good ones, but in my opinion, most are plain stupid and dumb, something like finger pointing games little kids play in primary school. This election we're having the largest number of opposition yet, but it seems to be mostly all style but no substance.

I want more quality stuff, you don't tell me we're facing problems with inflation, with rising housing cost, with rising public transport cost, with influx of foreigners. Anybody who goes to the market, who takes public transport, who pays ERP will notice that. If I still need an expert to tell us that, then we sure are a pathetic bunch of humans. Blame the ruling party once, then that's enough, no need to do the blaming game at every single time you hold the microphone. If you want to be an armchair critic, I think I'm far better one than you. Come up with plans, and backup plans, with clarifications on how you are going to make them feasible and sustainable, and ways to offset other negative externalities that may arise from your plans. The ruling party had the time to showcase their work all the time, now give the opposition some chance to talk, and they can only blame people.

The ruling party is also another disappointment. To think such and experienced team join the opposition in playing who wants to be the driver. I feel like switching off the TV every time I hear them talk about the poison mushroom and the big tree. Diaoz... If I want to see mushroom, I would have gone to play Maplestory. Instead, I would like to know how the current government is going to solve some of the issues affecting us now. Like how they are going to control inflation and actually bring down prices, distributing out progress packages is good, and it sure is a way to return back to people the growth that the country has earned over the past year, but is there going to be more effort put in to bring down prices?

I'm also reading through one of the opposition's manifesto. Seeing that years ago he was a high ranking official in the civil service, I think that his idea greatly disappoints. Sure, some of it seems good and I think will be a good success if it is implemented, but most of the rest entails mindless spendings and huge changes in policies that I strongly believe will leave us at a position much worse than we are now. I'm only about halfway through, you can read the 46 page manifesto here.

~wished upon a star~

Election MTV

2011-04-30T17:02:00.002+08:00

Some MTVs on the SGE. One from Mr Brown. He's really good.

~wished upon a star~

$50 Monthly for a House

2011-04-25T21:40:00.002+08:00

Our Minister for National Development said on newspaper today that our houses are very very affordable. So affordable, in fact, that a newly wed couple earning a combined $4000 need only pay $50 a month to buy a new flat! Let's not say whether he is right or wrong, let's look at numbers.

The Minister didn't mention what type of flat, so I made an assumption. If I'm newly wed and I buy a flat, I would go for a 4-room. I will be planning to start a family and honestly, the size of a new 3-room is not fit for healthy family living. And since being newly wed, I'm desperate for a flat, so I can pick the most ulu corner on the island. I'm also poor and not fussy, so that will be a standard BTO 4-room.

So I came up with the lower limit of $250 000 for a new BTO 4-room on a low floor in a ulu corner. Taking subsidised HDB loan of 2.6% per annum and according to the Minister's repayment period of 20 years (normal is 30 years), we arrive at the number of $380 000. Hence, monthly repayment needed will be $1583.33.

Assuming all ideal conditions, $4000 have a total CPF contribution of 35.5%, of which 23% into Ordinary Account, 5.5% into Special Account and 7% in Medisave. Only Ordinary Account can be used to pay for a flat, so that will come to $920. Add $50 and I have $970.

So where am I going to get the remaining $613.33? From air? Maybe my neighbour will lend me? Or surely my parents will pay for me since they will likely want me to own such an appreciating asset?

The Minister mentioned that 'with all the grants from HDB'. What grants? Is there such grants? Publicly known? Are you sure all the grants will be given to me as long as I tick 'Yes! Give me the grants!'? Even so, $613.33 a month? You're giving me $613.33 a month over 20 years? Average marriage rate is 20 000 couples a year. 10000 are aware of your grant(s), 5000 (highly unlikely this low, probably much more) earn less than $8000. So you guarantee if just 5000 of these couples apply for your grant, I still stand a chance? Sure? That's $3m a month committed immediately for the next 20 years. Then the next year? The year after next?

Then assuming I get everything above. You sure I am able to get a new flat? I'm not fussy. There is significant not fussy people out there who still can't get a flat after many balloting. You say keep trying, apply everywhere, don't limit to BTO. That's what I did, and BTO is the only scheme I can afford. Now what?

Now I have a flat and all your financing. So I'm looking at my flat with bare cement floor, empty fixtures and no doors. You paying for my floor tiles and doors?

~wished upon a star~

All in a Week's Work

2011-04-23T23:35:00.002+08:00

It had been quite the busy week. Had to remotely coordinate the office and this networking project, all while at another office. Complicated? Sure do.

Had this ice cream buffet at Swenson's Ion on Good Friday with my aunt. It cost $18.90 and totally not worth it. I had only like 4 to 5 scoops of ice cream and a couple of waffles and cake and I feel like throwing everything up already. Not to mention that their ice cream is too sweet. Went shopping after that but it has to be prematurely cut short to cause I received a call from a 'client in distress'.

Went to watch Source Code with my cousin at night. Quite a good show, but at an hour and a half, a bit short for a live action film. The end was a bit confusing, it's like a paradox. So if the hero eventually went back in time to prevent the disaster instead of just identifying the culprit, why would he go back in then anyway, since no disaster happened and there won't be a need to send him back in time. Then we discovered the car got locked up in the carpark when we went back. The security was like grumbling that all carparks close after 11. What rubbish. At least he didn't insist that we pay the $20 reopening fee.

My parents' flight was supposed to arrive yesterday night, but it was delayed till early this morning cause the plane got hit by lightning. Hmm... I thought plane getting hit by lightning was quite common, still need to change a plane and delay for so long. Anyway, mummy bought me a lot of wine from the duty free shop. The best place to get cheap and quality assured wine. I know some people get theirs somewhere else at even cheaper rates. I shouldn't name the store at the basement of Holiday Inn, or at Arab Street or those on call home delivery van in case they get banned, but it has been proven that some of their alcohol are fake. Apparently mummy can't find the wine I told her, so she compensated by filling up the quota with umeshu and everything that has a 'rose' in the label.

My relatives fly quite often, so there's no lack of duty free wine most of the time. Much cheaper than drinking outside. Like some time last week went Pump Room with my colleagues. Very expensive for the night, but it's more of going along with the crowd, quite an enjoyable time too, except at the end where there was a slight commotion and I happened to be in the line of fire. I managed to duck flying shots and ice even after the drinks and avoided being a collateral victim. I must say I sure have some good reflexes. Haha...

~wished upon a star~

Sony Culture

2011-04-23T15:47:00.002+08:00

I think I may be starting to fall into a certain category of cult members. I have been laughing at Apple cult members a lot, now I think I'm falling deeper and deeper into another camp, the Sony Cult, the Sony Secret Society, the Sony Gang, a Sony Fanboy, or even the SDF - Sony Defence Force (hoho... This really exist!)

I admit this seems a bit bad, especially being a fan of the products of a company so not unlike Apple - exclusive, proprietary, prestige and very very expensive. However, I still insist that there is difference between Sony and Apple. Operating system aside, Sony produces much better quality products and have a much higher level of cutting edge components than Apple, period.

I was going through the tech specs the other day, and I realised that Sony actually put in a lot of effort and thoughts into manufacturing each product (at least for their Vaio laptops). It really changes people's definition of no compromise - if the tech/skill to required to reach our goals doesn't exist yet, then invent it.

Take my Z series laptop for example. Who thought a laptop can be powerful and light at the same time. Even Apple who mention about giving power to light laptops can't do it. The current MBA looks exactly like a dinosaur next other computers (supposedly it's a trade off for battery, but we shall get to that later). True, there are other laptops like the Samsung Series 9 and the Toshiba Protege R700 that are light and decently powerful, but they still pales in comparison to the Vaio Z, and this is just on the specifications. Then there are the other features.

Aluminium is common on laptops now, everybody thought it was Apple who started using it, but it actually is Sony. Anyway, like many said, who started it doesn't matter, it's who does it best. Then it will be Sony again. After going through many sites the other day, I found out that for the same thickness of aluminium, Sony's is lighter and stronger than the other competitors, so they just need 1 layer and the rest is made of carbon fibre. To add to the thinness, Sony made a new screen that measures only 4mm. I also found out that my battery has a unique heat dispersal system that spreads the heat away and keeps it cool. After doing some calculations, I also found out that the Vaio Z has some special power management that makes it use very little electricity, meaning running longer on a smaller battery, not claiming long lasting through a slow processor and huge battery, like a certain MBA. Sony's 'no compromise' stance.

I also like the many features, one like the active sound cancellation. Physics students will know it creates a counter sound wave to the ambient sound so you won't hear anything. It's supposed to work only with the Sony in-ear earphones, but by splitter and amp, I managed to hook it up to my surround speakers. If I crank the volume all the way up, my room falls into this extremely eerie silence, those type of silence so loud that sometimes you get a weird ringing sound in your ear. Ah... Ayumi Hamasaki and Nana Mizuki never sounded so good before. I wonder if prolong exposure to the counter wave will spoil my ear though. But think of it, next time in lecture, I can simply 'mute' the lecturer for everybody anytime I want.

Anyway, some time last week, I went out and got myself an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. I didn't get the Sony SSD Vaio Z model simply cause it's way too expensive (though again, being Sony the performance numbers are much better than what I can get outside). Now my laptop fully loads Windows in 30 seconds, and it clock me a 7.3 on the Windows Experience Index. Someone beat that.

The only complain, I think the fan is loud, extremely loud when the laptop is on maximum power. Apparently Sony made it very small so to fit it in, and I did some asking around and measurement, my laptop runs much cooler than even those which so called 'ultra cool' technology, shan't anyhow name them but well, Asus and Acer, your laptops are not as cool as you make them out to be. But under maximum power, I think I may irritate the people sitting next to me in lectures, or it may get me kicked out of the library.

I shall stop here, those who want to know more about the rest of the information can contact me.Haha...

So I think I'm a 'justified' cult member. The price premium really paid for something, but it sure is some huge premium. Well, I'm a member of the Sony Cult (Vaio / Bravia department), so it doesn't matter. Like jw put it, even the word SonyStyle looks good on screen, in print and in any font.

~wished upon a star~