got home real fast today

SBS introduced a new bus called 30e. I normally take 30 from school back home. Unfortunately, 30 tends to stop at every other bus stop all the way from pasir panjang to old airport road. Add to that the peak hour jam and it easily takes about 1.5 hours just to get home.

What 30e does is they skip a lot of bus stops which means it also gets to get onto the expressway earlier. In the end I took just 40 minutes to get home which was really cool. If the ECP had not been congested, I would have got home even earlier.

Anyway I never expected I would be blogging about such stuff. It’s not my style to blog about seemingly mundane stuff. Oh well, whatever the case, it’s still fun to blog.

Another piece of good news is that NUS undergraduates get to enjoy 50 cents discount at soundbuzz.com. This means that I can buy nice songs online without feeling too much of a pinch. I am now listening to my newly acquired songs ‘your body is a wonderland” by John Mayer and “you’re beautiful” by James Blunt. I suddenly felt like listening to slow, romantic songs. And I did always think they were nice songs so when the offer came around, I could resist no longer. Ok it’s still $1.49 a song but I only buy a few good songs once every 3 months so it’s not so bad. It’s still better than buying a CD.

hi

if you haven't already noticed, "hi" as a title is my way of saying i have no idea what i'm going blog about. i'm just going to start typing away and see what comes out of it. Just as I’m typing this, my phone beeped for the 5th time. It beeped because I have yet to read a sms. As long as I don’t open the sms it’ll keep beeping every now and then. obviously, the beeping does get on my nerves but it is not so much because the beep itself is irritating. Rather, it's because the reminder reminds me of the fact that I still cannot open my sms just yet, which reminds me my phone is not all that great.

You see, my phone is terrible at being recharged. I’ve sent it for warranty repairs but the phone just can’t seem to be recharged normally. I have to caress the phone, cuddle it for a while and place it on a nice soft cushion before it is willing to be recharged. I’m serious. Every small jerk or tug on the charger wire seems to loosen the connection between the charger and the phone. So I have to patiently cuddle the phone until the connection miraculously comes. (6th beep just went off by the way…) And even when there is finally a connection I cannot just leave it on the floor. No, how can I be so rough with my phone? I have to place it on a nice soft cushion so there is little impact. That’s right. My phone cannot tolerate the thunderous crash of my phone being placed on a wooden floor! Wood?! What was I thinking?

finally, after caressing the phone, cuddling the phone and placing it on a cushion I am not allowed to touch the phone at all because the phone's connection would be broken off. That's right. Apparently, I have herculean strength that can tear wires apart with just a single flick of my thumb against the "read sms" button.

If anything at least my phone has taught me one thing: I value low maintenance above all else. I admit I’m not as easily contented as I once was. I still prefer nice features, good looks and an engaging interface. But I would be willing to forsake all that if the phone would just work with little fuss and get along with me. Sure sometimes we may have problems between us and other phones may look more attractive. (7th beep) But if my phone is as loyal to me as I am to it, that’s all anyone can ask for right?

There are a lot of captivating phones out there. And they all try to draw our attention with seductive curves and great features. But if all that superficial stuff is just there to disguise their fussy, over bearing nature and their incessant need to be pampered before they do anything in return, then what for?

So, as I wait for my phone to be fully charged so I can finally unplug the charger and read my sms, I can at least take heart in the fact that I’ve learnt a valuable lesson. (8th beep) all I want is a phone that I can talk to and who talks back and whenever it feels low in energy and we are not talking it to each other as much as before, I can make it feel alive again with some effort that is not too ridiculous. Ok I admit the phone can’t look too ugly or I’ll feel weird holding it beside me. But a phone can be average looking to others and still look great to me as long as there is proper, clear and sustainable (9th beep) communication between us. That’s all I really ask for and I’ll spend all the money and make all the effort to keep this communication in good condition. Sure we'll have our problems between us and there'll be times when we just don't listen to each other but with a little tweaking and compromise I'm sure we can work things out. And even if one day things are beyond repair or for some unknown reason words just stop coming, at least I’ll be happy that, while it lasted, what we had was great.

*whispers*, "So... anyone wants to sell a colour display Nokia to me? attached camera preferred..but shh..don't let my phone hear or it'll get angry..

(beep…)

DOTA is not the same without friends

DOTA is only fun when you play with your friends and you are trying your best to beat them. Otherwise it is just plain boring. I would rather spend my time blogging. Haha... Playing DOTA with friends is like a friendly game of soccer. You’ll make sure you give it your all and, in the case of soccer, tackles will fly in now and then but at the end of the day we will all have a good laugh about it, shake hands and say “good game”…which is exactly what happened with the mahjong session I had today. Thanks to my adventurous (read: reckless) nature, I will either win big or lose big. At least that is what I thought. Today something new happened. I broke even. Ok technically I lost a buck fifty but in mahjong that is as good as breaking even. Haha

I left for home just in time to catch the 930 news on TV mobile. Never before have I so diligently watched the 930 news on channel 5 / TV mobile. But of course with anything, there’s always a reason/motivation for it. Safe to say, trying to update myself on current affairs is only a small part of the motivation. *wink*

Anyway, it looks like the government is thinking of implementing a through train system for polytechnic students as well. It makes sense. If people can skip O levels and go straight to JC then why not poly as well? I honestly believe polytechnic students are just as good as jc students if not better and more entrepreneurial. Glad to hear that they did that.

And yesterday another charity organization was found to lack financial “governance”. I pity the people whom the organization was supporting. They suffer the most. It is bad enough that these people suffer from some illness/disability. Now they have to suffer a lack of financial support because the organization set up to look after them contained some people who apparently misused the funds. The above organization has been dropped from the government’s list of societies of good character (something like that). So that means people who donate money to them can’t claim tax rebates. And that’s if anyone still donates to them after all the bad publicity. However, what about the people who depended on the organization for financial help and perhaps, more importantly, a sense of belonging and source of self-esteem? I just hope that people remember that only the people who misused the funds should be punished. That being said, I have stopped donating as generously as before. I just wonder who I can trust with my money. After the dust has settled and all the associations guilty of misuse are dealt with, I am sure I will start donating again though.

Ok it’s late and I’m determined to do work tomorrow so good night. Oe should I say Guten nite.. haha…

hello

well holiday break is finally here.. ahh.. finally.. the chance to recharge my batteries, rebuild my social life and still have time to consolidate my studies. sounds like alot of things to do.. but i'll just have to work hard at it...

last saturday a dead woman's upper body was found in a discarded sports bag near orchard mrt. a few hours later, her lower body was found at macritchie reservoir. another gruesome dismembered body part murder. fortunately the deceased was still identifiable which led police to the murderess. apparently she is a foreign maid. my dad tells me it's over money. i didnt have time to read the details but ok i guess most murders in singapore are over money anyway.i even heard the foreign maid was cold blooded enough to just sms her husband like as if nothing had happened just minutes after she murdered her. talk about staying calm...

i kinda think she must be a little crazy to be so coldb blooded... it just doesn't sound normal.. but who knows.. maybe she is in fact so intellectual that she can seperate her feelings from her actions.

today was a super long day. every thurs is but ttoday was especially draining because ther lecture was certainly very hard to understand. when i reached home i couldn't bare to pick up the notes. i decided to giev my brain a rest by playing games but the game still required some thinking.. so i still feel a little mentally exhuasted..i should play xbox games instead.. those are what i call mindless stress relieving games.. i just press and hold onto the joystick and watch people getting destroyed all around me.. what's there to think? haha... but the problem is that xbox games are so mindless that i end up losing track of time...guess there's always a good and bad side to things.. sigh...guess blogging is still the best.. of course i think but it just comes from my mind straight to the key board so there is hardly anmy serious thinking involved.. feel much better now..

there's this new fast food joint called carl's junior.. been wanting to try the burgers there.. they are SO huge.. and there seems to be SO much meat... i cannot wait to dig my teeth into one of their burgers.. and their fries look so fat and golden and crisp...*slurp*....

celebrated my jc fren's bday today. she was my "bwest fwen" in jc. we really did talk alot and were very close. even now, we still have that closeness.. it's kinda strange really.. we don't exactly know what is going on with each other but it doesn't take much, if anything at all, to get the conversation going.. and once it starts.. oh boy.. we chat non-stop.. 2 hour lunch? no big deal.. we could have chatted longer and ate even slower if i didn;t have lecture at 2pm. haha.. oh and partly the reason why we became such good friends is that we were always the last 2 to finish eating.. so while the rest of the class left the canteen, the 2 of us were stil halfway through our fish and chips..haha..

had alot of fun even though we still talk so differently, she talks in chinese while i reply in english.. occasionally we sprinkle the "other language" into our setences but our conversations are still generally bilingual.. maybe if we both spoke english or chinese we could be even closer by now.. but i think as friends go, it doesn't make much difference what language we use.. fun, friendship and laughter is understandable in any language =)

that's the great thing about close friends.. even when you stop keeping in touch, you're still close. so here's to close friends.. i hope i can have just 2 in my life.. greedy aren't I? ok maybe just one.. haha..

worked out a little...

my dad invited me for a short gym session. I was to lazy to run so it was only after he assured me it's just a weights session that i agreed to follow. doign weights is so much easier. there is no need to pant..haha

I do feel like going for a jog sometime soon but i think soccer could be just as effective in getting my heart pumpin although i didn't get to run much last saturday. which reminds me: i forgot to mention that i took part in the charity soccer fiesta after all. this is a competition to raise funds to build a library in a developing country. basically, every team has to pay money to enter the competition but gets nothing in return. that's why they call it charity right? haha

i was resigned to not playing in this fiesta until i heard my friend's team didn't have enough people. unfortunately i only knew about that the day before the competition so there was no time to train. that probably explained why we lost the 1st match. after that, one of our friends told us what tactics to employ and we all knew what to do. and we ended up wining the next 2 matches. it just goes to show how important tactics and teamwork are in soccer.

(WARNING: next paragraph is about soccer, those not interested please feel free to skip..haha)

i do like the physical and technical side of soccer but in truth, what i really like is when people use their brains and not just their feet to play soccer. anyone who says soccer is brainless is an ignoramus. soccer is in fact 80% intellect. all the time people are thinking of what to do, whether it is the right pass, the right player to field or the right tactics to employ. so i love it when my coach always seems to get the tactics spot on against his other teams during last season's champions league.

(and now we return to our usual progamming..)

however, i didn't get to run much last weekend cos we concentrated on defending. hope that i can do more running and dribbling this sunday when i play soccer with my church friends.

anyway the gym session felt good too. i actually had some muscles bulging out..haha.. long time since i saw that.. haha

i'm thinking of signing up as a journalist for my engin club again. after all, it wasn't all that much work last year and i love to write anyway so i might as well get some RHAPS points out of it.

the one week break is approaching. and i cant wait... finally get a chance to relax a little and consolidate all my work. actually this semester is really rather slack compared to last year. take manufacturing for instance: there are no tuts to do, no extra materials to read/practise and even during lectures we just watch videos, listen and understand. we even got to listen to the professor play his flute! (which was cool... although i still prefer the piano..not used to the way a flute sounds i guess..)

dengue fever seems to be on the rise again here in singapore... wonder if i really should go to my friend's house in AMK this saturday since it's supposedly a hotspot... guess i'll just wear long pants haha..and a scarf, cap, ear muffs ... my friend got dengue once so i know it sucks alot...so i really dun want to get it... but since my friend who stays there is fine i guess it shoudl be ok..=)

this friday is engin day.. the engin club has taken pains to make it as enjoyable as possible for us. there is the fave engin idol ( i think it's fave?) and the usual eating competition/treasure hunt etc..despite the funfair atmospher, i'm sorry to say that i'd rather stay at home... it's very hard to make any activity worth the long bus journey..

i found out during human resource tutorials that, according to a psychological personality test, i'm actually a shy,reserved person who does not need to receive / show affection and takes things easy...

hmm... yes and no i guess... on one hand, i do agree that to some extent i am a private person. i already find that there's not enough time doing my own stuff, let alone doign stuff with other people so i actually prefer to do things alone most of the time. doing things with othes always means you need to accomodate or worse get delayed...which is such a waste of time. on the other hand, i know that for the right reason or person, i would be the opposite and do lots of things /show lots of concern..

besides, all the personality tests seem to assume that a person is an individual living among other individuals. but actually alot of my motivation and drive is spiritual and God plays a large role in whatever i do, or at least i strive to follow HIM rather than this world in doing the right things... so i guess sometimes personality is besides the point...

that's the update for this week, stay tuned for next week ep.. haha..

hello

i don't feel like doing much work now. i always feel like i should take a break after a test no matter how short the test is. i don't feel so tired that i need to stone the whole day. but i think i'll do more relaxing stuff today like surfing the net for research materials and finishing up my lab report.

before the test today, alot of my friends were busy preparing for it. i can sense alot of people are working harder this semester. alot of my friends are attending lectures regularly and attempting questions, some even beyond the tutorial. I think it's great news for them and I am happy for them.

it seems like there's a pattern among my friends. they all felt that last semester's results weren't good enough and want to make sure they do better this time. that in itself explains how they got into NUS in the first place. people may think engineering is a dumping ground of sorts with our high intakes but you still need some potential/aptitude to get in. but i think what is most impt is the right attitude. the fact they didn't sulk over what they deemed to be poor results and just kept pushing on is very admirable.

" bu hui ba..."

that's what my friend sms-ed me when I skipped lecture... that's right i skipped lecture!! bet you just gave a huge "GASP!" right? everyone did... haha

my friend sms-ed me" bu hui ba... YOU? skipping lecture?".. someone else was like " eh i thought you could keep me company..but you are leaving too!"

obviously i didn't think the lecture was good enough reason for me to stay behind, especially when you consider i got a test tmrw, felt a little lethargic today ( maybe cos of medicine i took) and if i had stayed back, i would have left school right in the middle of the rush hour jam which is such a waste of time! the last time i was caught in the jam, my bus journey dragged from the usual 1 hour to 1 hr 45 mins.. so i'm not going to waste 45 mins just like that..

but i don't want any reader to think the lecturer is lousy. atcually he's rather interesting..not boring rather.. quite entertaining rather.. shows us interesting slides or funny anecdotes rather.. likes to end sentences with "rather" rather.. =P

his stories and case studies are nice to listen to but it's kinda like bed time stories.. nice to listen to but it's ok if you foget them the next morning.. at least that's what i think.. i realise that there is a point behind all these stories in that they are trying to teach us the good and bad thngs other people did in engineering design but i can read about them from the notes in less time..amd even if i didn't read the stories it would not make much difference fo now.. i may regret in the future but for now i have no regrets..

for this subject, we only have a few lectures while the rest of the time is for group work. so today was his last lecture which made it not as bad.. i really did stay for his previous lectures despite already thinking it was of little use..but today i felt so lethargic i just couldn't bring myself to stay anymore..

i am not sure if it's a good excuse but my lethargy may have had something to do with my illness. for some unknown reason, i developed a rash from sunday night right till yesterday morning. sunday night's rash was so bad i couldn't sleep because of the itch. it took me all my mental effort just to resist scratching so i could forget about calming myself down to a good night's rest. i ended up staying up till 2 am after which i decided i might as well scratch.. i thought "resisting the itch isn't helping so maybe scratching would rid the itch once and for all?" but as expected, it didn't help much.. i ended up taking a shower. that finally eased the itch for a while and i managed to catch some sleep.. but for only 4 hours because i had to wake up for school.. and if you think this is bad mon night was worst...

finally on tues i decided to quarantine myself. i didn't have school that day and i decided not to leave the house even for lunch. seeing how feeling cold made me feel better ( like taking a shower etc) i basically turned my house into an ice palace for the whole day. and the itch was gone. all the tiny bumps on my body had also subsided by then... those bumps were really quite a scary sight.. in fact, i kinda regret not taking a photo of how i looked.. just to see the shocked look on my friends' faces haha..

when i reached school today, i had only walked for a couple of minutes under the noon sun when my arms started to itch again.. by then i knew my symptoms well enough to know that if i stayed under the sun's scorching heat any longer i was going to become "lobster weixian" again.. so i rushed to the toilet, splashed water all over my arms and face and just chilled myself in the lecture theatre. my friends were asking me what was going on... i joked that "i think i'm allergic to the sun".. of course i know it's prob not true but it certainly looked that way if you saw how i was like: under sun = itch ...

imagine if that was true: if there could exist something so destructive, it can cause my skin cells to simply crumble under UV rays, causing me to itch. well, i have yet to turn my house into ice palace yet and except for the occasional itch i feel fine.. so hopefully that means everything's back to normal..

unless the real reson i feel fine for now is that the sun is down!!

haha...

aiya..

blogger server hung up on me just as i was uploading a blog... and i'm too demoralised to repeat what i said.. darn.. just when i thought my blog was quite funny..haha

to all bloggers out there, remember to copy and paste your content before you upload! =)

but that's not the only reason why there has been such a lag. have a test this thurs and a few projects here and there. plus there was a few personal commitments i had to attend to. a short period where i was ill and there was DOTA too. surprisingly i think DOTA could be motivating me to work hard!!

no joke. seeing how most games last at most an hour, which is how long my daily breaks normally last anyway, i've decided to work hard till 11 so i can play for an hour before i sleep. so everytime i feel like putting down my books i tell myself, "come on, just 2 hours more and it's DOTA time."

such short term motivations will never work... without a real purpose in life, claiming DOTA to be a reward for work will eventually mutate into an excuse to play followed by outright neglect of studies. that's how all addictions probably start. you tell yourself DOTA is just a study break until one day you find you are playing more than working.

what REALLY keeps me going in the long term and keeps my focus on the right things is my desire to be all that i can be for God. that's the best motivation of all