I wanna go…



Santorini | Valletta | Giza | Istanbul



Cesky Krumlov | Seville | Sofia | Mostar



Bilbao | Petra | Moscow | Pula
I wanna watch…

I'm listening to...

Pity the engineering students

>> Wednesday, September 28, 2005

After spending 9 hours and 6 hours on Sunday and Monday respectively in front of my computer typing my 42 page lab report, i spent Tuesday and half of today doing the chim aerospace group project after my lessons. I'm deprived of sleep, rest and enjoyment. There is still an econs quiz next tuesday which accounts for 30% of the overall score. Will be mugging during this weekend as well. Sigh...

Well, who tell me to change from accountancy to engineering right? Ha... Almost everyday i sleep later, wake up earlier and come back from lessons later than Clarence who is in accountancy. Took a break today and went to orchard with cl to watch Be With Me. Feels shiok to take a break from my hectic studies. The movie is quite a good local production, a docu-drama on hope, love and death.

Read more...

A missed opportunity

>> Saturday, September 24, 2005

If i was a few hours earlier, i would have gotten my hands on this

Courts Bukit Timah is having a grand opening sale and the 4 megapixel camera is only selling for $199. So cheap right? It comes with 3.4 optical zoom and the size is very small also. By the time i reached, the 4 mp cameras are all sold out and there were only 3 sets of the upgraded 5 mp camera left which is selling at $299. The offer for the 5 mp camera is good but it's definitely over budget for a good bargain. Sigh...

Next time should wake up earlier on weekends to read the newspapers. :(

Read more...

Belated Mid-autumn Festival

>> Friday, September 23, 2005

Had my hydraulics extra tutorial today and went for the Mid-Autumn Festival organised by NTU with Fuli after my lesson. There were quite a lot of foreign students around as most local students go back home on friday night. Many food and game booths were set up and we attempted some of the rather interesting games, eg. pulling out a table cloth fast so that the things on the table don't drop down, darts with unusual scoreboard, etc.

We each collected a goodie bag after playing the games and went to see the performance. It was NTU Chinese Orchestra performing and guess who is the conductor? It's AJCO's conductor Huang Sheng. His hairstyle and his slightly exaggerated conducting movements has not changed one bit.

A picture of NTU Chinese Orchestra with conductor on stage.

Went to view a huge lantern set up in the middle of Nanyang Lake before continuing to view the stage performances. Our cca's was next up on the list and we enjoyed some melodious songs and nice vocals. The 3 singers were hand-picked in the auditions and they had performed well on stage. After taking some photos with some of our cca members, we left as we did not plan to stay throughout the Mid-Autumn celebration until 10.30 pm.

Coincidentally met Timothy again for the 2nd time this month on my way back home. Singapore is small indeed.

Read more...

Movie Day

>> Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Gs visited my hall today since it's NUS's term break of 4 days. Actually he wanted to study here but didn't accomplish much with the 3 of us around. Originally planned to watch Be With Me but it's not showing at Jurong Point so we watched Cinderella Man instead.

It's quite a good movie with some intense and realistic boxing matches. Renee Zellweger gives a knock-out of a performance as James' supportive wife and Russell Crowe delivers his goods as usual. Although the filming style is rather conventional, the story is based on a true life account and packs an emotional punch. It is without a doubt an effective inspirational story.

Cleaned up my messy room after nearly 2 months without sweeping or mopping the floor. Looks much tidier after i swept and hand-mopped the floor, rearranged the things on the table, etc.

Read more...

Bad Day

>> Monday, September 19, 2005

Been having tests after tests today and my brain is over-utilised. Compiled some formula sheets for easier revision on sunday and been trying to memorise lots of physics formulas. The material science and maths test are manageable but the some of the physics questions are rather ambiguous. At least i don't have to worry about them anymore.

Went to HSS library in the evening after dinner to print some new notes as i've never been there before. Bad choice! The computers are very slow in processing the print jobs and i have to wait very long for a big document. Not only that, the options i selected are supposedly correct for double pages but turned out opposite with respect to the front page. The worst thing of all is that it overcharged me by $2.60 as i've selected 4 slides on a page but apparently the system charged the total number of pages printed the number of slides instead. A really stressful and unlucky day. :(

Read more...

Can I Quit Uni?

>> Saturday, September 17, 2005

Haiz... Been rushing through my assignments and revising my tests lately. So many things to study and so much work to do! Sianz... Still got my formal lab report totally untouched, my aerospace assignment that needs to be typed and my CAs. Arggg... Headache sia.

Just found out yesterday that one of my closest friends is attached. Happy for him for finding a soulmate but sad that he will be spending less time with his good old buddies. Why can't everyone of us be attached at the same time then the problem will not occur? I'm up for grabs, who wants me? Haha... i'm just crapping. I wonder how to sustain a relationship through the stressful university life though.

Ok, back to my mugging or i'll flunk my tests. :(

Read more...

Handphone Craze

>> Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Was downloading games and themes for my new handphone on tuesday night until 6 am! I was quite shocked with the enormous amount of games i can download from the internet and transfer to my handphone. Overall, K750i is really a thoroughly amazing phone although the ring volume is a bit soft in a noisy environment. The sound quality is great, the picture quality is great (except indoor shots), the colours are bright and clear, the ringtone and message alert customisable to play mp3, able to record video and sound, lasting battery life, and lots more.

Wednesday, met up with Bing Feng, Anthony and Xi Kun again to discuss the aerospace project. We planned to go National Library but decided to go SMU to take a look instead. Xk had asked his friend to bring us inside and help us get a study room. Along the way, i found out that SMU has significantly lesser students than NTU and NUS. Take a look at this picture i took in the underground passageway.

There was totally no one in the tunnel at the time of the shot and along the way to the study room, less than 20 people walked past us. It is a really conducive environment to study in but it feels weird that there are not many people in the school, considering the people space ratio in a JC, seconday school, etc.

Inside the study room, we set up the laptop and arranged the tables for discussion until we discovered that we cannot access the internet there. It either had to be correctly configured or we needed an account to access the internet. We left the study room after 10 minutes inside and proceeded to the new National Library.

Basement 1 was packed with lots of people and we headed up to level 7 (Reference section). People with bags are required to put them in lockers. Since we got no other place to discuss, we have to make do with the hassle of bringing the required materials after depositing our bags inside the coin-operated lockers.

We finally had some headway after we compiled a content page and collected quite some info from the extensive collection of reference books. We then split the project into 4 parts for our detailed research.

A picture of the cityscape from National Library Level 9. Click on the picture for high resolution of the picture taken from my K750i.

Met up with Edwin, Clarence and Derrick later to watch Kim Ki-Duk's The Bow at night. The story is as usual offbeat at the hands of the acclaimed director. The study of greed, lust and sacrifice is well-crafted but disappointing compared to his previous works, namely 3-Iron, Spring Summer and Samaritan Girl. The cinematography is fabulous and the setting picturesque, a fishing boat amidst the limitless ocean .The main flaw is in the story which lacks oomph and emotional resonance.

Someone stop me, i'm spending too much money!

Read more...

Busy but not doing homework

>> Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Monday, met up with my group to do the aerospace assignment at Woodlands Regional Library. It was not a very productive session as we have only 1 laptop shared among 4 people and the assignment requires us to gather much more information outside of our textbooks. We were searching the library for some relevant reference books but there were not a lot and we had to rely on the internet.

Without a clear aim and purpose, we wasted quite a lot of time and finally decided to have lunch. A break from the tough assignment, we spent a lot of time chatting about unrelated stuff for almost 2 hours.

Didn't have much to do at home at night and decided to tidy up my entire room. Spent a whopping 6 hours to set up my room TV & DVD set, clear all the mess and get rid of unwanted stuff. Tired.....

Tuesday, finally got my mother to buy my K750i for me. Extended my father's plan to purchase it for $438. Went out with Paul, Liyuan and Kang Rui to watch Red Eye in the evening. The show is exciting, intense and gripping. Rachel McAdams and Cilliam Murphy display great acting chops and make the crime thriller realistic. The story is tightly wrought and the pace never declines. Quite a good effort by director Wes Craven.


Picture of my new handphone

Read more...

Grandma's Birthday

>> Sunday, September 11, 2005

My grandmother has moved into my house temporarily and it is her birthday celebration today. The buffet lunch is all vegetarian and many of my relatives came. As usual, i had a hard time greeting some of my aunties and uncles with my poor memory. Some of my cousins went up to my room to play computer games.


My family with my grandmother


Singing the birthday song

We had ordered 6 canadian pizzas also as we have to cater to people who prefer eating some meat. Everyone of us were full after finishing the pizzas and more and more people started to leave, except 3 of my young cousins who stuck to my computer and gameboy. I was thinking, contemplating and considering whether i should go suntec and buy the compaq laptop.

After much consideration, i decided to go suntec to examine the laptop further to see whether it's really worth to buy. However, my sis stopped me and brainwashed me into not buying a laptop. No more new laptop but i'll be getting a new pc soon (my current pc has an old age of 7 years).

Didn't do any homework as i couldn't concentrate with the number of people in the house. Tons left to do!

Read more...

Kayaking

>> Saturday, September 10, 2005

Met up with my jc classmates at Parkway Parade for breakfast before heading to East Coast for kayaking. We walked quite a distance over to Coasta Sands Resort where kayaks are for rent. There were quite a number of people there on a weekend as usual and we got ourselves 3 double seat kayaks for 2 hours. Booked from 12.45 pm to 2.45 pm. After changing into appropriate attire and wearing our lifejackets, we were all set to go.

Terence and Edwin were on a kayak, Clarence and i were on one while GS and Jimmy were on another. The 4 of us except GS and Jimmy were rowing furiously as we were eager to kayak. We were wondering how come gs and jim lagged so far behind considering the competitiveness spirit in gs. We waited for some time, then gave up waiting and paddled all around 1/2 the stretch of East Coast. We rowed past a lot of seaweed, some stick-like plants afloat, red, white and black plastic bags, a few canned food containers, empty packet drinks and some assorted disgusting rubbish. Luckily there is not so much rubbish the further we were from the coastline. With so many unsightly things in the water, i don't understand why some people want to swim in it. Nevertheless, Clarence dived into the water as he felt too hot.

We took a break at the west side of east coast near the allegedly haunted viewing tower. Edwin was not feeling very well as he was seasick and dizzy. Terence was thus the main driving force of the kayak with Edwin on it as well. After resting for around 10 mins, we headed back while gs and jim just docked their kayak some distance away. The waves were now directly against our flow and we need to use more energy to overcome them. Being more accustomed to the paddling, Clarence and i rowed almost non-stop for our return journey. We were the first to arrive but there wasn't any competition and i won't consider our speed fast compared to the last time i kayaked with my army friends.


A picture of us after the kayaking

We cleaned ourselves up and got on the free shuttle bus to bedok at Coasta Sands main lobby. Had our lunch at Bedok hawker centre and headed to Suntec for Natas Travel fair.

Upon reaching, an entrance fee of $3 per pax is required and we decided otherwise. Went for World Cyber Games at another exhibition hall instead. There were many people playing warcraft and CS and the exhibitors were not a lot. Saw an amazing offer of a compaq laptop at the price of $1999 with a free X-Box. The specifications of the laptop is considered good with 512 mb ram, 80 gb, DVD writer (dual layer) and AMD Turion 64. I was originally planning to go for a new pc but this offer has made me reconsider my decision.

We then went walking around the shops in suntec before meeting up with Derrick. They were intending to watch soccer at Brewerkz in Clark Quay but it was full house upon arriving. We decided on Fluid bar at Far East Square and had dinner at Chinatown hawker centre before going there.

It was nearly half-time when we reached and we ordered a jug of beer plus a glass of fruit punch. Luckily i brought I-S paper along with me or else i would have fallen asleep or be really bored. The match between Liverpool and Totterham was not very exciting and the result is a plain 0-0. Most of us were quite tired as we had a long day and we headed back home after the match.

Read more...

I can start a hair salon

>> Friday, September 09, 2005

Woke up quite late today and after a few hours of lazing around at home, i went shopping at West Mall for Sang Ju's pens as i'm helping to send them over to Canada where he is studying. The bookstore has only 5 Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.38 mm pens left and i'm short of 15. Hopefully i can get the rest at Parkway Parade tomorrow. Spent the rest of my time window shopping before heading back.

My relatives have arrived as usual every friday as my mum employs my aunties' help to clean up the whole house. My cousins were meddling with my computer and playing Neopets as usual. My uncle requested me to help him cut his hair as my mum had boasted my hair-cutting skills and my numerous "customers" when i was in the army. Both of us had a very hot hair-cutting session (don't get me wrong) as the toilet was incredibly stuffy. We were both drenched by the time i finished as i took around 45 mins.

I couldn't really do any work with the noise and played games with my cousins for some time. My aunty then requested my cousin's hair to be cut and i spent another long 45 mins in the toilet. Many commented i did a good job with their hair, so next time can charge them $$$ liao. Haha... just joking. Luckily i don't know how to cut female's hair or else i think my house will have visitors everyday.

Read more...

Quiz

Just did a personality test after viewing KS's blog and found out it's really quite accurate.

Your view on yourself:

Other people find you very interesting, but you are really hiding your true self. Your friends love you because you are a good listener. They'll probably still love you if you learn to be yourself with them.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:

You like serious, smart and determined people. You don't judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren't necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people's eyes.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:

You prefer to get to know a person very well before deciding whether you will commit to the relationship.

The seriousness of your love:

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

Your views on education:

Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own.

The right job for you:

You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.

How do you view success:

You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:

You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear.

Who is your true self:

You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.

The link for the personality test is located here.

Read more...

1 Week Break!

>> Thursday, September 08, 2005

Woohoo... Don't have lessons tomorrow and my 1 week break has already started. But there are my environmental quality project, hydraulics group assignment, formal lab report, 4 tutorials and 3 CAs on the monday directly after our break!

1 day will be spent canoeing with my jc friends, 1 night will be celebrating KH's birthday, 1 day will be spent discussing the group assignment, 1 day will be spent on my grandmother's birthday, 1 afternoon will be spent singing ktv, at least 2 nights watching movies (Red Eye & The Bow) and 1 day probably will be spent for the Geyong outing. Arggg....... Where got time to finish everything?

Been schooling as usual these few days and watched the fantastic 36 yesterday. It is a really good french film on crime and politics with Daniel Auteuil and Gerald Depardieu as the leads. The shootouts are stunningly realistic, the atmosphere intense, and the motivations for power sickeningly evil. It is the first time i've watched a movie that makes me want to punch the bad guy so bad. It is a movie of tragic proportions and the cast & director did a really great job bringing out the story.

Korean Film Festival is ongoing now and i'm planning to watch Marathon and The Bow.

I might be going to Langkawi Air Show in Dec if most of my course mates are going. If the price is cheap and the trip consists of many days, i'll definitely be going. Looking forward to December break! Countdown to exams: 1 month 25 days. So little time and so much to study.

Read more...

Zhangyi's Birthday

>> Sunday, September 04, 2005

KS and i went for a KTV session in the morning and we really stretched our voices to the max. We were taking our turns to "scream/shout" with some of the higher pitched songs and it was quite memorable. We were not able to do that anywhere else without the complaints of everyone in the vicinity.

We did some shopping in Bugis after that as KS needed a watch while I wanted to get a 512DDR Ram for my cpu. Took some time to buy Zhangyi's gift as we required some specific info from him about an item he don't mind getting. Also, the cost of the eau de toilette is too cheap for 7 people to share and we got a bag and a fragrant shower gel from Body Shop as well. Headed to Pasir Ris to meet up with the rest of our platoon mates attending his party.

We grabbed a bite at Mac before walking over to his HDB apartment. BBQ was next and we headed to a pavilion within the HDB estate. The ambience is rather nice with jazz music playing in the background and charcoal cackling softly in the heat.

David BBQing

We did not barbeque much and spent most of the time chit-chatting. It was nice to have a platoon reunion in the midst of our busy schooling/working lives.

We stayed on until around 10.50 pm after cutting the cake.

Derrick coincidentally was in Bedok at that time and he fetched me to PS as GS and Clarence were watching soccer there. We arrived quite late and missed the soccer match totally as Derrick had some trouble navigating the confusing HDB estates in Pasir Ris. Some table tennis matches were screening in the restaurant but we were more interested in chatting. After close to 2 hours, we left for home.

Read more...

Comex

>> Friday, September 02, 2005

Went to Comex 2005 at Suntec on Thursday with my jc friends after school as i was interested in buying a new pc and a memory card. There were quite a lot of people there and Derrick had to spend some time looking for an empty parking lot. The 2 exhibition halls were packed with hundreds of people but we were still able to manoeuver our way inside. The first item i bought is a box of 50 cd-r at the cheap price of $10.50. Next is a 512 mb Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo at the price of $99 with a free card reader. Derrick bought a Canon monochrome laser printer at the price of $199 with discount of almost $70. Edwin got a 128 mb XD card ($42) for his camera as well.

We headed to the newly revamped Marina Square and spent some time looking for a new fast food restaurant Carl's Jr. There were quite a lot of people dining there despite the fact that it was already 9 pm. The meals are not very cheap with an average of $9-10 but the burgers are very big especially beef burgers. My chicken burger is not as big in comparison.

The rest went back home after our late dinner while Clarence and i headed back to NTU. Clarence was driving his parents' old Mercedes as they have just bought a new car. He let me drive around the campus as i haven't drove for many months. We decided to drive around Lim Chu Kang with some time to spare. With almost no vehicles on the wide Lim Chu Kang road, i sped to a maximum of 120 km/hr! I did not drive faster than that as the engine sounds were getting a bit too loud. We did not venture too deep into Lim Chu Kang as the road was getting narrower and seemingly creepy. After switching drivers at the road leading to Sungei Gedong camp, Clarence drove back to NTU clocking a maximum of around 125 km/hr.

Friday, had a physics make-up lecture in the morning and tried to do tutorials in the afternoon but laziness and sleepiness overwhelmed me into taking a nap. Fuli dropped by my hall and we went for our cca together after having dinner. There was a lecture on how to "open" voice, improve stage presence, etc. There was a game after that which required all the different groups to pick a song from a box and there will be a forfeit if the song we picked is not the song we prepared. Almost all the groups were "punished" and my group had to act as the dancers while one of my group members performed a song. It was a rather laid back session for me as i do not need to prepare any songs this week. I was not selected for the second round of audition for the Lantern Festival but Fuli was picked. I stayed on to listen to the selected people at the second round audition while waiting for Fuli and some of them had really very good voices. The male singers have voices that can reach low notes and very high notes while some of the female singers have great voice quality and technique as well. I was really impressed with some of them and looks like i have a long way to go before reaching that standard.

Read more...