Uni Life=Stress

Met up with Kp on friday morning as i offered to teach him the procedures of printing notes in libraries. I have quite a lot of free time before my lecture which starts at 2.30 pm. Coincidentally, my jc classmates ended their lectures soon after and we had lunch together at hall 3 canteen. Clarence and Terence bought laptops at the computer shop at the price of about 2.3k.

After my 2 hr lecture, i went to the library for a while before going for my aerospace inaugural social which starts at 6.30 pm. Most of us were introducing ourselves and shaking hands with each other. Dinner was also provided and the event was a good opportunity to know our course mates and professors. There are 3 other AJCians in the same course as me and i do not have any recollection of their faces except for 1 guy. There are also a number of Malaysian and China students as well. We spent 3 hours 30 mins at the function hall getting to know each other while the professors answered some of our queries as well.

Went back to my hostel room at around 11.15 pm.

It's Saturday and i'm in school due to a make up lecture. After the physics lecture, i went to print some notes again and went back home with the assignments. Been slacking at home until around 11 pm before attempting the maths tutorial.

I took so long to solve a rather simple question involving trigonometric equations. Got stuck at the later questions and gave up as i was too tired already. I have to try again tomorrow. Arggg......... Doing homework since 2 years 9 months ago. It really sucks coz i have forgotten most of the stuff we learnt in JC. I guess i should be spending a bomb on textbooks coz i really need them. :(

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University sucks a lot of $$$ away

10 Reasons why you have to spend a lot
1) Lecture notes are not given (you have to print yourself)
2) Tutorial questions are not given (you have to print yourself)
3) Have to buy files for the various modules.
4) The university textbooks are so expensive.
5) There are so many modules each semester and it is recommended to buy a textbook for each module.
6) Laptop
7) Hostel Bill
8) Meals (no more mummy cooked dishes)
9) Tuition fee
10) Time=Money
Time wasted in lectures & tutorials=Money wasted!

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Slack Week 1

Tuesday, went for a physics lecture early in the morning and coincidentally saw Anthony, my camp mate. He is in the same course as me and we collected our matriculation cards after the lecture. We then went to the library to access STARS for registration of modules but the Studentlink site was down. After many unsuccessful attempts using my laptop, we gave up and had lunch at Jurong Point.

Bought some stationery at Popular before going back home as there are no lessons on wednesday due to flag day. The site was up and running by then and i applied for Effective Communication, a module which i was supposed to take next semester.

Met up with Weiming later in the day to watch Mysterious Skin. Some people might detest the homosexual content but the leads had put up wonderfully sensitive performances which make the story realistic. This movie vividly displays how childhood abuse scar the emotional health of the victims and the serious repercussions.

Wednesday, met up with my supervisor for the last time to return the PDA, bag, notes, charger, spare battery, etc. No more job commitments! No more income as well. :( Studying is my top priority now.

Watched Sin City with Daryl and Liyuan at orchard after that. It is unlike any other movie you have seen before although i won't consider it genre busting. The violence is unstoppable with the gunshots, chopping of limbs and fist fights. The action is stylistically shot as well, a cinematographic achievement. Creative and well-acted, the film is a successful adaptation that is strictly not for the squeamish.

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Hostel Life (1st Day)

Woke up quite early today to move into my hostel. Brought quite a lot of stuff over there on my mother's car. Clarence arrived around the same time as me and we cleaned up the room before unpacking our stuff.

Edwin and Terence dropped by to visit for a short while after their freshmen welcome ceremony. We had lunch before going over to Nanyang Auditorium for the afternoon session of the welcome ceremony.

It was quite a waste of time as expected and i slept through most of the session. There were a number of talks by the various deans, a skit, choir numbers and an oath taking ceremony. It ended around 3.30 pm and i saw a number of long lost friends before heading back to my hostel room. Derrick came by and taught us some valuable lessons using edveNTUre, internet configuration of my laptop and some essential information.

Clarence went back home as he had to bring more stuff to hostel. Derrick then accompanied me to the library to help me print my notes for tomorrow. He left for his campus concert with Jiang Meiqi and Fan Weiqi performing after that and i went for dinner alone at hall 1 canteen.

Luckily, i saw Keng Han and Gan there, and Kh invited me to join his orientation friends for dinner. Went back to my room to rest and surf net after that. Took some pictures of my room.

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Zewen's 21st Birthday

Saturday, my jc gang met up this afternoon to buy a present for Zewen before going to his chalet at Aloha Loyang. We were considering either a sweater or a watch but since we did not see any nice sweaters, we decided on buying a watch. Took some time choosing a nice watch at Tangs and headed to his chalet after purchasing it.

We were the second earliest group to arrive after his relatives and had dinner after the food was prepared. We spent most of the time chatting, playing mahjong and poker cards, and went to the beach for some seabreeze before cutting of the cake. The cake was delicious (ice cream cake from Swensons) Yum!

We were staying over in the chalet for the night and decided to go for a ghost hunting expedition again. We all went to the "Red House" in Pasir Ris in Terence's lorry and were like illegal immigrants at the back compartment with no light inside at all. The distance is not very far from Aloha Loyang and we arrived within 5 minutes.

There were 2 statues by the sides of the closed gate in front of the red house. Barbed wires are also fixed on top of the fence and the gate. We were unable to enter the haunted house and left promptly for Old Changi Hospital. We were rather excited as there are no fences surrounding the haunted hospital and we will be able to enter.

We parked our cars at the carpark opposite the hospital which is very near Hendon Camp. We went to the old building beside the hospital which is closer to the road first. The doors are sealed up and we were only able to roam the surroundings of the building. Took a photo with the old building in the background.

Take a good look at the 2nd photo we took.

Notice something in the photo? This proves that ghosts like to take photos with humans as well. There is a pathway leading to the hospital but it is really dark and the foliage is crowding the narrow pathway. I went up a distance with Huilin and Zewen but it was too inaccessible for so many of us to go. Got entangled in some cobwebs as well.

We went to the main entrance of the hospital and there was another flight of stairs leading up to the hospital. We were hesitating to go up to the hospital and Meibin, Ade and Shirley have already backed out, choosing to wait for us at the opposite bus stop. I wanted to go up as i don't want to go for another wasted ghost hunting trip again. Clarence, Jim and Yh have decided to back out as well and there were only left with 6 people who might be interested to go up. Edwin took a photo of the stairway and the strong flash illuminated a bit of the building on top of the staircase. Notice something white and round near the branch of the tree?

A bigger copy of the spiritual orb. On closer inspection, you can see 2 eyes and a mouth. These objects are evidence of paranormal activity in that area.

There were a lot of mosquitoes biting us and we were all rather irritated by them. A lorry drove past us and the driver shouted "Bu Yao Shang Qu!", or "Don't go up!". I wasn't really bothered by his comment and was still quite enthusiastic about going up as i don't wanna stand there and get bitten by more mosquitoes. However, the rest have decided not to go up and i had no choice but to follow (i'm not so crazy to go up alone). Quite disappointed that we did not even get close to the actual building.

We went to Changi Village for a short while and bought some drinks before heading back to the chalet. There were a number of transvestites in Changi Village on a weekend night as usual and some are really good looking while some looked quite fake.

We watched tv for a while as we did not have any other activities and Derrick was demonstrating some card tricks to us. Heads picture taken by Edwin.

Some of us were very tired and slept in the rooms after bathing. The only few awake are Derrick, Gs, Mb, Ade, Shirley and I. We played a guessing number game and the loser will have to drink a sip of a mixture of Vodka and ice cream soda. We finished the game in 4 rounds as we ran out of Absolute Vodka. We then proceeded to bath before continuing our late night chatting until around 5.30 am.

Slept at 6 am and woke up at 10.20 am as we were going for MacDonalds' breakfast at Downtown East. We watched the repeat telecast of Jue Dui Superstar at 12 noon and played some soccer in the afternoon before heading back home.

Bought quite a lot of groceries for my hostel and spent some time to pack my stuff as i'm moving in tomorrow morning. Hope that hostel life is an enriching and fun-filled experience.

P.S. : The photo with the long haired "ghost" is actually a set-up from all of us as we wanted to fake a ghost picture. Huilin was the one acting the ghost.

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My Last Week of Freedom!

Why is school starting so soon????????? Why??????? Going to study after such a long break of 2 years 9 months. Stress will be back in my life once again. :( I really don't know how i'm going to cope knowing that i sleep in lectures most of the time and always do last-minute work. My only relief is my timetable. I do not have any lessons on friday and i have half day lessons on wednesday and thursday. Thinking of overloading coz i will have 2 more modules next semester if i don't overload.

Ok, enough about university. A recap of what i did this week.
Monday) Went ktv with Ks as there were a lot of new ktv songs by Penny and David Tao released. Headed to Bugis to accompany him to get a new bag for university.

Tuesday) Went to watch Crash with Daryl at West Mall in the afternoon and headed to Cineleisure to watch War of The Worlds with Stephen at night. Crash is a well-wrought drama on clashes between various races. The cast is great and the director deft in intertwining the different stories to make it an effective ensemble piece. War Of The Worlds by Steven Spielberg's standard is bad. Minority Report and Artificial Intelligence have much better scripts with room for character development unlike WOTW. It is merely a special effects galore with lots of running and chasing.

Wednesday) Went out with my sec sch mates for a gathering as Fuli and i are starting school next week and we won't be able to meet up frequently next time. Spent most of the time chatting at cine food court and Cafe Cartel for dinner and dessert respectively. We also played 2 hours of pool at Le Meridien Hotel.

Thursday) Went out with Stephen and Weilin for ktv at cine K-Box. We sang overtime since nobody chased us out until 2.45 pm. Went Taka to do a bit of shopping and grabbed a bite at Mos burger before leaving. I didn't want to go back home so early and took a direct bus to Dover to work for a short while. Got my jc mates out in the evening to watch The Island at Lido. The Island has a rather interesting premise and there are loads of action to complement the storyline. Although it is preposterous at times, Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson compensate the flaws with their screen presence and chemistry. It also discusses issues like cloning, ethics and morality to certain exent. The Island is an entertaining movie which most people will enjoy.

Friday) Met up with Edwin, Terence and Daryl to go for the NTU engineering orientation talks today. The morning session is really quite useless and i spent half my time sleeping in MLT. I was quite surprised with the number of international students as there were a number of China students sitting in front and behind us, and many students from Indonesia, India and China coming forward to ask questions during the Q&A session. We had free buffet lunch after the morning session ended and we went to Hall 1 after that as i had not collected my hall keys. We went to my hostel room after that and it was bigger than i expected. With air-con, fridge and tv, the room would be perfect. Headed to LT1A for my mechanical and aerospace engineering talk after that and it was more useful with information on the modules we will be studying from year 1 to 4. After the talk, Edwin asked a professor the possiblity of getting from common engineering to aerospace engineering in the 2nd year and i found out the intake of aerospace engineering had increased from 60 to 80 due to overwhelming response. Went back home after that.

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Bangkok (Last Day)

Woke up rather early as we have to gather 9 am at the lobby for transport to the airport. The last day is almost non-existent as we are taking the 11.30 am flight back to Singapore.

We did not have time for breakfast at the hotel and had breakfast at a high class thai restaurant in the airport. Spent some time browsing through the duty free shops before boarding the plane.

There are really quite a lot of movies (over 20 titles) we can watch on Cathay Pacific planes. A picture of Changi Bay minutes before landing.

All of us collected our luggage and headed to buy duty free stuff at the airport. I consulted my father on the liquor he wants and i bought XO Hennessy grande champagne and Martell Cordon Bleu with the help of Jimmy as he need not buy any hard liquor. Helped Stephen get a perfume from Hugo Boss as well.

Went to cck to change back the rest of my thai baht to sgd and found out that the rate is very low for amounts less than S$100.

Looks like it will be some time before i go overseas the next time.

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Bangkok (Day 3)

Saturday, Jim and Gs heard drawers opening and closing repeatedly in the opposite room. These occurances should be considered normal for Asia Hotel which has rumours of ghost hauntings.

We woke up at around 8 am and headed to Chatuchak weekend market after our breakfast. Each of us bought an unlimited train ride for 1 day for only 90 baht. We then took the BTS to Chatuchak station and walked a short distance to the gigantic market. There are really a lot of shops inside and we split into 2 groups for more effective shopping. The shops seem to be endless and we were walking along rows and rows of shops. We spent most of our time in the clothing section and did not go over to the furniture, books and pets section. The weather was super hot as usual and inside the buildings were rather stuffy as well.

Bought several t-shirts and slippers at rather cheap prices. We got rather sick of shopping there and left after 3-4 hours.

Some photos at Chatuchak weekend market

We passed by Chatuchak Monument on the way to the BTS station and took some pictures as well.

On top of the BTS station, we can see from the number of cars that many people like to go Chatuchak market for the huge variety of goods available there and their economical price tags.

A picture of the train station.

We headed back to our hotel rooms to unload the things we just bought and headed to Chit Lom for lunch. Decided on Burger King as we wanted to eat something cheaper to save up for a more expensive dinner. Spent some time later at a few high class shopping centres nearby before heading over to Pratunam. We walked for around 15 minutes from World Trade Center to Pratunam Complex. There wasn't a lot of shops there and we crossed the road to Pratunam Market.

It was another big pasa malam and we browsed through the shops hoping to see anything nice to buy. We did not buy anything since we have bought most of what we wanted in Chatuchak. Clarence was not feeling too well as Jim accompanied him back to the hotel to rest. Derrick, Gs and I walked back to World Trade Center and walked along Skybridge to go to the shopping belt near Siam Station.

There were a lot of people there and we shopped until our legs were really tired. Went back our hotel so that we can meet up with Clarence and Jim for dinner. We decided on a nearby Thai restaurant as it is more convenient for all of us. The dishes are rather cheap but the servings are not a lot.

The three of us took BTS to Sala Daeng Station that is nearest to Pat Pong night market. Took several photos while waiting for Terence and Peiying to arrive.

There were quite a lot of stalls selling fake branded handbags and wallets. I was "forced" to purchase a fake Gucci bag after harassment from an aunty who kept pulling my hands after i asked the price.

We walked over to Silom and ended up at Silom Village, a food and beverages area, which we thought was another night market. Took cabs to Yaowarat again as it was the only area with the most shops or stalls open. Had seafood supper for our last good meal before leaving Bangkok the next day.

A really tiring day for all of us.

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