the end or the beginning?

while leaving NTU today, i nearly died at the Pioneer road exit of NTU. the light was green and in my favor when i approached, naturally i continued foward onmy bicycles. what is it about singaporean drivers, cyclist not road users also isit? they practically ignored me and i was weaving through traffic that were making right turns to get on to the PIE. i missed a dump truck, avoided a motorcycle and barely cleared a BMW. I was like, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! my heart was pounding when i finally cleared that little stretch of road. i was one lucky asshole today.

i finally had a talk with her. she told me that she had never felt anything for me. i guess it was all one sided for me. i placed so much effort, that i really hoped that it could work out.

when i sent an SMS out today, i had inadvertently sent it to the wrong person. she replied hours later asking who i was. i was like...oh my! i did not reply. then hours later, she called. it was our first conversation in a year! ahhhhhhhh! oh i could muster was that i had sms wrongy and apologised, i did not even identify myself. my head is in such a mess!

looking foward to diving!

hee hee hee! i went down to the dive centre today to do fitting for the dive suits. the guy in charge of stores, jeffery, was lamenting that i've slimmed down so much, i'm now considered common sized. he dun have enough common size suits. hahahaha. even the weight belt he gave me is way too long. ah well. i'm soooooo looking foward to going diving. pulau dayang is the location this time. and if things go well, i might have tioman lined up 2 weeks after.

due to my dive trip to dayang, i'm missing out on malcolm's housewarming. i was telling him that, it's safe for karen & joyce to attend then. hahahaha. and what a date for his housewarming, 11 September.

i miss her alot. after the conversation i had with her yesterday, i've given what she requested some thought. i usually wouldn't but since it's her, i decided to think it through, again. and again, i still do not want friendship. haiz. what i want is a relationship. i want to be given a chance to get to spend exclusive time with her. i want to understand her better. i want to grow old with her. this all or nothing move, is the lousiest ever move a guy can make on a gal but....i guess i am not your average guy.

number 5

not mambo number 5 but rejection number 5. damn. same gal, same result. i'm so head over heels about her but.......she wants friendship. me......friendship is not what i am after. not with her, not now, not ever. to think i even ask my mum to buy some sort of bracelet or trinklet back from her trip to china for her. fool i am to think i could change the world around.

my last day

my last day at Legends came and passed. well, i did not tell anyone it was going to be my last day today. been here for about a year now. just felt that maybe i do not have the time and energy to return for a longer part-time stint here anymore. time to get my studies back in order. saw my favourite membership staff while i was heading home today. ok, i admit it, i find her cute. heez. i only began speaking to her last weekend and today could have been our final conversation. ah well, if we are fated, who knows.

she came online while i was still at work. i wonder if she has dismissed me by now or is still stuck in a state of being unsure.

my generation is starting to get married!

my cousin came by yesterday. couple of weeks back she informed me that she had something to tell me. i was wondering what it could have been. welll, one of my guesses was correct. her boyfriend, of hmmm....almost 9 years, proposed. congratulations. after so long, the first of my generation is starting to get married. heez. congatulations to June & Alex. i wonder where my princess is?

i wonder what she's thinking now. i've tried my best but i do not know if i am able to melt the ice-queen's heart. she's unsure. of what, i do not know.

guns on MRT & service culture in singapore

hmmm....after sending my mum to the airport for her holiday to China, i proceeded to take the MRT to get to NTU. along the way, at Tanah Merah, i noticed this group of MRT police boarding the train. it really goes some way to say i was not one bit shock at their presence nor did i feel scared. i just looked at them in their dark blue uniforms with their revolver, baton, handcuffs & what-have-you-not hanging from their waist. i appreciate what is being done to make singapore safer. i should know. i was once involved in air base security and had my fair share of run-ins. only thing i feel is that, the danger level is high in such security related jobs yet, like our service sector counterparts, we are undervalued and underpaid. as the saying goes, "you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". unfortunantely, in our dear old singapore, the notion of being paid in peanuts have taken on a whole different meaning after the NKF saga, where it's former chariman's annual salary of S$600,000 was termed as peanuts. the governement is finally looking at improving the service sector but i feel its going to have to improve by leaps and bound before anything will happen. i know because i have also been working on a part-time basis in the service sector for the past 8 years. although it is low paying, i still do my best because i feel it is important to do a good job. however, the management never appreciates this and are always saying the company is not making money when in fact it is making healthy profits and the management are just wanting more for their bonuses. that is why, in the service sector, people are job-hopping more frevently than any other sector. this cannot go on else very soon, the best of our service staff will, like our nurses, be poached away.

oh and having assholes HR managers who forces people out of the company just because he does not like them will not make things good either. look at Legends @ Fort FCanning. the entire membership department has went through an overhaul since i joined the club as a part-timer last July. there is only one staff left from the staff that were there last July and she's there only because the HR manager is not successful in getting rid of her. he even had the gall to force the GM to sack the previous Asst Manager of the membership dept. when the GM reluctantly signed the release form, the HR manager took liberty and wrote all sorts of unsavoury, untruths, and unnecessary comments within the performance review. in the end, the Asst Manager chose to resigned instead, to save her reputation. if you look at the Sports & Recreation department, it is even worse. in less than a year, i've seen 2 managers left. the manager who employed me, left after having differences with the HR manager. the manager who took over him, left barely 6 months into the job. even the instructors were not spared. one instructor left together with the first manager, while another was forced out after she did not meet her sales target. sales target? yup, bullshit isn't it. nowhere in the instructor's job scope is it written that he/she must meet a certain sales target, plus, gym instructors are employed to look after the well-being of the gym users and not to be pushing products or selling training packages. so, you tell me, even if given top notch workers, if you have HR managers like the one Legends @ Fort Canning has, no one will stay.

undergrad chased out of lecture!?

the unthinkable happened yesterday. a yr4 NTU undergrad was publicly chastised and sent packing from the LT. oh my! he is one super unlucky person. the lecturer is not what you would term anal-retentive. us students also got to take most of the blame for the lecturers are always having to get us to settle down when we enter the LT, resulting in loss of lecture time. after that student got chased out, a handphone suddenly went off. the look shot by the lecturer could kill! WHO'S THAT! he boomed. the student quickly apologize, albeit meekly. next thing to be heard were bags rustling as everyone struggled to get their respective handphones turned to silent mode before anything drastic happens. sometimes, in this world, even though we are adults, it is still that bit of reprimanding, making us feel like kids again, which actually get anything done. hahahaha.

wired up connection

i bought the LAN cable a week ago but only layed it today. opened up the power cable trunkings and layed it through. took me about 30 mins to lay it. hot and sweaty by the time i was done. all for the sake for having a more stable internet connection in lieu of disruptions on my wireless network.

the joys of human factors

i love attending my human factors lecture. there is so much to learn ad it's really very fun and enjoyable. only 4 weeks into the course and already we are looking at certain products in a different light. the lecturer is really great and he includes alot of anecdotes. makes the class so much more enjoyable.

just yesterday, we were discussing about how our senses will take precedence in the different tasks we do. there was once a research done about smell and potential partners for females. it has been a known fact that us humans are attracted to our repective future mates by smell ala animals. however the research has shown that gals have a tendency to go for guys who smell abit like their fathers. what the?! hahahaha. lesson learnt here, guys should not bathe before a date. hahahaha.

in a discussion among my friends we did agree on one thing. that all humans, when chosing their respective life partners, that subconciously, they are chosing people who are abit like a close family member, be it their parents, siblings or even cousins. truly fascinating the human brain.

had the opportunity in taking the same lift today. standing side by side, not a word was uttered. haiz. i still haven't got the courage to even say hi.

my underwater casing has arrived

my underwater casing has finally arrived! after so long. finally. yeah! can go take underwater shots. or can be pool buaya. hahahaha!

i was online the whole night waiting for her to come online. i've not spoken to her for many many days. coming to 3 weeks now. this has been the longest period we have neither spoken nor messaged each other. i was going to ask her if she was willing to meetup for lunch tomorrow. afterall this time, i won't be suprised if she rejected me. haiz. a fool i am. i should stand firm but i really really miss her.

diving trip back on?

after much talking back and forth, it does seem like the proposed diving trip i was trying to get going from 23-25Sep may be back on again, albeit as a private trip. that's being extremely optimistic. talked to the members who are intrested and got some positive feedback. i pray very hard it will go through. for weisiong's sake and for my reputation sake. hahahaha.

weird thing happened to my phone today. when i got to work, i noticed the screen had turned upside down and reversed in a mirror sort of way. damn. if only i got my digicam to capture it. it's really hilarious. for my continued usage for the day, i had to switch it off and turn it back on again to resume normal operation. my phone has really seen better days. waiting for my W800i to arrive. heez.

the flu bug strikes again

i've been struck down by flu again. arggg. took 2 of them drowsy yellow flu tablets and 2 panadol cold tablets. oooh my head is a mess now. got to go rest. sniff sniff. AHCHOOO!

safety issues and time whizzing

after so many years, actually not that many, i went back to SJI today. i had called up Bro. Mike on tuesday to discuss the idea of introducing scuba diving to the boys at SJI. Bro. Mike asked me to speak to the PE dept teachers to see if they would be acceptable to the idea. met with nathan & bernard teo today. they were open to the idea but as there were too many implication in organizing such an event, of which student safety is of utmost importance, the school's hands are tied. although SJI is an independent school and are allowed to organise their own brand of outdoor activities for the students, scuba diving would be too much of a responsibility for the school to handle. they are not able to do it as scuba diving is listed as a dangerous sport, in the same field as sky diving, bungee jumping & even rock climbing! with the new breed of parents these days, making all the kids into little emperors and empresses, kids now a days are too soft and pampered. haiz.

my time plan today was really very packed. went to SJI in the morning. then came home to rest before heading to the Bloodbank@HSA to donate blood. there, i saw a lady who looked a lot like Joann from the NTU lifeguard corps. i even thought it was her. almost called the wrong person. she looked so much like Joann. hahaha. only older, for when the lady recieted her IC number to the nurse, i heard her number was 7-something. therefore oldest 36, youngest 26. hahahaha. after a quick rush at the Bloodbank, i rushed over to the outpatient clinic for my followup appointment. i reache the clinic at 2.10pm. my appointment was supposed to be at 2.15pm but i only saw the doctor at 3.30pm. stupid SGH, make me miss my lecture. !#@%$#%@#

by the time my consultation was over, i rushed back to NTU to meet my labmate to discuss our M460 project further. she's really smart and since she is so willing to help me, i got to pass this module. my day of rushing about finally ended after the M463 lecture which was rescheduled to 5.30pm due to union day, ended at 6.30pm and i headed home. there were goodie bags for collection but...nah, enough with goodie bags. makes us singaporeans look like bloody chepos. and once again, with the classes shifted till late, ponteng king struck again and ponteng lecture. you know who you are. PONTENG KING! hahahahah!

another dive trip in danger of cancellation

recieved news today that the club would not be taking up the offer of the dive trip. argggg. thankfully, the manager agreed to spread the news by word of mouth so that at least there will be people who knows of the trip. i hope i can find at least 15 divers. and i dun even make a cent out of this trip. damn. next time have to make money.

she called herself "zhu tou" for a while on MSN last night. haiz. not say i'm the best guy around but someone once said that she is really a "zhu tou" for not accepting me. pity the person is not a female. hahaha.

healthy but very lonely

took advantage of the freebie health screening today conducted by them "peanut" people. everything turned out well. i am way too healthy for someone who is supposedly overweight. hahaha. only bad point is that i had 23% body fat content and would need to drop it down to below 20%. even Malcolm is unhealthier than me in that aspect, he had 24% body fat content. hahaha.

heard a song on the radio today. "I'll Be There" by the escape club. i always liked the song but have never concentrated on the lyrics. and when i did today, i realised what a beautiful song it was. they don't wite lyrics like they do anymore. kind of reminds me of my failed relationships.

Don't be afraid oh my love
I'll be watching you from above
But I'll give all the world tonight to be with you
Cause I'm on your side and I still care
I may have died but I've gone nowhere
Just think of me and I'll be there

all the ignorings and black faces are just facades. deep down, i miss her and still care very much for her.

bikey's rear shaft was broken?!

oh man. my bike has been having some problems with the rear wheel for some time now. i guess all that milage has taken a toll on good old bikey. but on sunday, she was really suffering very badly, rubbing the rear wheel against the frame. i finally had time to bring her down to sevice today. lo and behold. when the uncle open the rear wheel gears, he saw that the connecting shaft had split into 2! oh my. how it got broken really amazes me. to top it off, uncle claims that the shaft does not breaks so easily and is a very rare occurance. he personally has seen very few of such cases. oh my! cost me $18 to replace the shaft. i asked him about wheels and i guess he feels that i'm into biking and was trying to advice me on modification. a new set of wheels, made in france, $500+! Sorry, dun have that kind of money. ouch! maybe next time.

farewell meal for shaun wei

us airguys had a meal today to bid farewell to shaun wei who would be flying off in the wee hours on friday morning. he's returning to cmu to complete his masters.

kenny finally made an appearance after one year. he had been holed up in shanghai for a whole year and just returned towards the end of July. together with justin, benedict, shaun wei & myself, we met up at orchard mrt and headed to far east plaza for a meal of hainanese chicken rice. the chicken rice is good but the salted vegetable soup sucks.

we then headed to lido and "chilled" in front of the big screen while waiting for mark & wee meng. the topic of next year's SJI classs of 96 reunion came up and we were lamenting at the possible high cost of a table. again we suggested having a reunion of our own, class of 96 style, where we will all congregate at the esso tiger mart and have hot dogs and cup noodles. hahaha.

shaun wei was squeezed into treating us all an ice-cream cone each from mcdonald's. however as benedict, justin & wee meng had went to the toilet, by the time they returned, the ice-cream was melting and we had 3 25-year-olds eating ice cream like little young children. hahahaha. to top it off, benedict even had a minor accident in the toilet where he slipped on someone's pee and jarred his knee to the side of the urinal. he was very lucky, it could have been worse. hahahaha.

would like to wish shaun wei a safe journey. take care and come back soon.

i like my new digicam

i got the old old model Canon A85 digital camera. only 4MP but is rated as the best underwater compact digital camera, of course cannot fight with dSLR, even after being on the market since July 2004. hahaha. buy camera just to take underwater shots. if bring to swimming pool, macham buaya. heez. played with all the functions. the macro looks pretty good though.

new camera!

yea! i got a new digital camera. i'm poor so i went for a cheaper and older model. more on it tomorrow. i'm very sleepy now. it's EPL opening weekend but......damn, i'm feeling sleepy.

i've been attending the wrong tutorial class

oh my! i only realised today that i have been attending the wrong tutorial class. hahaha. by accident, i only found out that my m463 tutorial is supposed to be today and not on Tuesday. what a blunder! hahahaha. ah welll.

anyway, got Indra, Eric, Roy & Thomas to sign up for the dive trip today. unless there is a more desirable person willing to be my buddy, "hint hint, wink wink", most likely Thomas will be my buddy during the advanced training. no offence to Thomas but, me man and very lonely. hahahaha.

new dress style: attempt 1

school is starting to get scary. topics are starting to throw screens of doubts. my fyp is starting to look more and more scary, very intresting but very scary. inter-personal relationships are at a low.

tried something abit different today. i attended my m363 kecture in shirt and pant......but with the shirt tucked out and the top and bottom buttons unbuttoned. just wanted a change. am i really so snobbish? i wonder/

dive, protective, groupwork

signed up for my scuba diving advanced open water course. hahahaha. damn. i can't wait to go. things have not been smooth in school lately. especially my personal relations. time is suppose to heal the pain but, man, it still hurts. today indra saw her in the tutorial room when he peeked through the window and was bad mouthing her outside the door, saying that she does not deserve me and that she was a show-off. although i told him that she and i are on different paths now, i actually told him not to bad mouth her. why do i still protect her?

i finally got groupmates for my Human Factors module. it was by a stroke of luck that the professors decided to limit the group sizes down to 3 from 4. as such, there was plenty of discussion and last minute grabbing of people with no groups to fill the required numbers. i got paired with Adi & Dhewa. apparently Dhewa knows Sam, Mustafa & Shafuddin. the world is real small. we had a small discussion about the project today and from the looks of things, it does seem promising. we hope to be able to finish up our project as soon as possible. we got too many projects already.

Happy 40th National Day Singapore

On August 9 1965, Singapore was forced out of the Federation of Malaya. SInce then, us Singaporeans have worked hard to build a better life for ourselves. A great big thank you to all who have played their part in making what Singapore is today. On this day, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Singapore's independence.

HAPPY 40TH NATIONAL DAY SINGAPORE!

Kawalan kohormatan, Hormat Senja-TA!

mahjong anyone?

well, it has been a couple of days. the pain is not as bad as before but it still hurts. we came face to face a couple of times today, the eyes recognise each other, the body language denies each other's presence. i have to agree with herman that my need for a commitment might have led me to have forced a all-or-nothing decision. here i am, a not too great fellow, looking for someone that i have an intrest in and also reciprocal intrest, and willing to commit. and gals are complaining that us guys dun want to commit.

anyway, enough about my sappy love failure. congrats to Zhen Quan & Jenny. found out today that they are now innvolved in an exclusive relationship. too cheem? they 2 now boyfriend girlfriend. when will my princess arrive?

tomorrow is National Day, so my mum and i took the opportunity to play mahjong with my granny. we just play to game, so no counting of "fan" at all. and low low stakes of 5 & 10 cents. just for kicks. hahahaha.

digital cameras are so bloody expensive

went shopping for a digital camera with my mum today. went to a few shops to gauge the prices of a few of the canon 5 megapixel that i was intrested in. the ixus50 was going for about $600+. too expensive for me. so i'm still holding. there is a olympus model that's going for $449 only but i'm still considering. still got the underwater casing to consider. haiz.

are we second rate citizens of the world?

i watched "Hotel Rwanda" today. it was based upon a true story of how a Rwandan House Manager of a belgian-owned hotel help save many rwandans from being massacred during the mid-90s. a very powerful message, it is about time that somebody showed the distinct lack of conscience of the so called western superpowers. when rwanda descended into chaos, the so called UN-led forces were only evacuating the foreign nationals from the country. to them, the rwandans were dirt, nothing more than a speck and not worth saving simply because they were not worth a single vote on the UN council. they refused to send in any intervention forces to prevent the genocide that was going on. as a journalist once put it, "when the people in their nice comfy homes see the massacre on their television while having their nice dinner, they would go 'oh, that's terrible' and then carry on having their meals." such are the cruel realities of people with power. obviously to them, what adolf hitler did during world war 2 to the jews was of no lesson to them. interfering in other countries' policies is one thing but prevention of genocide is the responsibility of all mankind. heck, even governmental spokespersons then had to phrase their words such that the word "genocide" was rarely or never mentioned. the fact that other countries, especially the western superpowers, had to be shamed into sending aid is an atrocity by itself. at least when a similar "genocide" was threatening to occur or started occurring in Yugoslavia, NATO for once reacted. for the joke among asians is that NATO only stands for one thing, "No Action, Talk Only". to me, we can not be reliant upon the western powers to come to our aid. yes, their aid can be helpful but it always comes at a price. look at Afganistan & Iraq and to a lesser extent, South Korea. i need say no more.

pain: it's both physical & spiritual

had to miss my fluids dynamics lecture today because i had to go down to NDC today to see the dentist. 45 mins, he cleaned up the holes he bored previously and checked upon the 3rd tooth which is still under observation. whatever happends, next month 9th sept, he will do the filling for the initial 2 and decide then if the 3rd requires a root canal. then i'm leaving for my diving trip on that night. damn. that's cutting it real close. according to him, i am supposedly able to dive without much problems.

it's been a day since i made the decision and it hurts. a friend of mine claims that i am a fool to throw away something which means so much to me just because i can't get an answer. another feels that it is about time that i let go. 2 different people, 2 different opinions. would i live to regret this decision? likely. would i repeat this decision if i could go back in time? likely. but as she said, "u n me...always frens." i dun want to be "always frens" only, ok? if i'm harping upon one incident, nobody gives "death stares" to my friends if i holler them to join us if we are only "always frens". previously, she only shows some discomfort when i do holler them to join us. but now, "death stares"? what for? you don't do that if we are only "always frens". then today, 2 of the blackest face were sitting in lecture for Fluids Engineering. till now, i still cannot fanthom why she is there when she is not taking the module this semester.

oh wait a minute. she is in the class. tat's surprising. and she was telling me that she's doing 464 this sem and only 463 next sem. hey, rollback. why am i still so concerned about her ongoings? dumb. stupid. must let go. must let go.

i'd rather

human emotions are such a myraid of complexities. in life, we are often taught that persistence is a key to achieving things. however, in relationships, things are not so. the past year, she was a person who had taken a huge chunk in my life. things between us are not exactly the best but i have never really contemplated ending it all. given a choice, i rather be having a turbulent relationship with her then to have everything smooth but solo. she's really a nice girl but it is time that i woke up from la la land. the decision to drop everything was a really painful one for me to make. i am a very emotional person and since things detiorated between me and others, she has really been a very important person to me. however, given my personality of not being able to stick around as a friend after being rejected as a bf, i do not want to hang around to find out anymore.

I thought some time alone
was what we really needed
you said this time would hurt more than it helps
but I couldn't see that
I thought it was the end
of a beautiful story
and so I left the one I loved at home to be alone
and I tried to find
out if this one thing is true
that I'm nothing without you
I know better now
and I've had a change of heart

I'd rather have bad times with you, than good times with someone else
I'd rather be beside you in a storm, than safe and warm by myself
I'd rather have hard times together, than to have it easy apart
I'd rather have the one who holds my heart
I'd Rather by Luther Vandross

a fool in the midst of rubbish

a fool is someone who thinks he could win over the heart of someone who never liked him in the first place. a fool is someone who pines for someone whose hatred for him has never ceased.

only a fool asks someone out when it is obvious someone has better things to do than to have ice-cream with him. only a fool feels hurt whenever the person passes by him and ignores him.

only a fool will be jealous to see someone hanging out with the person whom someone loathed so much last year and claims as friend now. only a fool will have a feeling of helplessness when he knows someone can see him but does not respond to him.

a fool dreams about someone at night and it is nothing but sweat dreams. a fool sees someone in the day and it is nothing but nightmares.

sometimes it pays to be persistent, this time all it did was to crash the fool psychologically. persistency does not works if the opening was never there.

the fool i am. a fool i'll always be.

typical cheapo singaporean

who? me? hahaha. yup, guilty as charged. here's me queing up during the carnival organised by NTU student union last week to purchase bottled drinks at 20 cents a pop, payment by ex-link. Cheap cheap cheap. and a chance to win a coca-cola mini bar fridge or toaster. hahahaha. super cheapo and kiasu.

Queing

Waiting

Huh?

Selecting

Paying

we've been cheated at the ice cream parlours

Recognise the scoop above? It's an ice cream scoop used mainly at ice-cream parlours. The Zeroll Ice Cream Scoop was designed by Sherman Kelly in 1953 and is still very much in use today. Through the years, many different designs by other manufactureres have become available but their design have hardly deviated from the original by Kelly.

I am a ice-cream junkie myself and after hearing what my design lecturer told us today, ooh......i feel so cheated. The humble plastic or household ice-cream scoop with the lever, readily available and sold at NTUC fairprice, which help to remove the ice-cream ball after it has been scooped from the ice-cream tub actually gives us more ice cream per scoop. As we scoop the ice-cream from the tub, the ice cream is compacted within the scoop into a ball. The ice-cream scoop at the parlours functions in almost the same way except......

Ever wondered how is it the waiteress/waiter at these parlours have it so easy to scoop out the ice-cream from the tub into a nice round ice-cream ball while we struggle at home to even get it ball shape? The Z-scoop is usually placed within a warm bucket of water when not in use and it is designed to retain the heat so as to enable the scoop to slice through the ice-cream smoothly. While this allows us to achieve a very nice ice-cream ball, what is little known is that, on average the ice cream ball scooped by the Z-scoop although creates the same size ice-cream ball as your normal scoop, in actual fact, it contains 20% less ice-cream. This is because scooping ice-cream is made so easy that the ice-cream is not as tightly compacted into a ball thus leaving an air-hole in the center.

Oooh......these ice-cream parlours charge us so much for a single scoop of ice-cream and give us less. Hrumph!