a better year tomorrow?

it's the last day of the year. wanted to write something poignant and meaningful but felt it would be so fake. new year's eve and i'm stuck on fort canning hill, again. earning $7.50 per hour. pathetic. while everyone else is counting down to the new year, i am counting down to the end of my shift so i can go home and sleep. hahaha.

it has been a very tiring year for me. what with problems in both school and personal life. hahaha. i hope next year thing will get better. see you next year!

much ado about nothing

currently at my fyp lab just copying the manuals for the machines i am working on. my mentor is not around today, i think he is taking a breather. ah well, he deserves it, he has been working hard on his project which i am supposed to assist him in but have done nothing so far.

heading to my cousin's place later on for a bbq session with her's and her husband's friends. hmmm......i wonder if any of them knows maryelle. hahaha.

cute dentist

i went down to national dental centre today to get my filling fixed. as i had no prior appointment, i was considered a semi-walk in case. waited for about 90 mins before it was my turn. and damn! the dentist was really cute! she is really really nice too. dr. maryelle goh. very very nice lady. wish i could be friends with her. and she's young too. hmmm......i wonder if she is attached. better yet, i wonder if she knows my cousin, might be of some help. throughout the procedure, i kept looking into her eyes. hahaha. bloody lovesick fool.

broken filling

argggg. my filling for my lower tooth broke off while i was having a chicken wing. i did not even realise it till the chicken wing suddenly became very very crunchy. damn. too much hard food. pain pain!

more biking luck

i was really lucky today. twice actually. when i left home and headed to ntu, the sky was clear and sunny. the moment i entered the car park at north spine, the sky just opened up. phew! considering that i was not wearing my jacket and gloves, plus i had my laptop on my back. when i was done for the day in school, the rain had stopped but the sky was threatening. along the journey home, it never went beyond a drizzle. the moment i reached the lift landing of my block, the sky opened and boy was it heavy. it was so heavy that the spring building which was just 75 meters away could not be seen!

spring cleaning

spent the whole day clearing up my room. it has been almost 2 years since i rearranged the furniture in my room and there were alot of surprises awaiting me. money were hiding below cupboards, lost notes, papers, lego toys. hahaha. by the timr i was done, i was in a sneezing frenzy and had 5 ntuc-sized plastic bags of rubbish to throw. and most of the stuff were not even mine. they were just dumped there by my mum for keeps and just piled and piled. but seriously, i don't think ndp goodie bags are worth keeping past one year. heck, they are not even worth keeping after the goodies have been removed from them.

merry christmas

while i am being paid pittance to vegetate here at fort canning, just want to send a christmas greeting to those reading this. happy holidays and a blessed new year. and no, i am neither christian nor catholic. i have no religion.

underpaid worker

worked the whole day earning pittance per hour, $7.50. well, at least i made full use of my meal breaks. spent the first meal break selling off my k750i handphone, got back what i paid for it and more. haha. spent my second meal break getting my bicycle's kick stand fixed. at least i got some things done today. on this silent night, it sure is silent. merry christmas to you, k.

life & regrets

I didn’t want to start because I thought I could not commit to a woman or take up a life long commitment. There are those who understand my character and were not happy about it. They hated this character of mine but yet they still accepted me. Then I was involved in an accident. Is it because of it that I have self-deluded myself? That I used it as an excuse to overlook my commitment problem? It is not that I complicate matters. The point is that when two persons are together, they are happy. It is that simple. I know and I understand. Perhaps deep down, I hate this streak of mine which avoids commitment. And maybe, just maybe, because of my accident, I have found a very good excuse to lie to myself that I can be with the person I care for.

Sometimes, just maybe, humans are just too naïve. They think that by just winning a major war against a virus, it would be happiness forever and we would no longer need to put in as much effort in producing the vaccines against it. But if Mother Nature wants to punish us, it would find a way. In the end, what actually brings about the downfall of humans is not SARS, Ebola or Bird Flu but our very own arrogance.

A lifetime is not a short time. We all have done something that we regret. However, not everyone has the chance to amend what they regret they have done and to make a change. All of us have to grow up, we all have to learn, and nobody is an exception. None of us is. When I was in my teens, I used to think that it was easy to find someone who loves you as much as you love her. Oh those were the days, when we were young and had no worries, thinking the world is just that simple. Maybe, just maybe, this world is that simple and uncomplicated. It is just us complicating things ourselves. Who does not wish to be a simple person living a simple life? Truth be told, no one around us can do it. After the happenings of these two years, I keep telling myself I do not want to hurt others again for I have hurt too many. I thought I have learned how to handle relationships, how to take care of others, but it turned out there are myriad ways to hurt others. So subtle are some of the ways that I did not even know I had hurt others. Why not pull a lie to cover the eyes of the person I care about? Thing is, we are no fools and people nowadays are getting smarter. But then again, how would I know if a smart woman did not want to be fooled? On hindsight, I have regretted my brashness of forcing the issue back then. Largely it was because I knew the person would not lie and I could not lie to myself. I have thought of lying to myself but I knew that it would be foolish. What else can I do? Drag the subject out and keep running it through my head again? One of the reasons I am not attempting to do anything about my problems with the person I care about, is not so much that I did not know what to do but rather I do not wish to lie. I believe I know what kind of person I am and the person would know it too. Well, since we do not really hate each other, there really are no grounds for hurting each other. Maybe we have decided not to solve the problem and let it be, living out our own lives separately. From this, some would claim I am contradicting myself and do not understand what I am trying to prove. Sigh. My heart is not able to let go but I have to. One thing I am sure, if I do not settle my problems by the time I leave NTU, I will regret it. For someone who is so adamant against changing himself for anyone, I really do not deserve any sympathies yet I do not deserve any heckling either. Perhaps the best ending to this all might be to leave things as it is. Maybe, maybe not, who knows? By not being able to really acknowledge the ending of any of my relationships properly, might be just where my problem lies.

While trying to search for an answer to my problems, many things came back to me. That certain things as mundane as a disagreement can actually be fun. It depends on how you see things and from which angle you choose to see it from. If not for someone, I would not have realized that disagreements could have helped build a relationship. If not for disagreements, I would not have realized how much certain people mean to me. I would not have realized bowling could be fun or just walking could be so enjoyable. These past 2 years were the darkest period of my life. Through this dark period, I met people who tried to guide me out of the gloom. With my days at NTU numbered I am scared. Scared that I would never be able to see some people again. Scared that I have left things in a state beyond repair. It is not so much of that I do not want to do anything to but rather I do not know what to do. If things really turn out this way, I really do not know what to do. I am sorry, I really am. I really can not imagine what life at NTU and beyond would be if I have not met these people. If possible, I really hope that I can be allowed to start things anew. It is easy to lie to others but if it means lying to someone you love and for life, I do not think I can do it.

A man like me with so many shortcomings, it might not be a good thing to be the woman in my heart. I was once told, whether a man is good or bad, the verdict belongs to the woman with him, not the man himself.

What I would do and whether the other person would take the idea are two different issues, so how I think is not important at all. Some people by being careful, such as watching out before crossing the road, or always watching out for the fire while they are cooking, then they can avoid accidents. They can make plans for the next ten, twenty years or even thirty, forty years but I can not. Not without a purpose and direction in life. I can only plan for the possibilities but not the surprises. I am only but human. However, I do not ponder about this often for life is always changing. Torturing oneself once a year is more than enough, there is no need to keep worrying about the future. A reason why people do not want to acknowledge that they are old is because they do not want to torture themselves. Besides that, it is also to give oneself some hope, that one is not really growing old that fast. Also, it would give oneself time to correct the mistakes they have done. There are bound to be difficulties in any relationship but if they are bound to happen, why should we worry about them? Why not just take it in our stride?

Living to this day, a quarter of a century old, I have seen pains and I have gone through pains. I have seen my beloved who gave up her social circle for me, I have seem my closest leaving this world, I met someone whom I really wanted to be with and I had a relationship which both of us wanted to get out of. I have owed and I have forgiven. It might not have been a beautiful life thus far but at least I have experienced life somewhat, knowing that my life was not lived in bitterness.

the return

on an evening of drizzle and gloom, under the glow of suntec city, a group of friends met up for a meal. a group whom had worked together to win an award, a group who had an outcast drifted away and hanging by the seams now to keep a thread of connection.

the meal was swell but it is easier for a group to feel comfortable with each other than for a group to accomodate the return of another. the prodigal son feels uncomfortable in the presence of the ladies. the aquarium around the corner allowed him to momentarily return to his place of solace, a place where he feels no worries, back to the deep blue sea.

a game of bowling was to come, to allow for some male bonding. team bonding could not be achieved as the ladies were more intrested in other things. also the tension between the outcast and one of the ladies could kill. not even an eye contact, nothing at all.

a warm up round gave rise to the team "leaders" of the 2 teams. to achieve a sense of familiarity, the outcast chose those he felt comfortable with. team 1 lead by the original team leader and team 2 by the prodigal son. the first game was slow to kick off, scores were low but soon team 1 raced into a healthy lead. helped by some coaching from the opposition team, team 2 soon came back in the race. a couple of strikes and spares later, the scores were very close. down to the final bowler and final frame of each team, team 1 lead team 2 by 3 pinfalls. both bowlers had the same score for their first bowl, 7 pinfalls. team 2 needed a spare to get back into the game......and yes! they got the spare they needed. team 1 faltered and eventually team 2 won team 1 by 7 pinfalls! in game 2, team 2 players performed well, however, team 2's leader faltered at the first frame. coupled with the superb performance of team 2 members, the game though close, was eventually won by team 2 again.

the group headed for a drink after a good game of bowling. passing through the hotel, the guys were enamoured by the christmas tree put up within that they became "woodcutters".

seeing that a pub was nearby, they soon settled down and had chatted. too many topics were discussed. the prodigal son sat back to take it in. he had been detached and just wanted to listen in.

after chilling out for a little under two hours, the group was tired. bidding each other farewell, they made their way home. the outcast then walked home from, taking it as an opportunity to exercise and also to work out the alcohol from the system. even after enjoying himself, the prodigal son was still thinking, has he really reconnected or is he self-deluding himself?

tiring day

another day of fyp but spent the morning playing badminton with the guys. have to exercise hard to be less flabby again. too much pile up during these past months has made me hedious again. cycling to and from school would help me burn.i have to be patient. took me months to shrink back then, will take me at least till CNY to shrink again perhaps.

i finally passed!

after 2.5 years at ntu, i finally did my first all clear of my modules. although my grade are not exactly fantastic, at least i finally did not fail. after lowering down my number of failures, from 3 failures in my 1st semester to 2 in my second semester and 1 in my 3rd semester, i finally have vanquished failure! now for one final semester and to graduate on time with my friends. damn, another 5 months of school left only. oh man, so fast!

dilema

Droping the past might allow 2 persons a chance to be together. Although both persons have always treated each other as friends but there comes a time when one or the other would start comparing potential partners or suitors with the friend. Sometimes, we cannot measure who is more impotrtant than whom in out heart. When either one of them is with the other, the person feels joyful but insecure. Whereas, when either one of them is with someone else, that someone else brings about a sense of security for the person yet the person feels nothing for that someone else. The person wanders at the crossroad not knowing which to choose, the stairs or the slope. The person can only stand and stand still.

looking foward to monday

strange as it may seem, i am actualy looking foward to tomorrow when i can get back to my fyp lab. suddenly i am starting miss school. damn, wierd ain't it?

another full day

another full day at work at fort canning today. felt really bloated from last night's diinner when i woke up this morning. at least the short cycle ride from home to fort canning helped. worked half the day at the gym the other half at the swimming pool. difference between both places? the air-con at the gym can be exceedingly cold at times but you will never fall asleep there as you are constantly engaging the members and visitors. at the pool, hardly anyone passes the counter as most goes by the gym way, making it exceedingly boring but you can get your own work done with hardly any disturbance, but without any ai-con there, it is damn stuffy on warm days.

happy birthday grandma!

today's my granny's birthday! yeah! happy 83rd birthday grandma

the family met at harbour city restaurant to celebrate granny's 83rd birthday. as most of us young ones are by now not so young, beer and tea are now common fair at family gatherings.


the food was good, well at $28 a head, it had better be. haha. the cuttlefish was nice, everyone liked it so much, it was difficult to get a shot of the dish before everyone sapu it.
desert was common fair of almond jelly and red bean but nonetheless, it was ok.

wow! 83 years old. even at this age, granny is no slouch and can still hold her own ground. and she's a damn great cook too. i wonder if i'll ever get to live that long. happy birthday grandma!

fluish but not dead yet

met up with malcolm in school today. damn, feeling fluish today. plus my entire right side of my body ached from yesterday's exertions. my forearm feels strained, my hip and ankle joints are hurting and my ankle is tender. owww!

games and fyp training

managed to get some badminton play time in the morning with the guys. been a while since i last played. but i think i landed wrongly, now my ankle feels tender. ahhh!!! had another training session today at my fyp lab. but when i reached the lab, everyone was in a bidding frenzy. fighting to get one of them old computers that the library is seeling off. looks like it is new computers come the new semester. ooooh yeah! checked through my supposed time-table for next semester. my GE aside, i only have 4 exams. and they are so widely spread. first paper on 12 April, 2nd paper on 18 april, 3rd paper on 2nd may and last paper on 4th may. with my toughest paper supposedly on 18 april, i;m more or less home free by then, provided i pass all my modules this semester. next semester's exams sure are early!

scars of life

The human body is very much like the human life. For instance, the bodies of newborn babies are considered flawless, a new beginning. When you look at the scar-covered bodies of grownups, you can see how much they have went through. Thinking back, the scars that we have gotten during our growing up years are not unlike the regrets we have in our lives. Some of us are proud of our scars but most of us are actually ashamed of them. Attempts will be made to cover them, to remove them, so as to enable the person to forget about them. But from the medical point of view, scars are the body's memories of traumas, serving as cautionary reminders of lessons learnt. Hence, even if your intention is to forget them, you must first have the courage to face them

There is a German proverb about trees which loosely translate as saying that the strongest parts of a tree are where its scars lie. Trees are frequently under attack from the elements, resulting in damages to the trunk and the branches falling off. Even so, the tree will recover and grow again. When compared to the rest of the trees, though the scars are ugly, they are also the hardest parts of the tree and can support the tree to grow. The moral of this proverb is not hard to understand for everyone has a story of a stormy encounter. It may be the death of a beloved or simply the bickering with a friend in the morning. There is just no meaning to compare which kind of frustration is greater than the other. Even before man is able to dominate earth, Mother Nature has already given us a survival instinct which helps us to grow. When faced with setbacks, we can still walk against the headwind, not unlike the tree's old trunk

We may not have many dilemmas in life but when faced with them, do we know how to react? Should we allow them to control us or should we place destiny in our own hands? However we may choose, there is no right or wrong, good or bad. As long as we take charge of our own fate and direction like the old scarred tree, even under adverse conditions, we can still live a good life.

the parent and the child

If something you have kept makes you unhappy, it is something that would not help you much. Similarly, if it is something you would not forget, it is really not a big deal whether it is in your possession or not. In a family, everyone has their own choice and parents do not have the right to question them. If the child is headstrong, no matter what the parents try, they can not stop the child even if they wanted to. However, what the parents hope the child would learn is that no matter what, they have never given up on the child. Not now, not ever. Since the day the child was born, the child was their child and they were the child’s parents. This is fate which can not be denied. No matter what thoughts courses through the thoughts of the child, no matter the actions of the child, the parents will still fulfil their duty as parents.

holed up at fort canning

got stuck at fort canning the entire day! haiz. was working the morning shift and was hoping to get home to sleep as i was very tired from the night before. then received a call from the afternoon shift staff asking if i could come down and cover for her. seeing that wallet is low on vitamin "M", i agreed. feeling real tired now. got 3 days to factor in all my fyp review and submit to my mentor for approval. if he approves, he will let me have some of his experimental results, if he doesn't, i am as good as dead. 30 mins more and i am done for the day. really really sleepy now.

dinner up north

everyone says dinner up north is cheap and good, so i went with my family to try the food. how cheap is cheap for food up north? well, at a particular hawker centre near to pelangi in johor, called Taman something (forgot the actual name but chinese is 大马花园), a small plate of oyster egg, better known as 蠔煎，is available for only RM5. how much food can you get with S$50 then? for that amount, we had 2 chili crabs, one hot plate tofu, one medium serving of deep cereal fried prawn, one medium serving of vegetable fried in chili (i forgot the vegetable except it ain't leafy), one medium serving of shellfish (also known as "lala" in singapore), 3 plates of white rice, one small serving of fried egg oyster, 2 glasses of sugarcane juice and 2 glasses of fruit juice. the amount above can feed 4 to 5 people comfortably. to top it off, the food is comparable if not beter than what is served up in our own hawker centre.

and so it begins

went for another dental checkup today, only $7 for a look see and to arrange for my dental implant's bone grafting surgery. some time in january, i will have a very very swollened face. the dentist will be hammering some of my bone off from my lower jaw to graft to my missing tooth area. alas, according to very long shot estimates, it will only be around october 2006 before i'll have a full set of teeth again. and i was hoping to be able to smile nicely for my graduation (pray very hard@!) in july 2006. also, no diving till the procedure is over, or at best, maybe around september 2006. arggg, looks like my rescue diver course is gonna be delayed.

slaughtered

today's progres presentation was a complete disaster. the presentation itself was ok but i lacked depth. also, i did not do much, in fact nothing lab based has been done by me yet. as such, i got slaughtered by my professor and deserved it. but it really sucked to be killed in front of the other fyp students. i am starting to lose my direction. doomed i shall be.

fat is bad

when one is fat and has both wrist injured, it sure makes rolling off the mattress and getting up a difficult task. my wrist are still hurting and putting weight on them makes then hurt even more. i even have difficulties typing, typing mostly with my left hand as my right is in a worser shape.

bad injuries

met up today with some of the guys to play football after my fyp. only 6 of us were there, making it a very exhausting 3-on-3. after about an hour, while resting, we were approached by some young kids wanting to play a game. we obliged them but did not look down on them as we were old men and were tired. their style of play was pretty physical and when they went for goal, it was not with placement but power. halfway during the game, wee chong got pushed and suffered a dislocated shoulder. damn these young punks! don't their professor parents teach them at all? we continued for a while more, and in the process my wrist got strained. dman, it hurts now. after wee chong had settled with his dad for emergency evacuation, we ended the game. no point continuing on if we were going to get injured one after the other. it is just a game, not a fight!

back to fyp

after the lousy bout of flu and fever last week, i am finally back at my fyp lab doing......nothing! well, not really nothing but trying to get all my literature review in order. if i don't, i'm going to be in some trouble soon..

things i found out today

that they give u a "i completed the singapore marathon" t-shirt even if you only ran half the distance. that the japanese anime "love hina" is shown on tv mobile. that if you set out to study, it will never happen. (ok, i found this out long ago but just proved it again) that there is a canadian pizza outlet openning at the gound floor of my granny's flat. (like that means next time call delivery still need to pay delivery surcharge or not?) that i have put on 8 kgs since september! that i need to lose the bloody 8kgs and another 6 more thereafter!

causeway blues

i was headed into jb today with my cousin for some business. feeling the need for some exercise, we decided to walk across the causeway. seeing that there was a cyclist that cycled across the causeway, we approached the immigration officer and asked him how would a cyclist get acrosss the customs. turn out, the cyclist would clear the customs via the motorcycle lane. oh my, one would suffocate and nearly die before one can get on the causeway. i don;t think me and bikey would be making this route one of our potential routes.

when we reached the road level of the causeway, what greeted us at the singapore side of the causeway was a stinking stench of rubbish. the stench was so overwhelming that i could not bear to stay and take a photo shot. we also saw a couple of lorries attempting to cut queue and we were forced to hear the blaring protests of the other lorries. and the lorries cut queue by running over the road divider. so bloody dangerous! A Successful Attempt
wondering why i mentioned the rubish on singapore side?? look at the malaysian side above and i wonder how on earth we can pride ourselves as a clean and green city when the customs checkpoint reeks badly.

my cousin got married!

my cousin got married today! for cousins, we can be considered pretty close. same age as me and she's married. ahhh. so happy for her. so happy that words cannot describe my feelings. i guess photos would do more justcie.




Congratulations Mr & Mrs Chua!

groggy idiot

another day of flu and fever. with my non-appearance at my fyp lab, not only is my progress stagnated, it gives the lab people a very unfavorable impression of me. plus my cousin is getting married tomorrow. although i would be fit enough to leave home but i have to help her run the show. this is really a case of "ownself dig hole, ownself jump in"