google and love from home!

went to google headquarters today for a tour. this was an event organised by iabc (business club i'm in, so cool right!) and yeah google is amazing. the campus (yes they call it a campus) is just like a university campus, except cooler and with free stuff everywhere and is pretty much a fun environment to work in. you can even live there but of course they won't encourage that huh. the campus holds over 12000 employees, which is why they can make use of economies of scale and provide many things for all the employees and create a conducive environment for innovation and work. (somehow this sounds like an advertisement for google. but yeah it's pretty fun to work there i guess)

my google name tag when i first entered. they've got an machine that prints your name tag immediately after you type your name in so it means lots and lots of people visit google everyday huh.

oh and it's googleween today, all the googlers are encouraged to dress up in costumes for halloween, so we did see quite a few cool costumes (and some downright hilarious). like we saw a guy dressed up as a cow (with pink ears), and a guy who dressed up as a failed american-idol-hopeful, down to the guitar and cowboy hat, and a guy also dressed up as obiwan from star wars! he had a real cool cloak and lightsaber that lights up and goes zingggg when it's lit! haha so fun right!

yeah so they've got bikes that are in google colours (blue, yellow, green, red) parked all over campus so you can just grab a bike and bike anywhere you want and leave them where you stop. each morning, the bikes are transported to places with high volume of traffic so ppl can use them haha. and they've got google shuttles to bring you to work and back, and they've got massage rooms, jacuzzi pools, beach volleyball court (like seriously, they brought in sand just to make a beach volleyball court. like how cool is that!!), playing areas, nap pods for you to take naps in, and stuff like that.

they also have this 150-rule, which means there must be food within 150 feet of any workspace so people can get food anytime they want. and the food is free! so there are like mini-kitchens all over the place, with shelves stocked with snacks and drinks and food, and there is only one vending machine selling food (ie. you must pay for it) which is priced specially according to the number of calories the food has i think. so this educates ppl about the no. of calories that's in the food!

and google also has what they call a google-15. haha when i first came to berkeley, they say we'll have freshman-15 since once you're here, you'll eat so much more that you gain 15 pounds. looks like when you go to google, you will also gain 15 more pounds (and turn into a fat pig) but they do have exercising facilities to encourage googlers to work out so yeah.

and there are a lot of random exhibits hanging around, photographs decorating the walls, and even some dinosaur skeleton structure (which i think is fake but oh well it's cool). oh and they also have laundry rooms, like googlers can do their laundry at work and get them sent for dry cleaning and stuff! and they also have free hair-cut services every friday i think. it's so that googlers don't need to worry about food, or domestic matters and can focus on being innovative and producing good quality work haha. on a sidenote, i really like the colourful decorations of google colours. i nv realised before, but google colours are happy colours!

eh and i got a package from home! mummy sent it and it's my first package from home so yeah, it's a momentous event. i'm happy and i feel loved ^^

love from home <3

p.s. i got to try "in and out" today. it's pretty good, and the menu is really simple. just hamburger and fries and milkshakes. except they also have a secret menu that i didn't know about until today so i'm going to try it next time i go there! apparently in and out can only be found in the west coast so ppl, if you ever come to the west coast, go try in and out!

happy halloween weekend everyone! and i'm going to spend my weekend studying and being a boring jane because i have two midterms next week so good luck to me!

IABC Fall Retreat 2010!

wow it's been a while since i last blogged! i guess i've been really busy with studying, mugging and with all the different student group and club activities. i joined iabc, a business club and i got into the consulting division. so i have to invest about 10 - 14 hours a week doing consulting work for our client. yeah this means essentially a class on its own haha, so even though im taking only 17 units, i've been REAL busy. and lacking in sleep. T.T

so yeah we went to half-moon bay for our iabc fall retreat, and lots of unforgettable things happened. in general i would say, the worst things that could have happened actually happened haha. it's what i would call 毕生难忘的经历 xD

before going for the retreat, im glad to say i finished my paper (yay finally) so i didn't have to worry about it over the retreat, and i had cookies and milk with my roommate! (pepperidge cookies <3) it was kindof to celebrate end of her midterms and end of my paper, so we exchanged the different cookies we had and had fun eating them hee.

anw it was raining when i left for the retreat, but it stopped by the time i reached the retreat house. the journey was ok and the retreat house was really nice and cosy! the first night, we watched king arthur and monty python, which was really random and bleh. it was pretty hilarious, but i don't like watching stuff with no real plot, at least not for one full-blown movie's length. it kindof reminds me of random funny youtube videos, all spliced together in a mish-mash of frames just to form a movie that has no linking theme except the recurring characters and hilarity.

i guess it's not my type of comedy.

so yeah we played some icebreakers and i did some studying and some consulting discussion, then went to sleep late. woke at 6.30am the next morning to go horseback riding which was really fun and interesting! except it's pretty expensive and it made my butt ache xD

the first bad thing that happened was that one of our drivers lost her car key. it most likely fell out of her pockets while she was on the horse, either when mounting or when galloping. so we all stayed back and helped to search for the key, but to no avail. we split into 3 teams, one searching the beach area, the other at the end of the trail, and my group was walking from the beginning of the trail till the beach. interestingly, i found out that bmw can unlock your car remotely! the driver called bmw et voila, bmw unlocked her car! it's a little scary to think about how thieves can unlock your car if they have your personal details, but at least they can't drive off with it. bmw couldn't start the car for her, only unlock the door.

anyhow, in the end she managed to get her parents to drive up from her home (an hour's drive away) with the spare car key. in the meantime, we were searching for the key along the trail which was littered with horse manure. i must say that i saw the most amount of manure in my life that single morning, and it really stinks haha.

i got kindof used to the smell though (and i prolly smelled like horse too), and i observed many different stages of manure, like freshly pooped ones which were really green and gooey (yep. twice, some horse pooped right in front of my horse's face, all while walking and splattering its own tail and legs with poo), and manure that were there for a while and has turned greyish. the poo looks like grass after it's dried up, which makes sense, since horses eat mostly grass and fibre-filled stuff. it is also interesting to note that horses don't seem to mind manure or pee so much - they bite each other's butt all the same.

so because of the lost key, we got the chance to walk along the trail and take pictures yay! cameras and electronic devices weren't allowed on horseback you see, probably to avoid having them from falling out of pockets and to prevent us from falling off the horse while trying to take pictures. it's also a great way for them to gain profit since we can only get photos of us on horses by buying the photos from them. it wasn't too bad though, we could split the cost among all of us so it wasn't too ex.

fortunately it didn't rain during the horse-riding activity. however, it started raining in the afternoon, and we couldn't go to the beaches to play (though we had more than enough view of the beach both on horseback and on foot haha). ppl who wanted to kayak couldn't kayak since it was raining :/ anyhow, the next activity was a trip to arata pumpkin farm where we went through a hay maze.

by the time we reached arata pumupkin farm, it was pitch dark. i have no idea why we actually decided to go to the hay maze at night. i think we were supposed to leave earlier but somehow it just got dragged out? anyhow we didn't have enough flashlights nor umbrellas, so we got wet, and we were slipping and squelching around in the mud trying to find our way out of a freaking maze in the dark. i just realised how stupid this is hahaha, i mean even if it were bright daylight, we'd still have trouble identifying where we're going and whether we've been to the place before in a maze, not to mention walking around in circles in the dark! i was way more focussed on not slipping on the mud, and minimising damage to my shoes and jeans (which didn't turn out all the clean anyway huh)

yeah so we got stuck in the maze for really long and we kept ending up at the entrance! after ending up at the entrance for the 4th time, we finally decided to give up and go out since we were all hungry. it felt awfully lousy though, because 12-year old kids could get through the maze in 5 minutes, and we spent 2 hours and were still stuck. we were supposed to go through 3 trapdoors before getting to the exit, but we couldn't get to the 1st trapdoor. we went by that first trapdoor once before, but for some reason we didn't think it would lead to the exit, but would lead back to the entrance instead. we should have just tried the trapdoor man!

well ever since we missed that chance, we never found the trapdoor again. and since it was all dark, we could not tell whether we have done this turn before or not, whether we have been to that spot before or not, and so we couldn't orientate ourselves at all. that must have been the worst strategy we ever had (ie. no strategy), no wonder we couldn't get out -.-"

yeah and after we got out, the exit was right next to the entrance! and as we were feeling really frustrated and pissed, we decided to go in through the exit to see where we went wrong. and yeah we found the 3rd trapdoor and the 2nd trapdoor yay, but we couldn't find the 1st trapdoor! we got lost in the maze again T.T so we just decided to give up for real and we walked out through one of the emergency exits haha.

ok so that was one bad thing, because i got all muddy and dirty, and my shoes were all dirtied and i had to wash everything. the mud wouldn't come off in the washing machine so i had to wash the mud off by hand too, so it's really bleh. and we all felt lousy for not being able to complete the maze sigh.

here's the next bad thing. as we're heading to the pumpkin farm , one of our cars slipped and rolled down the slope, denting the garage door. it was awfully loud and most likely attracted plenty of attention. now that's a big problem since we were supposed to be discreet and quiet. the landlord of the house we rented from thought that there were only 8 people, so we shouldn't attract unwanted attention when there were more than 8 of us there. so apparently neighbours saw the dented door and cars with college kids leaving, so they assumed it was a hit and run and panicked. they called the cops and blew the whole thing out of proportion.

we only found out about this after we came back from the pumpkin farm (all dirty and not too happy) haha. apparently the people who stayed behind in the house had an exciting evening too! yepp so police and fire brigade came and people who remained in the house panicked and started shoving all our sleeping bags and luggage into closets. but of course the police weren't interested in the number of ppl in the house, only whether there was a hit and run. bcos of the cops and all, the manager whom the landlord hired to take care of the house found out and got real mad that we damaged the garage door. she was going to come to the house the next morning.

now this meant that we had to depart earlier than originally planned so that the manager won't see that there were more of us than there should be. she prolly could guess that there were more than 8 of us though; the neighbours probably complained because they noticed that there were a lot of us or that we were making too much noise. ppl were really noisy even at 2+am when i was trying to sleep the night before!

well we were planning to use the story that most of us were just family friends visiting, and weren't going to stay overnight at the house. haha but it wouldn't work if the manager saw all the luggage and sleeping bags, especially if she saw us early in the morning, which means we most likely stayed over.

yeah so the worst that could happen actually happens huh. the next morning we woke at 6.30am and got ready to leave by 8. we had to stagger our departure timings so that not everyone would leave at once and cause suspicion, so the first group was getting ready to leave the house when alas! the landlord was right outside! and she brought the owner of the house along too!

that means all of us were trapped in the house and we couldn't go out and leave or anything. at this point in time, the entire atmosphere was what ycx would say "GG!" or what i'd say "we're screwed." yeah everyone hid in the bedrooms and turned off the lights, keeping quiet. we also shoved our luggage and all the extra shoes into closets. then our representative suggested that we hide in the bathroom and turn the shower on and pretend there's someone showering in there so they couldn't come in to check. i think it's a really brilliant idea for someone to think up when we're all in the panicky mood. iabc ppl really can think on their feet huh.

yeah so we stood around in the toilet for the longest time (or what felt like eternity. now i totally understand how it feels when they say that in the books i read!) we all lacked sleep (i slept like 2.5 hours, and the night before like 4.5 hours, and the night before like 5 hours?). it was also cold, rainy and gloomy, and it felt like we were waiting for something dreadful to happen. one could hardly think clearly or feel good then.

luckily for us, the landlord and owner didn't come into the house. they probably didn't want to bust us, but just wanted to check on the garage door and take pictures. they were negotiating with our representative and discussing about what happened and stuff. most likely we're paying for the replacement of the garage door and our deposit >.>

so yeah after that we were extremely relieved and glad they didn't come into the house, though it's kindof weird. why would they come so early in the morning (at 7+am!! which means they must wake at 6+am!!) if they didn't plan on catching us red-handed?? oh well i guess we should consider ourselves lucky, though we have been absolutely down on our luck in the series of unfortunate events that occurred at the retreat. we then decided to have the first car leave quickly so the next car could leave 10 min later and so on, while everyone cleaned up. it would be no good if the landlord and manager purposely waited for us to let our guard down before coming back to check >.>

overall, this retreat is one of the experiences of a lifetime i won't ever forget. it must be the most miserably exciting and interesting weekend i've ever spent in my life, the weekend where i experienced happiness, misery, anger, embarrassment, exhaustion, fear and excitement all at once. i felt like we were some kindof illegal immigrants/fugitives running around, parking cars far away, leaving in small groups at staggered intervals, sneaking around quietly...and i didn't manage to get a whole lot of work done! but at least i got to see quite a bit of half-moon bay haha.

it's also the first time i ever walked around getting lost in the dark, in the slippery and wet mud, all while being in the rain (except for ccal camp last year where it was pretty muddy, but at least it wasn't dark NOR was it raining). hmm seems like i've been living a really civilised and sheltered life all along in sg eh.

i probably can never get such an experience again in my life, esp not in sg haha! i guess im glad i have had this experience, so i can learn from it and also finally, so i can have an interesting weekend to blog about!

first trip to san francisco!

san francisco is actually quite near to berkeley, like 45 min away by train/30 min away by car (and is something like from boonlay to changi in sg!!) but since they're different cities, ppl tend to think it's really far away?

anw i went to san francisco with the stanford ppl, like pw and his sg friends etc, and we went to lots of places! it's good to have a car to drive around, it's super convenient!

first we went to sf chinatown and had dimsum ^^ but the famous bakery selling good egg tarts wasn't open so we didn't manage to get the egg tarts :/

then we went to fisherman's wharf at pier 39, and i bought some souvenirs for my friends and myself! we walked to ghiradelli's square and had earthquake icecream (which is nothing compared to swensen's as it had bananas and whipped cream galore), then i bought some chocolates! i gave some of them to my friends. the chocolates are really good actually, the dark chocolate and mint ones.

then we went to the golden gate bridge, and went to some nice viewing spots to take pictures. it was really windy at sf, esp by the bay/ocean so it got quite cold. unlike today, the weather suddenly turned hot and became like sg's weather! >.<

anw i digress. we then went to sausalito and looked at some spanish military outposts i think, and we took more pictures! then we went back to san fran and went to the cliff house (by the ocean again) and watched the sunset (awwww). it's my first sunset, bcos i nv got to really watch it in clear skies and without trees and stuff blocking (think ecp and changi beach park), and i always get distracted watching it (what with food, playing bridge or random talking with other ppl).

oh we went into a cave and walked around but it's just dark and sandy. uhh then we climbed around somemore and got a window seat at the cliff house and ate nice dinner! and kinda gave aimee an early birthday surprise haha.

then we went to the twin peaks and braved the freezing cold and strong winds up there, and attempted some pictures and a conversation with a local (who was totally used to the cold or something and wasn't shivering the way we were xD)

uh ya and we went to my dorms and i showed them my room! and yep they went back to stanford. haha quite a fruitful day and the only good thing i can say about the weather is that it wasn't cloudy and rainy (the way sg always is), but other than that, it's wayyy too cold!

i think it's bcos it's by the ocean and the bay, and the winds are really strong. usually berkeley's cold too, like morning and evening is foggy and gloomy and cold and windy, then once it's 12pm the clouds clear and there will be no clouds in the sky at all! like clear blue sky and the hot blinding sun. then there'll be some wind so it's quite cooling/warm at the same time (and makes it easy for us to sunburn). which is why i invested in a pair of sunglasses and cap so i can uhhh protect myself from the glare.

when in rome, do as romans do. when in cali, do as californians do! (:

i mean in sg, if you wear sunglasses or cap walking around, ppl will just think you're acting cool and/or rich! at cal, everyone dresses quite nicely and puts on makeup and wears sunglasses and caps etc like it's really normal, but oh well.

i had to abandon my singlish and convert my accent into american/british kind so that ppl can understand me, but it's really tiring to keep speaking that way. and there are so many asians here that it's not like usa! i can't tell whether they're abc or international students u know, bcos all of them speak american english! i can only tell when they speak with a china accent that they're most likely born and bred in china, not in usa.

oh yeah my roommate's an abc, and she can't speak mandarin, unfortunately ): i like to speak in mandarin here. it's easier for me bcos i don't need to fake an accent haha, and i like the way mandarin sounds? but not many ppl speak mandarin here so ):

language convergence is a necessary evil i guess, or no one will understand singlish!

in the states!

yay i'm at berkeley alrd. got my bank account and student card, and have loads of other things to settle...but so far it's quite ok. the campus is really quite hilly, and i've been doing more exercise walking up and down than i ever did the past few months in singapore!

i'll be moving into my dorms proper on the 19th, so till then i can't really buy a lot of things, bcos my luggages are overloaded with stuff alrd haha. the weather here's pretty chilly and cold for summer, like around 14 deg celsius? compared to sg, this place is totally like winter la T.T i must get used to the cold somehow >.>

but when the sun's out, it's quite nice and cool haha. the good thing here is that i don't can't perspire at all! ^^

i didn't sleep well the first night, kept waking every 1 or 2 hours. probably bcos it's afternoon sg time, so it was like taking short naps haha. then i woke at 4+am and couldn't sleep anymore, so i read my book until 6am and fell asleep (finally) since it was sg night time then, and then i slept well till 11+am! was still sleepy but of course cannot sleep somemore or i'll nv get adjusted T.T

last night was better, i slept around 12+am and woke around 7+am today! it's quite a feat considering i didn't wake through the night at all (: i'm happy hee.

international orientation's tmr! looking forward to meeting my fellow singaporean freshmen and other random ppl around ^^

end of internship

finally ended my internship, still have lots of things to keep and stuff. i feel a little sad bcos of all the nice interns and ppl im leaving behind, but im happy that i've finally ended work and can sleep in!

ok not really, i have lots of things on my to-do list b4 i go to usa - outings, sleepovers, tennis, books to read and dramas/anime to watch! (+ revise a level syllabus...)

how am i going to finish all that in a mere 3 weeks or less, plus the packing i need to do!?!?

gah nvm, i'll take things one day at a time. im still teaching tuition for this weekend and the next though, then the weekend after will be the one loaded with 2 sleepovers and one outing in between erhem. seems like no breaks for me any weekend at all T.T

anw i just wanted to share this with all of you, esp useful when you're going to work in the future (after uni?).

30 second Speech by Bryan Dyson (CEO of Coca Cola)

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the
air. You name them - Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you're
keeping all of these in the Air.

You will soon understand that Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will
bounce back.

But the other four balls - Family, Health, Friends and Spirit - are made of
glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked,
nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must
understand that and strive for it."

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest.

i think we are all guilty of this at one point or another, and even if we're not working now, it can still apply to all of us - just replace work with studies. esp with uni upon us all, we'll become busier than ever.

all the best and good luck to all of you then! ^^

a 19th birthday

i found out there's such a thing called shisha in singapore. it's kindof like smoking except there's different fruity flavours and stuff, and it's filtered through water, but research shows that it's worse than cigarettes. glad i didn't go along for the shisha >.>

thank you IDG interns, esp WK, "CC" (HAHA) and WL for organising the lunch and the nice ice cream cake and all! first time i celebrated my birthday in the work context, it's kindof unforgettable. through the lunch, i found out the real personalities of a few of you erhem.

got an ocbc supplementary card from my dad! hmm i should go apply for some debit card too, ocbc or posb better?

oh yeah thanks everyone for their birthday well wishes! am really happy and surprised that so many ppl rmbed/checked their facebook birthday reminders xD

the 19th birthday is a special one, as our 农历生日 coincides with our birthday on the gregorian calendar that day. in case you never noticed, this happens once every 19 years, so this is a very special day indeed.

i like my 农历生日 - 六月初六， 真容易记! ^^

i feel old already. but then again, constantly hanging around ppl who are older than me makes me feel super young xD at spring, im the youngest as everyone is either already in uni, or are already working haha. still, some of them thought i am some uni student, and even one thought i was a permanent staff! looks like i can pass off as some adult already (:

i feel old compared to all my juniors at rj though. i'm still receiving constant updates about jap club and astro club, but i'll be away in usa and won't be able to go attend all their fun events anymore, and then i won't know the juniors' juniors, then in just one year more and i won't know anyone in jap club and astro club at all! -horrified-

what to do then?

toutes les couleurs de l'arc en ciel

been tired these days, doing work in the day then bringing work home to do. hardly enough time to sleep/read/do anything other than check emails. sianz. im alrd looking forward to end of internship, bcos im kindof loaded with work, extra work and intern's presentation.

and i've enrolled in my first two classes for ucb! im taking only 17 units my first sem, which includes a math, a physics, a comparative lit class and japanese! yepp im going to learn jap finally ^^ i just nv have the self-discipline and initiative to actually get down to self-learning the language, so i figured it's easier to just go for lessons where i'll be forced to learn and talk the language, then if i want to, i can self-learn more in the future! yay im alrd looking forward to not just going to cali, but also to starting my classes! ^^

anw i saw a rainbow today! first time i saw a rainbow with the full 7 colours very distinctly, and it was a complete semi-circle! there was a secondary rainbow, but very faint, and the rainbow's really pretty bcos the sun was kindof setting at around 7pm. i must be in luck tomorrow then.

sorry my phone camera's lousy (1.3megapixel only but it's a free phone so ya haha). enjoy the pics!





p.s. you all can try guessing where i was xD

a chinese tall story

i watched a chinese tall story bcos of the interesting mv posted on blaws' blog, showing charlene as an unimaginably weird character. at first the movie seemed quite silly and just lame, but as it went along, it became better and better! (except for all the lame cartoon animation that i felt was so bleh, esp when charlene was the pro galactic warrior! why she become cartoon! so low budget humph)

**SPOILERS AHEAD SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU REFUSE TO BE SPOILED!** but the most profound moment was when it showed that the princess had fallen in love with charlene('s eyes) instead of the guy's. it just shows how the princess looked past her appearance and felt her warmth and sincerity right from the beginning. then the saddest moment was when i realised that she never had a name, and meiyan was the name she picked from the princess. SUPER SAD LA i cried then! the dramatic climb up the stone at the end was touching too, but i've seen it b4 so not a big deal haha.

anw after watching the ending part in the heavens, i realised i've watched the movie b4 on tv, but probably only watched that last part, bcos i have no recollection whatsoever of the front parts. it's a sad ending though...i finally understood the phrase at the beginning.

世界上最遥远的距离
不是你站在我面前却不知道我爱你
而是明明相爱
却不能在一起

though if u think about it, they actually get to stay together forever.

Rube Goldberg Machine

I discovered this interesting music video that makes use of the rube goldberg machine concept ie. using an excessively roundabout and overengineered way to get a simple thing done. go watch it! it took them like 85 takes to get it right, and there were only 3 out of all of that that had completely successful runs. plus they destroyed 2 pianos and 8 televisions. you'll understand why after you watch it xD


OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version

another very creative and entertaining music video they did, very famously known as the treadmill video:


OK Go - Here It Goes Again - Treadmill video

my first champagne

Yesterday I attended my cousin's wedding and helped to emcee the wedding dinner part. the wedding was split into morning, afternoon solemnisation + buffet for colleagues/friends, and night for relatives, so i only had to emcee for the night part -thank goodness-

i tried my first champagne last night and it tastes just like grape juice with barely a taste of alcohol! it was sooooo sweet that the sweetness overpowers the bitterness of alcohol, which makes it really nice to drink. uh but of course it's all too easy to drink too much bcos you don't taste the alcohol, so fortunately i only took a few sips. (the rest of the glass was downed by my bro >.>)

and nope, i didn't get drunk at all. after half a glass of champagne, and a few sips of red wine here and there in the afternoon and night. alcohol doesn't taste very nice (all bitter), but it's interesting to try different wines and learn to get over the bitter taste and start tasting the mellowness, or lightness, or heaviness, or the sweet or sour tastes, the varying tones in each wine. after all, a little red wine contributes to better health!

recently a colleague at work was hospitalised with a collapsed lung (google spontaneous pneumothorax), and he's been there for over a week. i think he'll be there for at least another week as he's going for surgery. i feel so sorry for him! it must really be painful and hurts a lot to have a tube sticking into your chest. how to sleep? how to eat? how to breathe???

but he has a lot of visitors, lots of friends and colleagues (including me) who visit him, so he's well entertained. i hope he'll get well soon. he's way too young to have anything bad happen to him T.T worse still, 50% of the ppl who had it have recurrences for the rest of their lives! 这样的消息可真是晴天霹雳阿！

I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, and hope he'll regain his good health in the future!

on a side note, i want to wish wf a very happy birthday in advance!

Interesting quote of the day

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. - Unknown

gosh

omg i just linked the jairus guy to ang jun heng to kallang robbery case! how slow can i be! T.T

first i heard on the news about kallang robbery case where 1 died and 3 severely injured, and all about how they're catching the attackers, then my mum said one of them had his hand and fingers cut off. i was like omg.

then few days later some rj batchmates started spreading around an email about jairus, and i kept thinking he's some j1 who somehow got injured in some canoeing accident bcos they said he's canoe captain and not ex-captain or that he's j3 >.>

then someone told me my batchmate got injured in the kallang case! so i went to google for names of the victims and found ang jun heng who is 19 so must be j3, then found out he's also jairus T.T

i wonder if he can ever canoe again? hope he recovers and gets well. i think i've actually seen him around school a few times, and probably seen him at ccal camp. i still can't believe how vicious people can be just to get money. T.T

first day at work

currently having an internship with spring singapore, just started today for 8 weeks. looks like i'll be doing a lot of work in the days to come (so stress) so i'll make this short and get my well deserved sleep.

just arrived and im thrown around between ppl as my buddy isn't here today, so i ended up with a temporary buddy. then i sat in on the ops meeting and was pretty bored out, though some stuff sounded interesting. then there was a fire drill and we wasted another hour doing nothing but suntanning and breathing in carbon monoxide and all sorts of soot and stuff that comes with the choking smoke when they try to put out the "fire". erh then i sat around reading loads of brochures about the schemes and stuff bcos my computer hasn't come yet so i can't do anything else.

then i went out for lunch with the interns in my group (industry development group) and then made quite a few frens, though i forget their names >.> i feel super young and green and inexperienced bcos im first day there, plus i AM the youngest. like all of them are uni undergrads or something.

then i sat around reading more stuff, getting briefed on the internship by HR, then sat around and yay my com came and i have my own email and internet and stuff. but im sharing my room with two other interns currently, one of them is leaving end of this week though. i probably can get the whole table to myself xD

one thing i learnt is spring uses loads of acronyms and abbreviations, the usual for all govt agencies i suppose. i really had a hard time deciphering some, like what's AAE? and AE? and IPO? (made me think of international physics olympiad which is impossible erhem)

another thing i learnt is while there is plenty of "welfare", like an exercise room and a room for play and leisure, the coffeemaker is T.T infested with ants. like you press some drink and ants come out with it. i wonder how the ants actually get in there??? what's wrong with their coffee machine!? eurgh.

back from the other side of the world

first trip to the US and it's a really great experience! lots of things to see, lots of differences between singapore and usa.

we took a direct flight from singapore to newark, new jersey which is very close to new york city. stayed there a night just to rest and get over the jet lag, then took a plane to chicago next day. went round sightseeing and eating and taking loads of pictures (since my dad made it his personal mission for us to take millions of photos with the new camera). the subway (something like our MRT, just that most of it is underground) is rather dingy and dirty and old, unlike singapore's. the trains are uber noisy with clanging as it moves along, and they stop like every half a km or something in the city. that's pretty much every few blocks or traffic lights. the good (or bad) thing is that the subway is paid per entry, USD$2.50, regardless of the length of trip, so we usually buy a single day pass allowing us to travel as many times as possible in a day by train.

singapore's train system is very much easier to understand compared to that in usa. they have a million lines and little/no directions on how to change from one line to another. then there are a million exits when u leave the station, and you just have no idea which exit is nearer to where u want to go. T.T

we didn't go to observation decks or sky decks because the weather when we reached wasn't good. super foggy/rainy and totally not worth the money. oh and we found out that chicago was the windy city the hard way. erh yeah the wind was bone-chilling. temperatures ranged from 7 to 17 deg celsius which would have felt no different, if not for the wind >.>

after that we went to my brother's school in illinois, took loads of photos with him in his graduation gown. the gown is an odd blue colour instead of the usual black. there's a company that makes and rents only the uiuc gowns, so it earns money only like twice a year? haha

i met all his frens at uiuc and we had dinner together, quite fun. i feel sad im not going to uiuc, but i expect to have loads of fun at ucb too! there were two graduation ceremonies to attend; the first is a campus-wide one which was boring to bits, and the second was the college of engineering one where they read everyone's names and ppl go up the stage to collect fake certificates. they'll get their real certificates in the mail later on.

the cool thing is, all the students hand over their names on a piece of paper that the emcee reads on the spot. that way, no one's name is missed out. great idea huh.

then we went back to chicago and flew to new york city, cramped all of us into a room just to save money. went round sight seeing there, took the nyc subway which was more complicated and in worse condition than chicago's. the most memorable incident was when my brother bought a kebab and bun by the roadside at times square. after a while, a homeless black man came up to my brother saying, "yo bro that looks good! can i have a piece?"

we were all stunned for a while, then my brother said yeah sure. i told my bro that he did a good deed that day. the piece of meat was probably that guy's dinner >.>

at Grand Central station, a very large subway station with food and shops and a market, we sat down for like what, 5 minutes next to a rubbish bin. within those 5 minutes, we encountered 3 people coming over to rummage through the rubbish bin, two blacks and one spanish/italian i think. they're homeless ppl who probably stay at the station. one of them found a drink and took it out of the bin and drank straight from it! we were all horrified! i think they were looking for some food/recyclable stuff to earn some money?

seems like the homeless and unemployed are commonplace in usa, especially in new york city. they lurk around the subway stations as they are warmer and provide a roof over their heads. you can also see many of them selling illegal stuff by the road. i even saw a guy standing at a highway exit holding up a big board saying "i am homeless and hungry. i am willing to work till i drop". at least we don't find all these homeless people on the streets in singapore...

we went to see wall street and we saw the statue of liberty - from afar. to get to statue of liberty, which is located on liberty island, you have to either wake super early to take the ferry so there is no queue, or you have to queue hours around the battery park just to get on the ferry. so we simply digital zoomed in on the statue and walked around the park gaping at the ultra long queue that snaked around the entire park or something.

i also experienced my first (two) broadway musicals, jersey boys and the lion king! broadway musicals are superb and wonderful, and i'm totally addicted to them! the people in them sing so wonderfully well, and the props and display and effects showed great effort and thought put in. they even incorporate humour and funny jokes in their script, which is unexpected! and the audience totally gets high and wild, cheering and clapping and laughing during the musical. the atmosphere is totally amazing. at the end, everyone gives a standing ovation and cheers. i want to watch so many other shows, like phantom of the opera, wicked and west side story! such a pity broadway doesn't show on dvd T.T i'd be willing to go buy them lor. i guess because broadway is so exclusive, some shows can go on playing for over 20 years.

one thing i learnt from this trip is that we should appreciate singapore's cleanliness and efficient transport system, and lack of homeless people due to govt's policies and safety nets for them. and i oso learnt to AVOID AT ALL COSTS americanized chinese food which tastes horribly salty and eeky 90% of the time! beware of those dubious chinese takeout restaurants by the roadside. they've got NOTHING in common with our usual chinese food other than rice!

yep. i enjoyed the trip pretty much, and first time taking such a long plane ride! i think it's the longest direct flight anywhere (19+ hours!), so all seats in the SIA plane were business class. very nice and big and the seat can be made into a bed for you to lie down and sleep! but i stayed up like half the time to watch all the movies i missed ie. sherlock holmes, hua mulan, avatar and percy jackson!

i like avatar and hua mulan, sherlock holmes was slightly bleh and boring, percy was atrocious and a total waste of my sleep time! i'd rather have watched imaginarium >.> percy jackson is obviously a show for pre-teens or something with a typical storyline and mediocre acting. what's with athena's daughter, who was supposed to be super pro at fighting, randomly swinging the sword and everyone gets hit and lose?! she's too stiff and lousy at faking it.

hua mulan made me cry ): it's SO SAD! why can't wentai and mulan JUST be together already! don't they have other princes who can marry the pricess, or maybe wentai can have mulan as the 2nd wife or something, which is quite sad for both of them AND the rouran princess but oh well, better than being separated for the rest of their lives!

eh yeah. i shall end this post before it gets too long. time to sleep! i believe my jet lag is almost over. technically i have "stayed up" for 3 nights in a row, new york time, and been taking "naps" when i sleep at night singapore time. i still get tired in the afternoons here, but it's kindof normal because i always feel sleepy after eating lunch xD hope jet lag is over tomorrow!

and korkor is coming back for a whole year tomorrow night yay! i'm happy.

happy

happy because i passed my practical driving test in first attempt! yay i can go usa drive liao ^^

will be on holiday in usa next monday till 22nd may or so, don't miss me k? (:

new camera!

yay today is payday for tuition so im happy. but my ezlink card expired :( so now i "lost" quite a bit of money in the ezlink card, unless i go refund the money and lose the card. i probably will refund it next year or later, not now? it's still useful erhem.

i found my kindergarten and primary 1 class photos from SIS, i'd like to find all my classmates again but i can't rmb which person is which in the photos, except for some of the closer friends i had >.> perhaps i should launch a facebook search for them?

i bought a new camera so i can use it when i go to usa next week and when i go for university yay! it's not canon or sony though, which was what i set out to buy at first. my dad was attracted by all the promotions and there was this nikon camera which was sold at like much cheaper than usual bcos a new generation just came out, so we ended up buying it. it's nikon coolpix s620.

it's kindof thicker than i hoped for, but it's quite pro and cheap for the model so i don't mind. the image quality is quite nice and there are many random modes that are very fun to play with xD

guess which colour i bought xD

haha i bet you guessed precious pink/rich pearl. nope i ended up buying the sky blue one tada!



i was having a hard time choosing between rich pearl and sky blue, both looked so nice! in the end my dad decided bcos he said it's more special, and i agree, i mean everyone seems to have pinkish cameras, it'd be nice if i had something different.

i was having fun playing around with all the scene modes and the smile mode, which auto-releases the shutter only when you smile xD

blossom told me about this super pro girl who parallel-parked her bike coolly. i found the video and it's really quite cool



then it seems like she's been practicing all along just for the perfect shot (and probably failed a lot of times haha!)



no wonder the pro shot was nicely captured on video. then i found out that the brother knows how to do it too!

funny picture

saw this on the internet...and it's super funny!

i think it's an overlap of two advertisements, but oh well, i wonder if anyone actually believed it...

Cinderella's real name was Ye Xian

been slacking around these days, learning driving, giving tuition, going out. generally spending lots of time on the internet, reading on stuff, learning some things and settling uni apps and scholarship interviews. eh and watching dramas too.

here's an interesting article i read on the newspaper today:Cinderella's real name was Ye Xian

A level results out!

eh ya im pleased and pleasantly surprised with my results, though slightly disappointed with h3. uh ya, but i kindof expected it when i was doing the paper and didn't know how to do 3 out of 4 qns at the back >.> (the 4 choose 2 section)

so here's the end of my 12 year journey in singapore's education system, and i must say FORTUNATELY i have not embarrassed myself and i scored 2 more distinctions than my brother, which is super pro and so my cert is going to look better than his! i have achieved my goal of doing as well as or better than my bro, and so i am happy! ^^

yep hope everyone had their desired results. if not, cheer up and it's not the end of the world. i am sure all of you will have a bright future ahead of you regardless of the results, as long as you're willing to try hard and persevere.

p.s. congratulations panz! you're so pro and im so proud of you! and congrats to all the smart ppl out there who got 4As and above! (:

A levels out tomorrow!

the most important and probably final national examination i am going to take in my life...the GCE Advanced Level examinations. results will be out tomorrow, but strangely i don't feel nervous. i have been thinking about this day for so long, ever since i first took the paper almost 4 months ago, so much so that i am no longer nervous or worried.

after all, i have a school to go to (uiuc) regardless of how badly i do. furthermore, i most likely can get into nus with whatever results i get.

i only hope to do super well for 3 reasons:
1. live up to parents', teachers', friends' and my own expectations
2. to save some face and not be embarrassed everytime someone asks me how i did for a levels (in the future)
3. to get a scholarship so that i can study overseas without worrying about financing all living costs blah.

if i do badly, i'll just be disappointed and my parents too, and the above 3 points won't be fulfilled lor.

i just hope that i haven't overestimated myself and end up with Cs and Ds or something horrible like that...

jiayou everyone! all the best!

happy because...

i passed the test on first try! so i don't need to care about anything (until months later when i finally take the practical bleh) so i can slack now and play happily for chinese new year, and watch all the dramas and read all the books i haven't dared to touch because of this test!

yeah and mainly because i can suan my kor, who passed the test only on the second try because he didn't study the first time round! ahah the woe of underestimating the final theory test! trust me, it's quite hard to pass if you don't study, so make the right investment (in the practice books) and save more on time and $6(s) for retaking of the test!

an early happy chinese new year to all! ^^

laughter's the best medicine

i have a driving practice book with practice questions for the final theory test, and it has horrible grammar in almost every question/options for answers. it's most likely directly translated from chinese (as there is a chinese translation right underneath the english questions), but that's not the point.

here's the funniest option i've ever seen in the book (and seriously, the book has many funny options)

If your windscreen suddenly shattered by a pebble while driving, you should:-
A) apply emergency brake.
B) break a hole in it with your fist in order to have a clear view in front
C) move slowly to the roadside and stop

obviously the answer is C, but even without the lousy grammar in the question, reading option B is the most hilarious thing i've ever seen in ages!

yeah right im SO going to destroy the entire windscreen and NOT injure myself and then happily continue driving for the rest of the day!

HAHAHA i wonder if the actual test has such stupid interesting options?

the force is with facebook...

random facebook series - the star wars version that i found on the internet. super funny ^^

Star Wars on Facebook! <3 the darth vader one best hee

In your eyes...

yay i just found the MV for "In Your Eyes", the duet between Show Luo and Rainie Yang! It's in rainie's new album "Rainie & Love...?", which has loads of nice songs anw. i like this song bcos it's super happy xD



Enjoy! ^^

back from bangkok

my family went on a short holiday to bangkok the past week. we went shopping and visiting friends and the 四面佛. i stayed at the city centre Siam Square, which is something like our downtown area? and there were loads and loads of high-end shopping malls juxtaposed against street vendors and rundown cheaper malls.

seriously, the high-end shopping malls are just like ion orchard, paragon, orchard central etc. the names are even freakishly similar! there was one shopping mall called Siam Paragon, which was hugeeeee (around ngee ann city size but with more levels) and another one called Central World (apparently it's a departmental store that owns 3 shopping malls at different places, all called Central something). it was huge too, like ion orchard and bigger.

i found that there are a lot of japanese restaurants and food in these shopping malls. in fact, the ratio was like 8 japanese restaurants out of 10 restaurants! there wasn't even much thai food around (only one restaurant?) and there would be the occasional chinese food (ding tai fung) and western food (manhattan fish market, uh mcdonald's). oh i saw singaporean restaurant selling hainanese chicken rice! but the mcdonald's there is big and nice and comfier than those in singapore, like with sofas as seats, not chairs! cool right!

uh ya the high end malls sold loads of branded goods at prices that even after discount, rival those in sg or are even more ex! well i guess branded is still branded after all, need to import and tax and blah. oh but we get VAT refund, something like gst refund ^^ 7% back, but only if you spend more than 6000 baht in total and at least 2000 baht in each store you are collecting refund for. oh well we spent like 8000+ just in this departmental store called Zen xD my dad bought 3 pairs of trousers there (that was the whole purpose of the trip for him hahaha) and my mum bought a pair of super ex shoes xD 3500 baht ie. around S$147! but the stores in thailand are much bigger than those in sg, with lots of brand names i haven't seen or heard of before in addition to the usual ones. interesting.

i must say i experienced a lot of things for the first time on this trip, so here's the list:
1. first time on tv! we were walking along the street shopping and stuff when we saw a camera with the channel news asia logo on it. my dad is an avid fan of cna, (at our hotel he would always switch to cna, at home when there's nothing to watch he switches to cna) and being the busybody curious, he went up to ask the woman what she was filming for and stuff. apparently it was for Southeast Asia Tonight (the news for southeast asia) which would air that night, about how tourism is up in thailand despite the political situation. since we 送上门, she requested to interview us, so my dad said some crappy stuff, like how we feel thais are very polite and that we do not feel any danger, etc. generally promoting thailand and how tourists will still want to come despite political conflict.

actually we only stayed in the city area, so we didn't experience or see any of the conflict or protests at all. everyone doesn't care and they just do their own things haha. though you see pics of the king and sometimes his wife around. my dad says it's against the law to insult the king. if you throw an egg at his picture, you get thrown into jail. it's not just the police who will catch you, everyone on the street will turn against you! (makes me think of the matrix haha) it's just how important the king is to them lah.

eh ya so my dad became even more obsessed with cna after that, when we went back to the hotel, he was like stuck to the tv awaiting our appearance (of what, only 2 seconds?) they cut out most of the interview, only left one suitable line that fits the entire news video haha. my dad took a picture of us on tv, but it was kinda blurry. so after we came back from dinner, he went back to cna and said there may be repeats! yeah we appeared on the asia news too haha, so he took another pic. the next morning, like 7am, we turned on the tv and there we were again, probably another repeat haha. i checked the cna programme guide, i think we actually appeared on tv like 6 or 7 times! xD aiya it's nothing compared to Abdulmutallab, whose picture must have been on tv a million times (consider every single channel in the world, plus repeats, plus he appears on the news every other day for the past two weeks or something)

2. first time seeing transvestites. i met two, maybe more but i didn't know (ie. they succeeded so well i thought they were women? haha) i was really shocked at first but i didn't realise thailand had so many of them! the first one i met was at the hairsalon, he was a hairstylist, cross-dressed as a female. wearing a miniskirt and pretty shoes, nice makeup and everything. actually i thought he was female until he spoke, and his voice was obviously a guy's voice >.> imagine how shocked you'll feel when someone u thought was a woman actually was a guy all along!!! a woman with a man's voice T.T

the second one i met was the owner of a small boutique, when we were shopping for clothes. this one looked even more feminine, with skinny legs!! (yeah i mean guys shouldn't have skinny legs right!) but he had a male voice. i think they lack the money to go for a full sex-change operation, maybe working to get there. it's pretty unnerving at first, but once you got over it, it's no big deal. they are normal like everyone else, except for the sexual orientation, and they do a good job at whatever work they do anyway. so yep.

i'm just wondering though, why isit thailand has so many males with a female orientation, whereas other countries have less comparatively. yeah i know thailand perhaps promotes the culture and more guys are willing to come out of the closet, so it seems like there are more, but i think the percentage is still a lot higher than other countries! could it be in the genes? or just the open mindset about transvestites can somehow create more transvestites? hmm...

3. at breakfast, we had international buffet that's very nice and delicious! a lot of people took this particular fruit though:

i've never seen this fruit before, and people were just scooping the flesh and seeds. i tried it, and it tasted sour and slightly sweet, something like soursop, except that the seeds here are edible! not bitter or anything, just tasteless and crunchy! not bad lah. later on we went to the supermarkets at the high-end malls, and i searched for this fruit...and did you guess it right? it's a passionfruit!

first time eating/seeing a passionfruit ^^

4. first time eating a rice-pudding! it's just soggy rice in some milky mixture and sugar. not very nice lah. the muesli is nicer (first time eating it too!)

Rice Pudding (:

5. first time doing foot massage, in thailand too! it's quite nice after a whole day of shopping and walking, and i got to sleep/rest ^^" it's also pretty cheap compared to singapore. hmm the masseuses were all super young! like the one serving me was only 23 (my bro's age haha) and she's been working since 15!! 童工!!! it's a tough job, because you really have to exert a lot of strength and after a while it gets boring to do the same thing over and over again. how to survive the monotony?

6. first time walking into a walk-in closet. my dad's thai friend is pretty rich, and we had dinner with his family. we visited his house too, which is quite far out from the city on singapore's terms, maybe 15km? but it's apparently super near for thais haha xD still, even after reaching the set of villas, yes villas, you have to drive another 5 minutes around the maze of villas before reaching his villa! it's got a garden, maid's room, garage, two-storey house la. pretty big, but what amazed me the most was the master bedroom's bathroom. it's hugeeee, with the shower and bathtub separate (ie. two people can bathe at the same time!) and a walk-in closet!! cool. there's even space for a makeup table and for trying on your clothes and doing the catwalk around the bathroom ahaha! but this villa is super cheap, only around 600 thousand singapore dollars. i mean, buying a new 5-room hdb flat costs nearly that much?

7. first time in a nissan teana.

when we first arrived in bangkok, we paid more money (only about S$42 haha) to take the limousine service which is safer than being cheated by taxi drivers, and it's also more comfy. but no we didn't take a limousine (duh), we chose the cheapest nissan teana haha. my mum wanted to try it instead of the toyota camry. anw taxis here are scary. they weave in and out of traffic, travel at 120km/h on highways and don't bother using signals. totally over the speed limit of 80km/h! so we completed a journey in 10min that would usually take 30min in sg haha. however, once you got to the city, wow the traffic congestion is UNBELIEVABLE. at peak hours, traffic in bangkok is horrible and seriously, it's 水泄不通 and the traffic lights take forever to change (like 2 minutes?) and we got stuck in the traffic for another 15 min for a journey of like a few km?? maybe walking would be faster.

that's why if you're in the city, i suggest you walk/drive a motorcycle/take the mrt. not worth it to get a taxi for it's too slow and money-draining. speaking of which...

8. first time taking the BTS Skytrain ie. Bangkok Transit Service which is something like our MRT, except it's only in the city and has only two MRT lines. there are two different MRT companies i think, and this service is provided by one of them for the city only. it's above ground and the train only has 3 carriages! super short. that day it was raining, so the traffic congestion worsened.

taken from the bridge.

you know at peak hours, the other side of the road has some lanes with their directions reversed so that there are more lanes with traffic flowing in one direction, just to ease the congestion!

oh did i mention the bridges in the city. generally they are linked by a skywalk, linking the MRT station Siam and the next one called Chidlom. they also link to most of the shopping centres along the roads, so you can walk in the shade above the traffic to wherever you want, quite cool eh? the horrible thing is that there are NO escalators and the steps are steeper than those in singapore. the bridges are higher than those in singapore, and everytime you want to cross the road, you have to climb the stairs. they're pretty narrow at some places, and i mean, the elderly and disabled won't be able to climb the stairs! does that mean they can't take the mrt, they can't go shopping?

why don't they build escalators? it would speed up the movement of people, especially when it rains! that night we took the BTS, it was raining and yeah the pavements flooded. T.T i mean the rain stopped when we went out, but it was flooded so badly at the bridge that people coming down from the bridge had to queue in one line to step on one measly little brick (the oasis in the middle of the murky waters) and inch their way to drier ground. yeah we obviously wouldn't be able to get on the bridge at this rate so we walked further down to take another bridge.

the BTS system is really inefficient in that to buy a ticket, you have to pay in coins. yes all in coins. no notes. if you don't have enough coins, you must go queue at the ticket service counter to exchange for coins. and are you asking why is it you can't buy tickets at the ticket service counter? i was asking the exact same thing!!!! you queue there and all just to exchange for coins?? then you must queue for the machine again just to buy the ticket?? why not just upgrade the machines to accept notes and allow buying of tickets at the counter too? that would save a lot of people so much time!

and the train was packed. we had to squeeze our way in, and since there were only 3 carriages and hundreds and hundreds of people, yeah you can imagine. it's something like hongkong, except much rowdier and scarier. i wouldn't want to be at the front T.T i may be pushed onto the tracks by all the people behind! generally it was an unpleasant experience haha. don't take the BTS during peak hour AND when it's rains. bleh. though it's the best choice of any transport in bangkok haha.

9. first time using a seat belt which doesn't have a buckle. haha yeah what's the use of a seat belt when it doesn't have a buckle? we took a taxi and back seats only had the belt. i was wondering where to stuff the tongue of the belt into, so i just stuffed it into the back of the seat. but seriously, if the car stops suddenly, the belt most probably will fly out and uh, serve no purpose. maybe it will even whack me in the face and cause me more injury! i was pretty amused by the seat belt.

10. first time seeing students happily shopping and walking around on a weekday at the city, even in the morning! apparently there's a well-known and very prestigious university nearby, called Chulalongkorn University. something like harvard in the us or cambridge in uk? only the smartest or richest kids can go to the school haha. no wonder they can shop at high-end shopping malls haha. even though they are uni students, they still have to wear school uniforms, though there seems to be no rules about how they wear their uniforms, or shoes/socks, or hair. most of them wear makeup and uh are going out with their boyfriends.

we saw not just uni students, but also high school students. it's really weird actually. it's like seeing students on a Wednesday morning shopping at Ion Orchard, Paragon, Ngee Ann City, Plaza Singapura, walking around Orchard Road everyday like they don't need to study or do homework??? you see more of them in the afternoons and at night. sigh they so slack one ah, or too smart alrd, no need to study? but i saw quite a few tuition centres too. maybe they were just killing time until it's time for tuition?

oh yeah most of the thais know a little chinese. i'm quite amazed, because i always ask my parents stuff in chinese, then suddenly the thais would answer my question in broken chinese xD oh and i saw a lot of caged birds at the temple, for people to 放生.

poor birds. they probably will get caught and returned to the cages for the vendor to gain more profits.

the food there 口味很重，我吃了真的不是很习惯, like the food is often too sweet, too salty, too sour. i guess they spam seasoning and condiments. we avoided most of the spicy food and chilli though xD hmm i ate a lot more than i usually do, but i exercised a lot more than i usually do too (from walking and walking and walking each day shopping, carrying all the shopping bags and climbing a lot of stairs), so it all cancels out? hahaha my arms are still aching and my legs still sore from all the walking.

my favourite pink christmas tree in the distance <3

ok that was super long. it may be a short trip, but seems like i saw a lot of new things i didn't observe before. there may have been more firsts, but im too lazy to think of more haha. i guess i still like travelling even though it's tiring and all. as we used to write in primary school essays, we went home tired but happy. home sweet home (:

University Applications...

I hate writing essays, and i have to write sooooo many for uni apps T.T but it is 人生必经之事. more like i 自讨苦吃, apply to so many us unis...

my frens who are not applying to the us or uk, planning to stay in sg and save loads of $$$ are having fun now playing all day long, while i'm stuck tearing my head out in exasperation. and before i know it the deadline's alrd so close! i better hurry and complete my essays which are horrible in quality anyway. argh im not going to get into any us uni at this rate.

oh i came across this, and i find it's so true for me!

so yes i am organized, but mainly because i am too lazy to search for things when i need them! ^^"

ok jiayou everyone who are doing their uni apps too! i shall have more fun after uni apps are over haha.

can't wait

"So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans." - Haymitch in "Catching Fire"

finished reading the first two books of the hunger games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire! can't wait for the third book to be out. seriously i can't stand cliffhangers like that, and i want to know more about district 13! i hope for a good ending, and for peeta and katniss to be together and have children and be happy after all. (:

seems like there's going to be a film adaptation of the first book, though wouldn't it be like nc-16 and above with all the violence and killing? xD

back from geminids, and i counted like 20? or maybe more, but not sure if they are when u just see faint flashes of light that -could- be from the torchlights/laser pointers/whatnot. i don't quite like faint flashs of light for meteors, i want nice biiiig silver/red streaks that last for at least half a second, esp those fireballs that i saw! am happy though, i've seen quite a bit of meteors in my life compared to the rest of singapore ^^" next time i shall go someplace like pulau ubin/semakau island to see, or someplace sooo dark that i'll see 20 meteors in half an hour!!!

fun!

pretty much going out everyday...my uni apps are not done and nothing is done really T.T

monday - 四人帮outing to sakura buffet, then watched new moon together. it was a farewell outing for yubai -sobs-

tuesday - went to changi airport to send yubai off, was like the only one from our class there, plus another prc scholar sending her off. coincidentally, mingrun was on the same flight to nanjing! so i kinda sent him off too?

i managed to finish the S.H.E book on the train to and back from changi! hee im becoming quite pro at guessing 繁体字, and i was reading almost as fast as when im reading english towards the back!

i finally got my hands on the hunger games and catching fire! i went to bukit batok library but got cheated by the library catalogue which claimed the books were not on loan. then i decided to give jurong library a try, since the date that claimed it was not on loan was the same day itself, so i chionged there. it was about 1+pm, so i was hoping no one would have borrowed the books yet, though i was pretty much giving up alrd. the catalogue isn't in real-time and always cheats my feelings >.> but just so happens the books were there!! am happy. ^^ but no time to read the books bcos im going out like everyday T.T

wednesday - went kboxing with blaws and friends! oh and her little sister too! she's so cuteeeee but so shy around strangers. im not even a stranger really, i rmb she was quite outspoken when i went her house, but she was so shy at kbox. like keep talking to blaws only and dun wan talk to me :/ and she doesn't dare to sing in front of ppl really, but she sang super loudly for some song xD

then i went on some round-singapore trip with blaws and her sis on some bus from ang mo kio interchange to clementi interchange. we went by raffles city and chijmes, chinatown, sentosa and vivocity, buona vista/dover, and finally got to clementi after like one hour and a half at least!! good thing we still have student concession, or dunno how ex that trip must have been xD

sigh student concession is ending soon, maybe we should make the best of it somehow ): then i went to kallang and watched an ice-skating performance (Reverie: Cirque on Ice)! it's quite funny and not bad, but the rink was smaller than i expected, but it's good la, we get to see the performance quite close up even though ours were the cheapest seats. shihui's going to wuhan today, so yeah, she had to get home quickly to pack (i think she no need sleep liao hahaha) so we shared a taxi. not bad, not as ex as expected, maybe comfort taxis are cheaper?

thursday ie. today - it's ben's birthday in two days, so i went to get a cake, got the cheaper one from polar cake (it had 15% off!) and completed the poster thingy. i cropped and enlarged a photo of ben from prom and wrote well-wishes on the poster! i rmb laughing like mad when i realised there was bugs bunny on the tie ben wore at prom after i enlarged the photo! so the obnoxious-looking tie was worse than it looked! xD

i managed to get the helium balloon at some rip-off price at kallang the previous day too! im so lucky these days, just chancing upon stuff randomly, and i wasn't even looking for a balloon! then poof it will appear when u least expect it!

we made ben carry the balloon around holland village (blue-coloured mickey mouse balloon with a huge happy birthday on it), then we passed by a burger king so we went in to ask for a burger king crown for him to wear! we then randomly found a lebanese middle-eastern restaurant (more cultural exchange eh) bcos it had 30% off for anyone who has a birthday within the month and of course we had a ready-made birthday boy hoho!

the food was quite nice, and then jojo, zw and sam took turns writing on the poster in the toilet (to hide from ben but i think he knew we were up to something la) xD we then got the waiter to light the candles and bring out the cake afterwards! originally we planned to have the whole restaurant singing happy bday song, but by the time the cake came, there was like no one else in the restaurant, which is better i guess. so the waiter wasn't busy and was super free to do wuliao stuff like that for us, and ben wouldn't be so embarrassed with the singing and balloon and crown and stupid poster xD

the waiter was super nice (though he only lighted like one big and four small candles ie. he thought ben was 14??? HAHA) and brought us plates and forks and everything to serve us even though the cake wasn't from their restaurant! so we ended up tipping them quite a lot, like the original price of our food rather than the discounted price. makes me feel happy.

we took loads of photos, i can't wait to see (on facebook)! thanks ben for being so sporting and willing to put on all the stupid stuff and take pictures rather than refusing or hiding his face! it's more fun when the bday person is willing to go along! perhaps he's just used to all these embarrassing stuff from ri, plus we didn't make him do anything horrible! we didn't even think of creaming him (what a waste of precious yummy cake!) unlike ben who wanted to cream me on my bday huh huhuhuh! if he had creamed me i would absolutely have gotten him that pink hello kitty balloon and a whole bowl of cream just to cream him!

we then went to de coder's cafe, something like mindcafe where we play boardgames and card games (and brainless stupid games). i highly recommend it to everyone! the service there is really good, like the guy kept coming over to check if we're ok, and helping us return and recommending us games to play and getting us games. he taught us how to play very willingly; in fact he got so excited about the games i think he really wanted to join in xD it's quite different from mindcafe, which usually has loads of ppl and so they couldn't serve us so wholeheartedly like that. the guy is really good, he's passionate and enthusiastic about his job, and even when ben spilled the tea and ice onto the floor, he kept saying it's ok, i'll clean it up, that kindof thing. yep we had loads of fun there even though we stayed for only 2 hours. it's not very ex too, there're a lot of promotions and stuff and i think it's even cheaper than mindcafe!

the best thing was, i won zombie flux (finally!) and won two other games ie. 3 games out of the 4 games we played in total! jojo won one, and uh ended two games of zombie flux where no one won and only zombies won?!?! we all felt like killing her for ruining the game BOTH times!!! horrible jojo. hmph ):

haha i haven't had so much fun in ages, and i guess i can only go so crazy when im with my beloved jap club exco!!! <3 you guys, can't wait for chalet on monday to catch up with you guys some more and camwhore some more!

Graduation Night 2009

Tonight (technically ytd night since it's 1+am alrd...) was the big night - Graduation Night 2009, also fondly known as prom night. i tried sleeping early the night before to reduce eye circles, but i couldn't sleep for like 2 hours so yeah, ended up sleeping late after all. i then woke up at the same time 8am in the morning argh, just can't sleep in!

i read more of S.H.E's book, fiddled with the com and read newspaper, then started preparing for prom at T-minus 5hours? i showered and was nice and clean and just about to head to liwen's house, and here comes the downpour. it started raining cats and dogs the moment i was about to leave, so i randomly grabbed an umbrella and went out. it was only after i opened the umbrella that i realised it was faulty and couldn't be engaged, so it ended up flapping rainwater onto my back T.T the only part that was not wet when i got to liwen's house was my head (not the hair, my hair got wet bcos of the faulty umbrella T.T)

yeah then i watched liwen get her nails done by her sister; apparently she chipped two of her nails when she was showering, so had to have them redone haha. liwen's sister is really pro at nails and makeup and stuff. we then got our hair done. generally mine was half-up-half-down hairdo, with hair curled and the top bits twisted into weird stuff on the back of my head. couldn't see bcos i don't have eyes on the back of my head. i then had lots of glitter spray and hairspray and i thought that my hair was too curly >.> not used to curly hair. the curls then loosened out within like two hours and started straightening! so be careful what you wish for, it may actually come true and you end up with straight hair again T.T

liwen's sister then helped us do makeup, and liwen got cat eyes, i got red eyeshadow matching my red dress, and silver shimmery dunno what stuff. in the end my lips had the most layers! i had lip balm, lipstick, some other pink lipstick to enhance the colour, and lipgloss. the lip balm was strawberry flavoured and tasted nice ^^ (yes it's all edible, and there was so much of it that everytime i talked i was eating lipstick/lipgloss/lip balm etc)

eh well. it's quite a fun experience if we weren't running late. we should have planned everything an hour earlier instead, but we thought makeup would take like 30 min only >.> ended up we took more than an hour! we took lots of photos of our hair and stuff, and afterwards, i found out that there's actually 20 hairpins in my hair in total! liwen had 19, seriously they spam hairpins la! at least i get to keep them xD

shihui was supposed to arrive at 6pm+, then we're all leaving in liwen's father's car at 6.30pm and reach swissôtel at 7pm. As things always don't turn out the way you want, (Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.") in the end it was 6.30pm and my makeup wasn't done yet, and shihui was still at home! she cabbed over afterwards though she could have just cabbed to swissôtel herself haha. we then had a hard time trying to get our eyelashes to curl since we forgot to get eyelash curler, and the mascara wasn't curling, just extending. we ended up doing stupid things like holding our eyelashes up just to get it to curl >.>

shihui's really pro! she did her own makeup and had fake eyelashes and did some eva longoria look (someone from desperate housewives) which was really good! shihui then wanted to help me put on fake eyelashes to solve the non-curly eyelash problem, but i refused vehemently, bcos it's itchy and icky and uncomfortable! furthermore, the fake eyelashes aren't curled really, so they may just end up looking flat and well, fake. thus im very happy with my nice and natural eyelashes thankyouverymuch.

yeah so we ended up leaving house at 7plus when we're supposed to be there alrd. we thought by the time we reached there, everyone would be seated and eating, and we'll be "fashionably late" T.T when we reached at around 7.40pm, surprisingly there were still loads of people lounging around outside the ballroom taking pictures and camwhoring and talking and whatnot. we saw zijun and i almost couldn't recognise her, she's so beautiful tonight! she got contacts and the really nice daniel yam dress we wanted to get but was out of our budget haha. liwen and i were just saying that zijun prolly won't bother doing her hair and much makeup; probably will just wash hair towel dry go there, but we were so shocked when we saw that she did her hair and makeup and everything beautifully!

the whole night passed by in a whirlwind. we just kept taking pictures with people we knew whenever we saw them, and i barely touched the food haha. i ate some food then decided it's not nice and tossed it aside, then ran out for more pictures, taking pics with every single classmate etc. then came back to find like 3 new dishes on the table, shovelled everything in 5 min and tossed aside what i didn't like, then ran off for more pictures/get phonecalls to go take more pics haha. out of $88 worth of food, i ate maybe around $15?

the food wasn't very nice, esp after leaving them there to rot and turn cold before coming back. the soup was too salty, the dessert too sweet, the veggie too much sauce and starch, you get the idea. im the kind who prefers bland food. furthermore, i was no longer hungry after the first dish because it's way past usual dinnertime, plus i was on the taking picture high mood, so who cares about the food! liwen and zijun both said the prawns were nice, and liked them very much. well i don't eat prawns so too bad.

the 3 inch plus heels didn't even bother me as i bounced around from place to place xD i was even running around in them ^^ but the balls of my feet started to get tired because of all the strain on them, so yeah. i don't think i'm going to attempt wearing any heels higher than 8.5cm ever, it's like the highest i can go without falling on my face stumbling around or tripping all over the place. carpet also cushions your feet so not that bad too (:

eh yeah, no one was paying attention to the ongoing events on stage. our tables were right at the back, at the entrance, so we couldn't see the stage well at all, and we were so near to the outside that it was super convenient to run out and back in for pictures ^^" i only paid attention during some bits of the lucky draw (i think no one in our class won), and during the farewell video. couldn't find any familiar faces though, it was too far away to see clearly anw. then i only know sherrie won dance queen, seng henk won dance king, yan han won prom queen (of course la, everyone knows her), but i missed the prom king. can someone tell me who won prom king?

unbelievably, mrs koh really came, and she wore a nice black dress and even did up her hair! i didn't see any other teachers, but i think there's a teacher's table though. the ballroom was too dark to even see the black dresses, not to mention find people haha. just like i predicted, some 65% of the girls wore black dresses, and over 99% of the guys wore something black, either trousers or jacket. shirt and tie were the only stuff with varying colours, but oso can't see clearly under all the black jackets/trousers haha. im so glad i got a nice shade of red so i could be seen much more clearly, and differentiated myself from the sea of black yay!

we managed to take a jap club exco photo minus one (jojo! why u nv come!! :/) i almost couldn't recognise sam, i hesitated for like 5 seconds while staring at her before being certain that it's sam haha! she's usually dressed in rock or punker style, but this time her face had soft colours and she wore a ladylike dress with super high heels (4+ inches)! she's alrd so tall still wear so high >.>

all in all, it's a pretty memorable night, though it could have been better if we were seated near the front so we could make sense of what's going on onstage, and not waste the efforts of the j1 council. i didn't manage to find zek gian though ): they said she's so unrecognisably pretty that i won't be able to find her haha. wanted to take astro club photo with her :/

i think elaine should win a best dressed girl prize tonight! she bared her back and showed her middle, and wore this long flowy turquoise-bluish gown that made her look like a mermaid! it's super pretty and i admire her for daring to bare so much! apparently it cost $200, and that's already 30% of the original price! (which means original price like $670??! so ex) i liked yewei's purple dress too, and the xiangyan's smokey eyes. makes her look so seductive and mysterious haha!

i know all of you can't wait to see the photos, i'll upload them soon onto facebook, so check there! people who took pics with me, add me (joy sim) on facebook if you haven't alrd, and tag me thanks! (: