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!