Tight Like Pussy

and thats how i described the fortress of security that was the american embassy.

joe and i took a cab down from school. there was alot of queuing to be done. first we were early (reached at 830am) and had to queue way outside the embassy in a makeshift queue (there was this bitch who cut the line but no one reprimanded her!) to wait for the embassy visa application office to be opened at 845am.

then, when the visa application office was opened, we were told we could go to the embassy liaoz. so we had to walk up the short slope to the gates of the embassy (no unauthorized cars and blah so everyone had to walk up) in our queue order (this was where the bitch cut our queue!), and then wait again to go through security at the gates. we couldn't bring in our handphones and those with bags had theirs searched through. there was a gurkha armed with a heckler&koch mp5 (recognise a similar model from counterstrike, cool arm!) looking menacingly upon the queue. i think it must suck to stand there and be ogled at by the queue.

so after declaration of handphones we had to go through a metal detector and be manually swept. only then could we proceed on to level 2, no i mean the next checkpoint. which was another slope away. i waited for joe before walking up together. wasn't very xiong lah. then we were greeted by a thick glass door that had a sign outside that said "enter only when signalled to do so" i don't think those were the exact words but it meant that way. so it was a queue again. while queuing we find out that the embassy was inaugurated in 1997 by my main man william "blow my cigar" jefferson clinton (thats bill, lah).

okie so when it was our turn to enter i went in first and had to go through yet another metal detector (does that affect my spermcount?) and yet another metal manual sweep, this time the guard even has the time to joke with me that that stoopid tool he was using was damn powerful..geez i hope that thing drains him of his spermcount. then again he looked 50 so i guess it wouldn't have mattered...

when i'm done i wait for joe and we go into the visa application room together. it looks different from the lobby. looks more like a ticket reception lobby of a train station, covered in red and blue mosaic tiles and lined with red carpet (unsurprisingly all-american colours). each counter is opened or closed by the pulling up or letting down of blinds (just like in the movies!!) and we have to take our numbers and wait for them to be displayed. oooh there were wanted pictures of osama (they spell it as usama) and other criminal posters! though i thought it was pretty inappropriate cosidering ONLY the visa application room had them on their walls. i mean what'd they expect? that some of us visa applicants might know these people? hmm, maybe lor. dunno.

hmm long-winded blog. but i shall proceed.

so when it was my turn to be interviewed (interviews are conducted right at the counter in front of the approx. 2 billion other hopefuls who're waiting in that little room, listening to your every word) i was pretty glad to have found myself with a burly and bulky BUT friendly interviewer who went "boing, boing" everytime he stamped something. haha.

gentle giant: so...a camp counsellor ehhhh (tries to mimmick country tone *roll eyes*), where to?
me: granby, colorado.
gentle giant: from ntu ehhhh (yet again).
me: yup.
gentle giant: so watcha doing after the camp?
me: i'll be travelling for a month, then i have to come back for my convocation in ntu.
gentle giant: ah, coooool. boing! (this is where he begins his irritating sound-making)
gentle giant: and watcha gonna be doing afterthat? boing!
me: i'll be working as an engineer, in singapore.
gentle giant: great! any job offers yet?
me: yah, have two or...
gentle giant: boing!
me: ...three but still deciding.
gentle giant: good good, very good! boing! boing! boing!
gentle giant: okie then, and a last boing! your visa's approved and we'll send it to your feeder company first thing tuesday morning! have a great time.
me: thanks.

and that was it. less than 5 minutes, full of boings and a truckload full of lies. well it was gythri ramalingam who told us to lie, so lie i did thats all *innocent doey eyes*. joe's also got his approved quite fast.

afterthat getting out of the embassy was a breeze, no checks whatsoever. then joe and i went for mcdonald's breakfast and subsequently took a cab back to school.

yup and that was our visa application tour. what fun.

M451: Building Services Engineering

its surreal.

and yet like a dream.

in the last 3hrs i just went through perhaps the luckiest moments of brilliance i could have conjured. just. fucking. incredible.

i woke at 930 this morning thinking my m451 paper was an afternoon paper. somehow i had this hunch that i ought to double check my exams schedule and see what time the paper was and where it was. call it instinct maybe, but yeah, so i went to check.

M451:BUILDING SERVICES ENGINEERING
TIME: 930AM-12PM
LOCATION: EXAM HALL 10
SEAT NO: 123

eeks. morning paper. fuck.

hmm, surprisingly i seemed really cool about it at first, maybe the repercussions of missing the paper didn't dawn on me, then suddenly. aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! morning paper! haha.

i was abit lost, quickly flipped through the notes i had prepared to memorize last night, tore into my jeans, grabbed pencil-case and wallet wore a cap and rushed out. no waterbottle, never lock door, wore shoes without socks, never wash up, hair the height of a full-blown afro, out to take paper just like that. i think i must have stunk up the whole exam hall with my manly musk.

when i reached it was 9.45am on the exam hall clock. 15min late. so dead. checked if i brought everything. matric card. checked. pencil-case. checked. my lucky ass. checked.

hmm. the paper turned out to be okie. not too hard, though not too easy either. hopefully the methods that i practiced were correct (i didn't have any model answers so i practiced thinking i was always correct!)

so lucky. in fact i even finished the paper early. even had time to discuss with prof wong (who invigilated beside me and kept giving me sneaky smiles) if i may hand in his copy of my fyp report next week instead, and in black and white (he was damn cool about it!) somehow i didn't dare to leave until someone else did, perpetually checking if i missed out on any questions. so when the first person stood up to leave i immediately followed suit. time i left the exam hall? 1135am.

not bad at all for a lucky sod like me. phew!

i sure wouldn't trade even a big win at singapore pools for that lucky moment when i decided to check my exam schedule man! wah lao.

next paper is engineers and society on tuesday. its DEFINITELY an afternoon paper.

Bloody Hot Day

whoa man its so damn hot today.

damn nuah today. hopefully can get down to studying later. tomorrow's my building services paper. been practicing the past years whole of yesterday. looks awfully repetitive, so hopefully tomorrow's paper won't be an exception. as long as the prof doesnt come up with any pattern i should be able to pass it.

still hope i won't be the first sorry sod who fails hrm man. argh.

downloaded bit torrent the day before. am gonna attempt to download as many tv shows and movies as i can before i leave ntu!!! already have season 15 of the simpsons! yay!

arsenal's won the league liaoz darn. i hope liverfool doesn't get that last champion's league spot. ought to go to newcastle.

nuggets are 1-3 down to the wolves and the knicks were swept in the first round. haiz. i don't think i'll be able to catch any nba action while in the states.

there's this exchange student from my block from toronto, canada and i've gotten his email addy so hopefully if i do get down to the home of the raptors i'll be able to meet up with him and he'd show me around. oh his name's arif and he's canadian indian. quite a nice guy. i think i ought to buy him some durians to try since he did mention to me when we met during block supper that he'd like to try them out. that way he'd remember what a nice guy i was and probably put in more effort to helping me around canada. as beth says, hopefully i don't get mugged or murdered there! ha.

mark's gotten his usa visa liaoz. will be going down with joe on monday to the united states embassy to get ours done. hopefully will be a breeze. after tomorrow's paper, planning for the trip and packing to move out of hall will be in full swing liaoz! so exciting!!!

better study hard for the rest of today liaoz.

M141: HRM & Entrepreneurship

mmm, this post is a day late. my computer couldn't get onto the internet the whole day even though i could use icq and blubster. hmm. anyway, the paper sucked big time. so many theories and models were asked but i didn't study for any of them. in the end it was more of a case of answering every question based on my own rational and in my own words. haiz. so sucky to hear that everyone finds the paper damn bloody easy. well it would've been really easy if you read the articles for hrm lah. dog shite. haiyah, hopefully i wouldn't fail it, i don't think i've ever heard of anyone failing hrm before. maybe engineers and society, but no-siree-bob, not hrm alright. haiz.

was studying quite alot yesterday for thursday's building services. looks tough. gotta mug hard for this one and then it'll all be over. will still have ens on monday afterthat, but i don't think i wanna make the same mistake of underestimating the paper a la hrm again. shite.

i've roughly planned my holidaying route in the usa liaoz. it looks like the big dipper where i'll begin by touring denver alone then will go up to chicago again and then up to canada, probably visiting toronto, ottawa, montreal and quebec before entering the states again at boston then down to nyc, philly, DC and then maybe will fly down to orlando and go disneyworld! and then its back to chicago.

wonder if i'll have enough time and money for it though.

okie back to studies first.

Just Made It For Morning Breakfast

another lazy sunday in school. kinda miss home.

woke at 10am. the canteen 2 breakfast set switches off at 10.30am. auntie makes no concessions. glad i made it for my eggs-toast-milo breakfast. makes my day. and bought my newspapers as well.

gonna study in reading room today.

Man U 0 : Liverpool 1

argh. just watched the match. bloody waste of my time, man u played like they didn't have anything to play for while liverpool looked they were just playing for a draw. bloody boring game until gary "top scorer for man u in the last three games" neville goes stupid and mows gerrard down in the penalty box. fuck shit.

my day's ruined.

didn't study at all today. spent a large part of it sleeping. weather was quite nice for cosying on the bed. was watching the 2hr chinese show on channel u. its quite good and tomorrow's the final episode so i'll probably keep my 7pm lobo timeslot free for it.

LM 80: Introductory Malay

woke at 830am, 2 1/2hr paper started at 930am, i was out of the exam hall by 11am. not easy not hard. but doable. i figure i did enough to pass. no big deal, just an extra language module to enrich myself anyway. and i'm already better for it.

next up hrm on monday.

mr brown's latest today column is hilarious. i also wanna find out what a puffylombie is *shudders*.

feeling damn nuah.

M491 Clean Techonology & the Environment

wah i almost gave up last night. was already considering going to sao to find out what procedures to go through should i flunk a paper. its meraculous how doable i felt the paper was considering my lousy pathetic memory. won't get A lah but should confirm pass bah. the silly thing was that our lecturer was going around telling people some of the answers. wah lao i mean how can, its unfair right? i mean....what if i didn't benefit from that, i'd feel so shortchanged like boon tat and chang he were feeling lor *damn bitchy*.

benefit?

haha, we were supposed to draw this evacuation zone on a map provided. its a 25mark question and it was tough to solve but if you knew the rough shape then it would've been easy to work from there. and i think alot of people didn't know what the shape of the zone was (neither did i). then enter this silly mat-yo-yo sitting behind me (wah lao so degrading that he's taking this tough module with the rest of us) who probably drew the shape of his ass on the map that so infuriated our lecturer that he told him off (in a soft whisper of course! "how can u draw like that? did you study?") and then went on the tell him what shape it should be!!! wah lao. the moment he said that, EVERYONE around me skipped directly back to that question and changed their answers!!! wah lao, benefit or what? and some people complain the mats are marginalised, this is blatent concession lor!!!!

anyway boon tat told me our lecturer was an mp for choa chu kang! wah i didn't know (anyone can recognise?). and he was retiring to go into politics soon, so cannot anyhow fail people else wait those living in cck in his classes don't vote for hiim then he know...

yay. happy.

next up is malay tomorrow. haiz xianz. dunno why i put myself through all this. heard from jingfen 451 building services next thursday is very tough. haven't looked through it yet but if she says its tough, then its gotta be tough. hope she found the clean tech paper okie too, considering the amount of last minute help she provided (even printed extra notes and sent a long email of tips!) i really hope she does well. looks like i gotta look for her again for 451. what a leech.

okie a short break and saya akan pergi ke belajar behasa melayu.

Sweltering Wednesday

wah its damn bloody warm in the room. feels just like an oven and yet i'm still studying here. just finished going through building services engineering. its tougher than i thought. shite.

the target for the rest of today is to go through all three portions of clean tech once more and practice on the 3rd portions calculations. not a very easy task if you'd asked me, but still will have to try. hope i don't fall asleep on the way.

watched the monaco chelsea champions league first leg played at monaco's homeground, stade louis II. ranieri really made a big mistake trying to go for the win when zikos got red carded. i mean by shifting formation to a three-man attack of crespo gudjohnson and hasselbaink what was he thinking man. obviously monaco would sit back with a lone striker waiting to pounce lor and thats what morientes and afterward nonda did. serves the tinkerman right. anyway monaco did look like the stronger team lah. i think stamford bridge will be a stalemate. monaco's got a foot in the finals liao.

oh and man u won at home against charlton. i hope chelsea stumble futher. then man u will go up to second place.

in nba updates, denver's already down 0-2 to the timberwolves :( knicks are down 0-2 to the nets :( penny's 5-of-16 from the field in today's game. haiz. its all going downhill.

oh by the way i might be extending my holiday in the states for a few more weeks *yippee* cuz our work visa ends only on the 18th of sept so the additional one month holiday period is added on meaning i get to stay till 18th oct latest (though i probably won't max out that stay). so probably just hang around till the dough runs out. not to mention that i'll be paid an ultra-grand sum of US$86.54 a week. wah. minimum wage never looked so pathetic before, but who am i to complain?

spoke to darrell on icq. his stint in the usa is ending mid-july leh, shite. but he wants to come chicago to meet me when i get there so thats a good thing. his only piece of advice for me so far:

eh really be prepared siah b4 u come, and i mean mentally and emotionally; physically not that bad becos summer already but the culture shock is quite chialat - and try to brush up your spoken proper english

hmm, as far as i can recall i think i speak pretty articulately (eugenia's mother said that of me once! *double yippee*) and even further as i can recall, darrell's proper english = singlish peppered with hokkien vulgarities. i think its him from whom the bulk of my exciting expletive vocabulary originated anyway.

CHEEBAI!!! articulate siboh mr. lum? nvm come here see den see wat u say!!!

hmm. kinda miss him in a weird way.

kie back to work.

Hot Hot Tuesday (Cont'd)

okie so technically its wednesday liao but what the hey. today's studying feels somewhat productive yet somewhat useless. this is about the end of my 2hr break, i've finished running through the 2nd portion and 3rd portions of clean tech in the afternoon which was quite encouraging. but after dinner my attempt on the malay past year papers stopped at section 3/8, just couldn't continue with that. feels so useless to do it blindly. haiz. so took a 2hr break. gonna start reading my building services right after i finish this scrabble game, hang my clothes and then take my bath. i think i'll get it done so technically i've almost achieved the target i set upon myself this morning. funny that i don't feel very proud of myself though. i think i'm growing very cynical about all this exam crap. haiz glad this is my last sem (it better be!).

today part of the nicoll highway collapsed. yup. THAT nicoll highway. wasn't as big a news as i thought though there's alot of media coverage and i was glued to the tv all evening. my first impression upon hearing the news was that the bridge part had fallen into the water. but it wasn't that exciting lah, it turned out to be the portion just beside golden mile complex. like it sunk 10m or something due to an explosion in the circle line construction works. its a disaster nonetheless, claimed 1 poor indian construciton worker's life so far and 3 others injured. haiz.

makes me wonder when and where the first act of terrorism in singapore would occur. i mean its probably bound to happen, not like i'm cursing for it to happen but i think pragmatically speaking it'd be a miracle if we came out unscathed in this war against terrorism, not to mention that even osama's grandmother knows singapore is part of the coalition of the willing...i guess it all boils down to luck wherever and whenever you are when it happens and how it'll affect the very fabric of our being here. i guess in our tiny nation any successful act of terrorism would affect everyone. like the silkair plane crash lidat, where everyone knew someone who knew someone who had a relative or loved one who died on board. its as though two or three degrees lineage of friends was enough to link you to the disaster. haiz so we'd all better pray for a miracle and that nothing's gonna happen.

geez i think i sound pretty melancholic. better go get the laundry!

Hot Hot Tuesday

wah. what a bloody hot tuesday afternoon. just came back from a shiok shiok egg-toast-tea breakfast at canteen 2.long time no eat that. maybe i ought to wake in time to have that every morning from now before i leave ntu. i feel productive today. so i will attempt to finish up rereading the 2nd portion of my clean tech notes, finish my first read through of the 3rd portion, finish up all 7 malay past year papers, and read abit of building and services.

very ambitious target.

watch this space.

after i read the papers though.

here's something to entertain anyone who's interested. a what-if preview of a soccer game between portugal and brazil. ever seen a referee do a clean sliding tackle on ronaldinho?

guess not.

Lousy Monday

geez. i dunno how i managed to sleep till now, but yeah i just woke up after 'resting' on my bed at 630. shite. what a lousy monday its been man...i havent accomplished a single shite at all.

was studying in the library this afternoon with joe john anson mark. i think its the most unproductve study session i've had since i ever begun this semester. wait, then again it was only the second study session. but still, it was pathetic. like only did part 1(a) of a past year paper after reading papers/ surfing net and then it was tea break liaoz. that was like my total work output wintin a bloody 4hr window. terrible.

my papers are not as simple as i make them out to be, thats for certain. my clean tech & environment this coming friday is pretty hard and i can't seem to understand/memorize alot of concepts. i haven't even begun on building & services engineering next thursday. haiz. bloody slack semester. hope i don't dabao man. shoot.

once again, i still dunno how i slept till this late...

A Mcdonald's Sunday

woke up around 10+ this morning and quickly shipped myself out of school without intention of where to go to study. wanted to go where the wind took me. haha. so i took a cab to the boon lay market mcdonald's and planted myself there till evening.

nothing much to highlight though. pretty boring day. i spent the first two hours reading the sunday times as i had brunch, then studied a brief moment before going out to buy the newpaper. spent another half hour reading that. then studied a while more before pciking up the sundays times to skim through again. kk calls asking me to go play soccer. super tempted finally decided agaisnt it (so proud of myself) went out for a walk. got conned by this posb auntie to listen to her fixed deposit investment pitch, not that i really minded though. then went back to study a short while and came out after awhile to go to the ntuc singaporepools nearby to place some bets. went back to study for awhile more. read straits times for the thrid time. subsequently spent half an hour writing a journal entry. then went to ntuc again this time to shop for groceries. came back barely studied, realised i'd hit my target of what i set out ot study for the day (must've just skimmed through everything) then got nuah so bought dinner back to eat while watching some sunday chinese drama on channel u.

yup and that was my day.

what a boring blog. here's something to make up for it. living in the east rules!!!

D-Day +1

hmm. could have sworn i posted a blog on d-day. funny its vanished into thin air.

anyway d-day's come and gone. handed in my fyp liao. i don't feel particularly esctatic, overjoyed or anything if anyone's wondering, though i thought i'd be. but the moment i handed the two binded copies of my fyp (cost me almost $100!) to my sup, all i felt was relief and abit of emptiness. maybe even nonchalent. and ever since then i've been catching up with my sleep as well as nuahing my life away. i think until it dawns upon me that my exams are exactly 6 days away (and i havent even begun introducing myself to the modules i've taken yet) will i get stressed again. but i guess the stress of fyp is incomparable lah. i havent been that stressed out for quite a while liaoz.

went swimmming with joe and lincoln after rejecting them both for the last 3 days (the fitness freak is undeniably persistent). the water's the warmest i've ever swum in and the chlorine level feels unusually high today. feels like i was swimming in somebody's pee. hmm. still it was a good to relax again.

gotta thank everyone for the continuous flow of words of encouragement the past few horrible days. always nice to know that people out there still care.

D-Day

project handed in.

funnily i dun feel esctatic or anything. maybe just relieved that its more or less over.

exams next.

D-Day Minus 1

still struggling.

D-Day Minus 2

fyp's a bitch. slogged the whole of yesterday and the whole of last night. slept at 6am. woke at 8.30am to continue.

nuff' said.

painful head.

last cigarette.

so fucking dead.


Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else

I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free

Things are not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can't be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel

Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now He's gone

- fade to black, metallica

i will survive.

BlackOut

hmm. i'm in deep shite with my fyp but i really have to blog about this before i forget.

there was a super blackout just now!!! not just the block, not just the hall, not just ntu, but the whole west of singapore!!! so cool!!!

it all began just as i was taking a break from my killer fyp, there was a slight flicker to warn us all, and then whoosh. no lights anywhere except for a lamp or two at the corridor. no lights on the streets. no lights in nanyang heights opposite our block. soon enough everyone started spilling out of their rooms and the whole block started getting very noisy, everyone shouting here and there. people started gathering at different places. alot of them outside my room, weide and norman's room also another huge troop..then start to bond.

haha. its a funny thing that it takes a blackout to flush everyone out of their rooms. bonding was fun. just sat around talking rubbish and playing silly games (name people in hall 8, anyone?) telling qian bian wen da ti and talking cock. such fun.

whole thing lasted about 20min. once the lights came on everyone rushed back to hide in their rooms. haiz how sad. haha. was hoping the blackout would've lasted a tad longer.

so where were you when the west of singapore blacked out?

D-Day Minus 3

the countdown has begun. friday is the day my fyp burdens and worries will be over (surely it can't extend beyond that!). so i'm in the com lab once more slogging my ass off to get the report right. i thought it was going okay until my sup called me this morning citing that the way i presented my results were not what he wanted, and he wants me to see him later at 2pm. xianz. besides that i still have to make a major tweak to my literature review as well as prepare chapter 8, the final chapter on conclusion and recommendations. then finally i still have to compile everything. i've set the target of finishing everything by tomorrow night so that i can print a copy for my sup on thursday before printing the final copy for the moderator on friday. haiz. hopefully that can be achieved.

so i'd better not be wasting too much time blogging.

last night we celebrated leon's birthday. had quite a few of us including the freshies below. cake was huge. sang song, cut cake then eat. i remembered lichun said before the birthday boy shouldn't be the one cutting the cake on his birthday and that somewhat else ought ot do it (i'm still unsure if that should be the case) anyhow when i saw leon the poor sod looking like he was about to cut his own cake for everyone (while i was having a great time spanking him like a hogtied bitch!), it dawned on me how sorry it'd look if the birthday boy has gotta cut cake for everyone while everyone else just stared listlessly at him waiting to be served! i mean its HIS birthday lor. at most he should just serve the cake, not cut AND serve! so i told him i'd do it (whereby which he happily relinquished the knife), then i stood there awhile deciding how to cut it, and subsequently told lichun (the irony!) to cut it instead. whahahahaha. well at least she did a better job than i could've done. bleah. had a nice chat with roy and leon outside our rooms prior to that. been a long time since we talked so long...which by the way killed off whatever lingering urgency i had with my fyp (i never touched it for the rest of the night). shite.

on the way to school just now i bumped into howren. hmm, i dunno what's happened to both of us. we used to be really quite close, its probably my fault since i don't have to rely on him for my studies anymore. haiz. now we hardly see each other (since i don't go for classes this semester). so guilty. since year one, this was the main man - there were of course steven and thomas but howren was really trully the MAIN MAN, who stood by me even when i asked the dumbest (and i mean DUMBEST) of fundamental engineering questions. he was there whenever i needed him, sometimes even coming all the way to my room in 44 to explain shite to me, going through great lengths to get an idea or a concept into my thick skull (it was real thick mind you) and forever the messenger who harboured the latest updates in lectures and tutorials. haiz. those were the good ol'days when he'd explain once, slap his forehead, explain again, release huge (and loud) sigh (the i-give-up kind), and explain once more till i got it. haha. geez did i feel useless during those exam periods or what? academically i was never of as much help to him as he was to me thats for sure. so what ever honours (hopefully got lah) i end up with, its all because of him, my main man. so howren, if you're reading this, i thank you once again for all that you've done for me. i'll be too paiseh to acknowledge that i've written any of this if we do meet up so just erm, pretend pretend nothing's happened yeah?

*sentimental* sigh.

well on a happier note, the nuggets are in the playoffs! i really didn't expect them to beat the kings (they're still challenging to be first seed in the playoffs) hopefully it'll not all have ended by the time i reach the states. really wanna catch an nba game there, so its hopefully knicks, nuggets or new jersey who'll go far (i dowan to watch LA!).

just remembered i won't be going for my convocation. hmm. wonder if i still should buy a convo gown anyway. can go take graduation pictures when i come back? $38 isn't too expensive for a piece of academia memory innit?

did i mention that i'd better not be wasting too much time blogging?

Barbershop

lazy sunday morning. went to that pig-trotters market/hawker centre for breakfast with joe thomas and mark. had a feast for breakfast, eating chwee kuay, carrot cake and duck rice topped with sugarcane juice. bought papers.
mark then gave me a ride to extension so i could go to the barber.

went to the same one we went like 3 months ago with the scrabble gang. the auntie surprisingly remembers me (dunno if she does this i-remember-you trick on every customer), and asked why i haven't visited for so long. sheesh. i was tempted to question if i was the right person she remembered, but decided to play along anyway. she did remember that the last time i went i had long hair which i cut short though which kinda impressed me (i myself can't even remember when i last had a hair cut), and said my hair was so long now and blah.

anyway we were chatting throughout my cut, though i thought yakking while cutting someone's hair is a recipe for disaster (and i didn't really like the cut).
she said i had really nice hair and was good for keeping long. she said i'd look better with dyed hair. and i look better when my glasses were off (why don't you try contacts?). all i did was brush the comments off, with a gentle laugh here and there just to keep her happy. she probably said the same things to everyone.

hairstyling aunties are lonely creatures sometimes. they sit in that little room (least it's air-conditioned) and stare at the pastel blank walls when there're no customers, or chat with any other miserable colleague at work with them, of which there isn't much to say anymore when they see the same fella for like 8hrs a day, 6 days a week. so its probably nice to be able to chat with a customer every once in a while, and find out what's going on outside.

it's particularly sad for this auntie today since there weren't any customers throughout the duration of my cut. so you could kinda tell what kinda day it was gonna be for them (i might just have been the highlight of their day).

so we talked.

we talked about why men still looked better with shorter hair. and yet why men with long hair still end up attracting all the teens and aunties a la f4 or 5566. auntie says they rebond their hair and they maintain it religiously, while normal men don't pay so much attention if they keep long hair. therefore it led me to conclude that if you wanna keep long hair AND be popular with the girls, you gotta maintain and spend lotsa time with that mop above. which kinda contradicts my purpose of keeping long hair because i can't be bothered maintaining and geling short hair every morning anyway. auntie reiterated that i should dye my hair.

we talked about her being m'sian and how marginalising it was for her up north what with the bumiputra perks and concessions, which leaves the minority chinese and indians with little opportunity for higher education. so she had to come down to singapore for work where she met her husband (a signaporean chinese) and all that. she's got a kid liao and one more on the way.

she also lamented about the laziness of the malays which i totally agreed (that kickstarted some really super-auntie ranting and blabbering on my part). so its true and i'm not alone here to think that malays are a lazy lot who're happy just making babies, having just enough to eat, guitar in one hand leaning against a banyan tree under some rustic farming backdrop. family motorcycle leaned on the otherside of the tree.

but she spoke of the stifling education system in singapore. and yet she wanted her kids to have a singaporean education. it was stifling on one hand and yet you have to admit that the person the system molds you to be is one that's ripe to strive and achieve economic success and improved standard of living. in singapore she says, if you are not afraid to work hard and eat abit of hardship, life will be good for you in the long run. how true.

hairstyling aunties may be coooped up, but they still walk the way of the wise.

auntie also gave me a super long wash with shampoo and conditioning at no extra cost (how nice of her, though i also wouldn't expect to pay for that). along the way she asked me to guess her age. hmm, i thought a woman's age was a secret. anyway i HAD to be nice so i came up with a flattering number 27 (by gosh inside i thought she looked nearing 40!), which sent her into a little giggle. i got a feeling aunties love that. anyway it turned out i wasn't far off (must've been the make up), she was only 28. eeks. i thought my own mother looked only a wee bit older. buuuut....as usual i did the whole auntie-pleasing routine by repeating how young she looked and blah (she even had the cheek to say she bopian, must maintain the youthfulness mah, wah lao!). haiz the things i would do for a long hair wash.

anyway she told me to come back once more before i graduate else i wouldn't come back anymore afterthat she said. and she once again said i have to dye my hair. geez. all i could spill in reply was a lichun-like 'orh'. then i paid up and left. probably the highlight of my day.

all for $8.

Lost In Translation

warning: the contents of this blog is extremely dry and boring!

haiz. gosh i've been feeling quite lost eversince i got my campusa placement. its not in the bad way, but in the distractive sense. i haven't been able to concentrate much on schoolwork, mostly just going through the motions with my fyp, haven't even begun studying for my 5 examinable modules yet though technically only 2/5 require more than a day's worth of mugging.

day and night i'm thinking about the trip. geez i don't think i've been this excited to go on an overseas trip since i went on my first trip to new zealand at the age of 7. i remember vividly that i couldn't sleep two days before we flew off. what painful fun such excitement.

this is the essence of what i got from my camp director just yesterday:

Chee Yong,

This summer we will only have two international counselors. The other one is
still in the process of being hired, so I don't have contact information for him
yet. He is from Colombia, and I believe he will be attending the same ICCP
orientation as you when you arrive in the US. We will also have some
international staff working in our kitchen, but they are all staff who are
already here in the US on the ICCP 18-month Trainee Program. You will have to wait to meet them until you arrive at our site.

Michelle Schibonski
Program Coordinator
Camp Chief Ouray
Granby, Colorado, USA

wow. yup, that confirms it. the only asian in camp. luckily and thankfully, a non-muslim one at that. now who's gonna be the cheenapok? hopefully i won't be racially-abused/discriminated/marginalised over there. somehow at the back of my mind there is a certain fear that its inevitable that i'll encounter such treatment over there and that i'll have to beef up my threshold of tolerance and understanding. i hope i'll be proved wrong. can't wait to tell everyone there that singapore's really not in the mid-western region of china.

the other issue at hand is how i'm gonna get there. an open flight ticket to chicago by JAL costs a bleeding SGD$1680 (i only budgeted $1000 for the plane ticket)! goodness gracious. today another email told me of one by Korean Airways going at SGD$1280, which is a whole lot more reasonable, but tix have to be booked asap and arrival and departure date must be finalised which sucks because i still dunno when i'm comng back. alternatively, there's this other incredulous suggestion of taking a flight to new york and then travel to chicago by greyhound (that's bus). to the ill-informed, chicago is like so bloody far from new york that the bus ride is a piles-inducing 19hrs! wah lao every last nerve in my ass will be dead by the time i even get to the first rest point. and yet this warped side of me says that travelling by greyhound might be nice because i'd get to see alot of scenary on the road. hmm. okie the last option is to fly into new york a day early, and then go to chicago via one of em budget carriers. but i haven't checked out the prices and stuff though, so that's still a kiv option.

the financial bright side about going for this campusa thingy is that i'll be paid working there. according to the website (as much as camp chief ouray is a non-profit organisation), i'll be earning USD$155 a week inclusive of food and lodging there which works up to about USD$1800 by the end of my stint. so that'll pay off the plane tix and admin fees to aceglobal, and still leave some for travel. yay.

which, in a really weird way, leads me to this fantastic dream i had a few days back where i save the life of this young boy who was under my care and supervision during camp. in gratitude, he tells his super-duper rich daddy of my heroics, who in turn thanks me by offering me a super-duper lobo job in his company over there that allows me to travel lots as well as pays me tons. haha.

my fyp's due next friday. i'm still struggling with the graphs of the actuating plate. hopefully i'll be able to finish it up and send it to prof chan by tonight (luckily i did alot of it yesterday) and make the corrections to my draft tomorrow so that by monday i can begin to study abit of my clean tech and building engineering modules. also hope prof chan returns me the rest of my draft by monday. gotta start compiling the report liaoz. its all go-thru-motion shit. i hate it. thank god this sem has been a light one.

taking ippt with lincoln on the 17th of may. hope it won't be too rush.

some poor guy who's gotten a placement for the campusa program just broke his leg and has to pull out of the program. poor sod. i'd be crushed if that happens to me. hope i'll stay injury-free.

joe's also going for campusa. his camp is a special needs camp way up there in vermont. so he's heading straight to new york for his orientation. lucky sod. leaving on the 15th of june, almost three weeks after i fly off. and yet he'll be ending camp a week earlier. i think my camp duration's one of the longest i've seen so far, a solid 12 weeks in the rocky mountains! chances are we'll be travelling alot of the one month holiday together. so gotta start planning for our holiday. though i got a feeling we'll be peddling a friend or two from camp along as well. go joe!


Heart of Crystal


What is Your Heart REALLY Made of?
brought to you by Quizilla

Going To America!!!

yay! i've finally gotten my placement for campusa by aceglobal! such a long wait! i've been posted to this ymca camp in granby,colorado called camp chief ouray. as a camp counsellor. it's a christian camp so i'm sure there'll be nicer than average kids there (no middle finger for you there young lady) wheee.... so happy and excited. it's an 11/2hr drive to denver (home of the nuggets and broncos) and it's at the foot of the rocky mountains. there's a ski resort 2hrs away and the camps got like tons and tons of activities. working hours are abit xiong though, but not clear about the details. i'm the only asian attending the camp as far as i know (go asian dragon!) and will be flying into chicago first for yet another orientation workshop before camp (yay, windy city, must take photo with michael jordan statue and catch a bulls game if possible) *wheeze...need to catch my breath* geez really can't wait. i can't concentrate on anything else at present and constantly surfing around to find out more about the place (expected temp: 4C ~ 15C). will be leaving on the 25th of may (awfully rushed) and camp will end on the 26th of august, following which i got a month's holiday visa extension which i'll probably max out. hope the nuggets make the playoffs, then can go see newest nba phenom, 'melo! aaaaahhhhh........where to go, where to go, where to go??!! argh. better try to put all this at the back of my head first and concentrate on my fyp and the impending exams though... wah but very hard siah....

very rushed schedule right after the exams. have to settle clearance from ntu, have to move out of hall, have got fyp presentation to prepare, have to go for iccp orientation to prep for camp, have to do visa application and criminal record clearance before camp, have to plan for how i'm gonna meet up with anyone there (darrell and merv the perv), have to go for biannual brps 6A'91 gathering on the 14th, have to go for ippt and get at least a silver, have to say goodbye to everyone in the hall!!! so much to do so little time!!! in between must go cheong!!! haha.

okie cool down.

*deep breath*

fyp sucks.

studying for exams soon.

the champions league is going all topsy-turvy. chelsea upsets arsenal, a french team in the semis (monaco) at the expense of real madrid? deportivo trounces milan 4-0 (how's that possible?) at the riazor? only porto's entry isnt that much of a surprise, they're the only team to have won the champion's league before which was in '87, and they faced a pathetic opponent in lyon (still not that bad). looks like there're be a new champ this year. my money's on depor.

talked to zuguang last night. said he confirm getting 3rd class. xianz. seems quite bothered about it, he. i told him i'll probably get that too. doesn't bother me much though there's a chance for me to get 2nd lower but its still a long shot, what more with the lousy fyp. whatever it is, i can't wait to clear my exams and be rid of fyp!!!

okie gonna TRY to concentrate on my fyp for the rest of today. due end of next week.

Fan-Club

hmm. okie i saw our two favourite (seeing too much of them lately) cleaning aunties again today. this time they woke me up from my sleep around 10am. i heard them chattering outside my room earlier but didn't realise i was the one they were looking for. when i opened the door the biker auntie (let's call her that - she's the fatter and obviously stronger one) was carrying a ladder while the friend-ly auntie (the skinnier one who called the stuff on my bag "friends") looked on. they said they were sent by ashley to clean my fan because yesterday they realised how dirty my fan was while the keppel people were fixing it. i half-suspect it was lim choon seng who told ashley about the noisy fan after his visit to my room some time back but that didn't matter anyway. so auntie was laying out the ladder all set to climb so high up (i mean she wasn't very tall) to clean my fan, then i thought it was quite terrible of her to have to clean it while i looked on, so i told her to stop what she was doing and let me do it instead. biker auntie looked quite happy with that suggestion, so i went about force-cleaning my own fan, which didnt take much effort (i only need to step on the first rung of the ladder) while entertaining those two lovely ladies...

(in chinese)
biker auntie: your fan so dirty thats why we gotta help you clean it...
me: aiyah i'm gonna move out soon mah...
friend-ly auntie: *teases* haiyoh you don't clean wait the fan spin the dust will fly into your mouth when you sleep!
me: *roll eyes* haha erm, maybe lor but sleeping mah so i wouldn't know...
friend-ly auntie: *auntie giggle* haha so you must have had extra food while sleeping right?
biker auntie: *auntie giggle* yah! so when you wake up you must be very full!
me: erm, hmm *mumble mumble*
biker auntie: nah, change cloth. (takes fan-cleaning cloth from me)
me: orh

friend-ly auntie: wah your arm very long hor, easy to clean...
me: erm. yah.
biker auntie: yah! so long can reach so easily, else will be harder if either of us (gestures to them both) did it!
friend-ly auntie: the way you do it so easy and fast...
me: aiyah no sweat lah auntie...
biker auntie: *auntie giggle* yah lor...
biker auntie: nah, change cloth. (takes fan-cleaning cloth from me again)
me: orh

friend-ly auntie: your animals got misbehave anot?
me: *startled* huh? erm, what animals?
friend-ly auntie: haha, those on your curtains lah!
biker auntie: *auntie giggle*
me: *sigh, then roll eyes* oh haha erm, haha...
biker auntie: *auntie giggle again* very cute hor?
me: erm, ha, erm yah quite.
biker auntie: nah, change cloth. (takes fan-cleaning cloth from me once more)
me: orh

okie enough about our fav aunties.

yesterday was at the ministerial forum with guoxin yonghui and mark. dpm lee aka barry aka nelson (its a yonghui joke) was the guest speaker and he spoke of our hopes, fears and dreams. nothing really spectacular about what he said. gave us a political outlook and singapore's situation (something my dad's touched on a few times before liaoz) and told us to be more entrepreneurial and told us to make more babies (according to him 36000 babies + 6000-7000 more = 45000 babies, lousy math). nothing really impressive lah. the dialogue session was indeed a candid one. the cheenapoks (yonghui insists he invented this term) came up with the lousiest and most incomprehensible questions, dunno how they do that. most of the auditorium almost always let out a united disgruntled groan when yet another cheenapok took the mike. i mean which idiot in their right mind would come up with a childish question like whether the dpm thinks taiwan and china would go to war? some cheenapok phd candidate even suggested that a solution to the childbearing problem would be to import babies! geez and i thought the miss-singapore-universe contestants' answers were bad (one of them thought wong kan seng was a taiwanese), these questions were even worse.

anyway if you'd ask me, i'd just tell you that the only two things i learnt from the forum were

1) permanent residents and other foreign talents in singapore ARE being treated WELL.
citizens, on the other hand, are being treated WELL-PLUS.

such was the evasive nature of the dpm to say the word "BETTER". haiz. how diplomatic does he really want to be? but still, i predict the term WELL-PLUS will apeear in the next update of our nation's premier satirical website, talkingcock.com
and

2) a majority of singaporean couples do intend to get married and have X children.
however, the reality was that SOME couples eventually don't get married, while those who do end up having X-1 children.

how nice of the dpm to utilise algebra to help drill in the fact that we need more kids. well this is unfortunately true based on a recent article in our daily nation builder. most couples think an ideal number of children to have would be 2 or 3 but almost always end up having 1 or 2 respectively. hmm. i think from now on i will psycho myself to have 4 kids then.

okie. i've had enough of my blog for now. some people actually say i'm longwinded and my blogs are unentertaining. hmph. how impolite.
i'm off to the com lab for another exciting day of experimentation and playing of the exciting game - how-long-can-you-stare-at-the-computer-screen! hooray. i can't wait.

Fan-Tastic

great. my room fan broke down around 9am this morning. xianz spent the next hour or so sweatily rolling around, couldn't sleep well anymore. should've suspected something was up when it began squeaking alot louder the last coupla days. went to find marcus liaoz, he says he'll get it fixed for me pronto. hope he remembers. our two favourite senior cleaning aunties were also in the hall office reading the papers. super friendly, them both, one asked me if i were a biker kid (what with my cap on et al) while the other teased me about having alot of "friends" dangling on my bag (pink flamingo and big bunny). i told them no i wasn't a biker kid *roll eyes* and i talk to my "friends" in class, sending them into uncontrollable conservative-female-cover-the-mouth giggling spasms. hmm its quite weird to see those old aunties act that way. left the office immediately afterthat.

last night went swimming for the 3rd consecutive night with joe lincoln and guoxin. the thing about last night was that there was a mist above the water that was quite visible and the air smelled of burnt incense. hmm, one of us then remembered it was qing ming. the eerie setting reminded me of those hongkee b-grade ghost stories like gui la jiao (ghost pull leg), haha. but no big deal, we still swam and had fun.

also finally finished the results and analysis chapter of my fyp (the toughest chapter). took the whole of yesterday to get that done. xianz. but at least that's over and done with, now to see what my sup has to say. hopefully he won't be asking me to redo it, haha. will be slogging in the lab again today to do some last minute experiements that i can hopefully ass to my report.

Pig Trotters For Dinner Anyone?

lousy day of work work and more fyp work. horse shite.

the highlight was shengyong bringing the rest of us to the hawker centre at jurong spring near jjc there. its my first time there and they supposedly had lotsa good food. then again its kinda dubious when shengyong says there's good food since you'd think anything edible looked good to him going by his size. anyway we took mark's car out, me guoxin keeheng mark in a car, shengyong and his friends in another.

the pig trotters soup he asked us to try (sure orgase wan!) was indeed quite good. i mean i've never (yes never) eaten pig's trotters before so when i say its good, its gotta be bloody good. anyway its served in a claypot and looks to have been stewed with soy sauce and lotsa herbs. the soup was more like thick sauce that you'd put in your rice rather than the drinkable stuff (its too salty to be drunk alone anyway). the pig's trotter or leg (couldn't make out which part of the leg though, but the part i was served sure didn't look like it was previously used by the swine for walking!)was quite scrumptuous. lotsa meat though less the fat, wonder where uncle swine-killer finds these pigs with meaty legs. guoxin mark and i also shared a bowl of pig's everything soup (zhu zha tang) haha. all that topped with sugarcane juice. and what good meal that was.

then we also went to the nearby fruit stalls to buy fruits. guoxin and keeheng bought tons of mangoes. i got myself some pears and plums. cheap stuff.

been working on my fyp all day. its damn bloody xianz and yet its gotta be done. i think i'll haveta slog for at least another week and a half minimum. pissin' shite. okie its back to work again...

Sunday Morning

awoken by joe at 915 this morning. we were supposed to go for breakfast together me joe john and mark. by the time we all met at the carpark it was 945 liaoz. its been a long time since i last woke up so early just to have breakfast. we went to extension. i had prawn mee. been reading the papers since i came back to hall. gonna start work on my fyp soon.

Glory Glory Man United!!!

yay! man u just won the fa cup semi-final over arsenal 1-0 thanks to a goal by scholesy. so happy.

watched abit of the miss singapore universe finals in joe's room just now during half-time. wah lao not that i wanna say but most of the contestants really look like they've been beaten up by an ugly stick man. i mean if they don't look like mamasans or "before" models of slimming ads, then they'd look like transvestites or bj-specialists. yuck. i rather watch the cooking show on suria. at most only two or three so-so good ones. haiz. where have all the chio bus gone?

staying in hall over the weekend to do fyp. xianz.

Presenting...

whoopee, presentation's over liaoz. so happee!!! and it went quite well, i mean well enough that our tutor mentioned me as best speaker for my group! whoopeeeee!!! in his words, i was "calm, eloquent and convincing" ! wow. my head's bloating liaoz. calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...calm, eloquent and convincing...lalala

nonetheless was still bloody gan jiong prior to the presentation.

i think engineers really cannot do presentations. i mean engineers in general. they're really bad. i almost slept through ALL the presentations after my own presentation (relief does make one sleepy) and probably the only reason why i didn't fall asleep for the presentations before that was because i was too gan jiong. everyone made the mistake of having full sentences and (too many of them mind you) tons of useless statistics on each slide and the most tedious and horrible presentors were those who actually read the slides word for word. argh. wonder why the tutor didn't stop them. such agony. some others presented as though they were trying to themselves by boring themselves to sleep. now waidaminit, presenting really isn't easy and its obvious that almost everyone who went up was super nervous, but i think the tutor should have done more to help the rest of us through the tedious and lousy speakers....bleah. hmm i guess presentations are just about the only things that business students really have an edge over us. ha. then again just like john pang says, perception of the individual is everything to the third party, and presentation is the key to that perception. double bleah.

haha okie i shan't mention so much considering how nervous i was last night. practiced my speech more than 10 times and then some more this morning. i tried writing handnotes but that didn't work out so i presented with nothing. i trimmed my presentation from 11minutes down to 7minutes, though i think i took much longer than that during the actual presentation...i suppose my presentation only sounded good compared to the lousy speakers in the class lah. i mean there were other good speakers too (though few and far between haha). still it felt good knowing i didn't throw my face onto the floor like the last time.

lotsa thanks to val and chun for their help and advice through all this.

okie so now that this hurdle over and done with, i've only got my fyp (in 2 weeks) and exams (in 3 weeks) to focus on. my tutor called me up this morning at (my god) 830am to tell me that he had vetted through the first 5 chapters of my report and that they were okie. so i told him i'll try to complete the rest of it by monday and send it all to him while finishing up the actuation experiments by next week. it feels good to be in control of my fyp after such a long time. i knew that should've signalled the beginning of a good day...

Bloodninja

haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately. dunno why. maybe its the bad throat and the stupid fyp and ens presentation coming up. i dunno. meantime i stumbled upon this silly piece of attempted cybersex that's really quite funny, and there's more of where this came from. i don't really understand the deal with cybersex, really i don't. i mean, honestly, reading monotonously fonted text files are supposed to turn me on? am i supposed to waste my creative juices trying to graphify those words? dun think so.

bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?

BritneySpears14: Aight.

bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.

BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja.

bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.

BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.

bloodninja: Me too baby.

BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.

bloodninja: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.

BritneySpears14: Hey...

bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 Cock of the Infinite.

BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.

bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.

BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.

bloodninja: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.

bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.

BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.

bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.

bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.

bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.

bloodninja: Baby?

*************************************************

bloodninja: Ok baby, we got to hurry, I don't know how long I can keep it ready for you.

j_gurli3: thats ok. ok i'm a japanese schoolgirl, what r u.

bloodninja: A Rhinocerus. Well, hung like one, thats for sure.

j_gurli3: haha, ok lets go.

j_gurli3: i put my hand through ur hair, and kiss u on the neck.

bloodninja: I stomp the ground, and snort, to alert you that you are in my breeding territory.

j_gurli3: haha, ok, u know that turns me on.

j_gurli3: i start unbuttoning ur shirt.

bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't wear shirts.

j_gurli3: No, ur not really a Rhinocerus silly, it's just part of the game.

bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't play games. They f*cking charge your ass.

j_gurli3: stop, cmon be serious.

bloodninja: It doesn't get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.

bloodninja: I stomp my feet, the dust stirs around my tough skinned feet.

j_gurli3: thats it.

bloodninja: Nostrils flaring, I lower my head. My horn, like some phallic symbol of my potent virility, is the last thing you see as skulls collide and mine remains the victor. You are now a bloody red ragdoll suspended in the air on my mighty horn.

bloodninja: Goddam am I hard now.