Carpe diem

2011-05-29T00:12:00.003+08:00

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

A Time for Everything

1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

2011-02-14T01:50:00.001+08:00

Why am i so awake?!!!

2011-02-12T11:41:00.001+08:00

I feel excited about work.

It's been very difficult piecing together all the moving parts, and at the same time trying to figure out how best I can add value 1) without making people feel insecure, 2) after I gain enough expertise on the subjects, 3) while balancing the time needed to build expertise and time needed to persuade and talk to people. The more I stretch myself, the more shaky the ground becomes.

And I realise the reason why it all feels so big and difficult to manage is because all the issues are actually about building the future Singapore. All the discussions about smart cities / future cities / social fabric, it is really very big-picture and that's why it is so difficult to grasp it (the way i seize a problem and try to solve it). And every part keeps moving, I try to keep an eye out on their directions, speed, and their drivers, but its another challenge for my P personality. My new notebook has filled up incredibly fast, and I find myself thinking about my to-do list practically every moment of the day (minus at netball) just because there are so many things to check on, to push, to remind. The hardest part is sitting down and putting in all together.

It's quite mindblowing, really. I suppose I never really saw it in its entirety, but I'm happy its starting to emerge.

2011-01-19T09:25:00.000+08:00

Things to remember

1. It's not that difficult to talk to people! And people do want to talk to me, so stop thinking about avoiding everyone.

2. Self-improvement. In everything. Don't fall into the same rut and stand still while everyone passes you by. Always think of the next thing I want to do, where I want to get to.

3. Walk to the line with a purpose! Psych them out first.

4. Sleep more.

2011-01-13T00:12:00.001+08:00

I'm a robot.
I don't include ppl, and I don't want to be included.
I don't show affection to ppl, and I don't want ppl to be affectionate towards me.
Winz.
No wonder cannot get along with ppl.

Bubble world here I come!

2010-12-15T23:29:00.002+08:00

Colossians 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Proverbs 30:17 The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.

Exodus 20:12 Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

I can do this!

2010-11-28T02:01:00.004+08:00

My heart breaks when I see my aunt cry in pain, when I listen to her question the existence of God, when she says she'll rather leave this world than go through the torture of dying painfully and slowly.

What would I do if I were her? I don't think I would have even made it so far. The world is such a cruel place, I think I'd just be weak and leave it behind.

My heart also breaks when I see my mum upset with my aunt's condition, when she tries to cook something nice, something easy to eat for my aunt, but gets so depressed when my aunt continues to lose weight and cry in pain.

How do people deal with such things? Apart from crying and wishing things were different, and that it was all a bad dream. I sometimes go for long runs because the exhaustion occupies my mind and removes me temporarily from all these other realities, but its so... transient.

Feeling helpless is a horrible feeling. Feeling heartache is also very hard to deal with. But maybe still better than feeling unbearable physical pain.

2010-11-26T00:32:00.001+08:00

2010-11-25T00:00:00.003+08:00

I'm constantly very tired. Sleepy, lightheaded.

Stressed, but sometimes excitedly so. Getting to see and learn many new things, about myself too. Feeling inadequate, feeling like I cannot live up to expectations. Or perhaps, I don't want to.

But I'm not happy I think. Not quite as happy as I would wish to be. And I suspect, not quite as happy as I really can be.

Pensive quite often, more so than before, and keeping things inside. I watch a lot more, I can sense a lot more, and I also react a lot less. More selfish maybe, more protective maybe.

Sometimes I think about what if things were different. Sometimes I think about, if only things never became different.

What I want is not good for me, and what is good for me is not what I want.

HK was, like never before. Same sights, but different emotions. Bball and Netball have pretty much kept me going despite some frustrating times. Joy comes in strange ways nowadays.

Its always so raw, so fresh, so pure when it begins. A clean slate, pure joy, no expectations, no defences, all in its truest form.

2010-09-26T02:18:00.001+08:00

vroom vroom
need some adrenaline rush now, to kickstart something
i need to feel... anything

2010-09-25T01:40:00.003+08:00

Exhausted.

Physically, emotionally, intellectually.

And for once, at a loss for words.

2010-04-09T08:39:00.002+08:00

I've never felt so frustrated with my job, ever.

Its quite a swell of feelings, when you realise you are not quite making the most of your life, that you won't be able to maximise your potential, that you are really capable of more but the "system" does not allow nor accommodate such self-assessment. You live a life that others think you will like to live, a life that others think must be full of meaning and fulfillment, a life that some others wish they could taste. You even sell it to some people, because there are days you choose to believe that there's more to it, and you cannot bring yourself to accept the fact that perhaps, for you, there's nothing more to it.

Why do some have the courage to take the leap, to put aside what others think, and to take the risk that perhaps some day, they wished they didn't. I fear, not of failure, but of letting people down. Those who have been sincere about helping me grow, teaching me how to do it right, think it right. Maybe they don't care, and maybe I'm actually more afraid that what people think of me will change.

Its all becoming more of a blur these days. A blur of realising that my life expectancy is perhaps not high, that i've been kidding myself about how much my abilities are valued here, that if I continue like this I will have a fulfilling and meaningful career, waking up each day eager to go to work.

Some days I wake up very happy, for different reasons, and that's what still makes life bearable. I wonder how long that will last

2008-09-05T23:44:00.000+08:00

:)

I am excited!!

2008-08-01T02:00:00.003+08:00

Some people are clearly super bored in school or at work.
They keep checking the same blogs.
Hahahahaha
Stop slacking!

2008-07-28T00:06:00.005+08:00

I was looking through my blog archives to find the name of my tennis racquet, when I found this:

I will present here the secret to enjoying olives.

The key is first impression. At the sight of an olive, one must suppress the assumption that since it looks like a currant or grape, it should taste sweet and sour.

Once this is achieved, the rest comes naturally.

It reminded me of many things, but more than anything, I realise that I have changed. Because I like black olives now. I like them so much I'd eat a plate of them on their own. Times have changed!

People change too. Well at least they appear to change, though I suspect deeper inside everyone's personality and character doesn't really change. But depending on who they hang out with or maybe, who they want to hang out with, they adapt behaviorally.

So my racquet is Bandit. It has emerged from hibernation and now works out once a week. I picked up tennis at MIT, and I remember cycling very fast from Tang Hall to the courts so as to warm up in the cold weather.

I miss you-in-Taipei now :P Stay safe and I hope you have a good time despite the typhoon! I will have them coffee cookies ready when you come back :)

Today I will get a new badminton racquet!

And then there are those days
When silly thoughts linger for a bit
I daydream
of Pirouettes and Piroulines
of Pyramids and Pot Pies
of Grand Canyon and the Hopewell Rocks
of the Atlantic City Boardwalk
of Late night interstate drives

But they melt repeatedly
like my heart, sometimes
And I realise,
that my problem is that i really care

2008-07-16T23:58:00.000+08:00

Very very very very ironic!!

2008-07-07T13:44:00.000+08:00

Wendy: I think you have, Peter. And I daresay you've felt it yourself. For something... or... someone?
Peter: Never. Even the sound of it offends me.
[Wendy tries to touch his face, and he jumps away]
Peter: Why do you have to spoil everything? We have fun, don't we? I taught you to fly and to fight. What more could there be?
Wendy: There is so much more.
Peter: What? What else is there?
Wendy: I don't know. I guess it becomes clearer when you grow up.
Peter: Well, I will not grow up. You cannot make me!

2008-07-01T18:37:00.005+08:00

So many blog entries stuffed away as "drafts". Time to reopen the blog. Not that I have anything much to say right now...

I'm not calling for a second chance,
I'm screaming at the top of my voice,
Give me reason, but don't give me choice,
Cos I'll just make the same mistake again,

And maybe someday we will meet
And maybe talk and not just speak
Don't buy the promises 'cause
There are no promises I keep,
and my reflection troubles me
so here I go

2008-05-26T00:02:00.001+08:00

2008-05-17T23:08:00.000+08:00

And so it goes

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

Billy Joel

2007-12-16T23:34:00.000+08:00

I am such an idiot.

pls pls pls.

2007-11-27T00:56:00.000+08:00

Cars.

I lazed for 2 hours on the couch on Sunday afternoon with my sister, watching the movie Cars. It reminded me of the Petrolhead application on Facebook. It also reminded me of bittersweet memories at the Grand Canyon. I liked this old slow song quite a bit, although its really not the type of song I'd usually like. But I suppose under current conditions, the song clicked with me, and I couldn't help but added it to my youtube playlist.

I want to work in a kitchen. I really do.

Find Yourself

When you find yourself

In some far off place,

And it causes you

To rethink some things.

You start to sense

That slowly you’re becoming someone else

And then you find yourself.

When you make new friends

In a brand new town,

And you start to think

About settling down,

The things that would have been lost on you

Are now clear as a bell.

And you find yourself

That’s when you find yourself.

Well you go through life

So sure of where you’re heading,

And you wind up lost

And it’s the best thing that could happen.

‘Cause sometimes when you lose your way

It’s really just as well.

‘Cause you find yourself;

That when you find yourself.

When you meet the one

You’ve been waiting for,

And she’s everything

That you want and more,

You look at her

And you finally start

To live for someone else.

And then you find yourself;

That’s when you find yourself.

We go though life

So sure of where we’re heading,

And then we wind up lost

And it’s the best thing that could happen.

Sometimes when you lose your way

It’s really just as well.

Because you find yourself;

Yeah that’s when you find yourself.

2007-11-17T23:03:00.000+08:00

Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. If you don't start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who'll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you'll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived."

.Need to decide.

2007-10-29T01:43:00.000+08:00

Monday again.

I want to watch the Sox game. And then I want to watch the Patriots play, plus the Celtics!!
I miss the never ending sports season in the US.... So many evenings were spent in front of the tv, laptop and notes beside me, pretending to be doing work but in reality watching 3 hour games and burning the midnight oil after that.

And then waking hours are spent waiting for Monday night football, Thursday night NBA games, Sunday football, Tuesday NBA. Rooting for teams and players and then switching sides and rooting for others.

Towards the end of each season, meals and trips to the supermarket are planned around the games so as not to miss a second of tv time, oven-bakes and stews are preferred to minimise preparation time, and bags of chips and snacks are wolfed down as the Patriots or the Spurs score touchdowns and goals.

Miss those times.

And I miss the people I used to enjoy the tv sports with. Everyone has moved on or is moving on. I am too, but a lot of the time I feel very very sentimental about it.

2007-10-20T22:19:00.000+08:00

I was in St Gallen, Switzerland, for a week in September. I was invited to attend the World Ageing Congress, thanks to my Prof who was giving a speech. I had a nice room at the Radisson, and had been looking forward to the trip for the past few weeks.

Every minute of the trip was thoroughly enjoyable. I love plane rides, and I really enjoy having the private time where I can do whatever lazy activities I want, i.e. watch movies and read books. I also love Switzerland, having been there twice when I was younger. The milk, the croissants, the cheese, yum yum yum. And the skiing!

Heh. Some quick photos. My camera's battery is so weak, it lasts about 30 min after a full night of charging. Next on my wishlist is a new digital camera :P

I want to holiday again in Switzerland! Now now now now.

Would you want to come?

2007-09-29T22:09:00.000+08:00

It began at Little India MRT station, I managed to get out of the office and rushed down to the MRT station by 7pm. We had dinner at Muthu's -- not worth posting pics here because it was way too atas and not worth picture space on the blog. A very short dinner but was very happy.

Next day was a tough day at work, but started off with a good morning at Komala Villas along Buffalo Road. I had a dosai, he had an onion uttapam, we both had wonderful company on a Friday morning. Armed with a SIM card, we were ready for the next 4 days.

Komala Villas, Buffalo Road - our favorite for the trip

Onion Uttapam, Poori, Dosai

In the middle of Friday, there was a surprise snack pack of Marks and Sparks Jaffa cakes and sour cream and chives potato chips. A sweet surprise to make the horrible day at work seem much easier to deal with. It was my lifelife as I worked till 1am at night.

Saturday... already very tired and sleepy. It promised to be a day of fire fighting, but at 5pm we went to the Cage for some soccer. I thought it was too crowded and went for a run along Tanjong Rhu, but when I got back, I played for about half an hour. It was nice to meet your friends, though some of them will become my bosses somewhere down the road! Then it was off to Chai Chee bak chor mee (note: not Chai chee fishball mee, and don't drive into jams when you are hungry). We got there, food was ordered and he jumped out to eat.

Despite each having a full bowl of noodles and some side dishes as supplements, we jumped back into the car and decided simultaneously that it was not enough. And so we proceeded to the location below for some carrot cake and sugar cane and 100+. Note: This was no. 8 can of 100+ between us in a span of 4 hours.

A very happy Saturday, and then I had to return home to work after being ordered by the powers above to produce some info for Sunday's dialogue at the Grassroots club. Of course, a Sunday morning has to start with some good company and indian food (since we are obviously on an indian theme) so we travelled from Little India to Thomson for some Casuarina prata.

Many Kosong, many egg, and 1 paper.

Off to the dialogue, then to lunch with the family and relatives at Laguna Club, and then to Raffles City! A very quick meet up in the afternoon (almost like a preview of Monday), bought some apricot cheese, dropped him off for his wedding dinner and off to tuition for me. Monday morning went back to work, went off for early lunch at Hong Lim - I always like the old Singapore feel of the food centre. Walked to Starbucks at Central, at it was there that I concluded I needed to get away from work and so I promptly took half a day off. Collected my barang from office while he waited, and we trooped to Raffles City to do some case studies. Such a lovely afternoon spent sitting on the couch at Gloria Jean's, testing each other on some case interviews.

Hong Lim Complex

Gloria Jean's at Raffles City basement

Paid a visit to the rented apartment at Paterson on the pretext of measuring the doors :P Then dinner at Banana Leaf Apollo along Race Course road with Mamba and Lynn, some simple icecream at United Square, then back home. Tuesday, last day. Breakfast at all time favorite joint of the trip, then back to work. Took off at 1 to go to the airport, and had some ramen at Ajisen. Tears and goodbye... got to wait a few more weeks if promise is not broken.

And boooooo. A phone call from the power above that threw me right back into work to prepare for the interviews on Thursday and Friday.

But you know, a short 5 days is very much needed once in a while, to remind me of what's good in this world, and to give me some hope for things to come. That few seconds of you and me as I send you off to the gate... it makes the wait worth it.

Please please. I'll take a credit on next year's birthday wishes for this to work out.

2007-07-15T10:24:00.000+08:00

Two weeks across the oceans...

Such a good time. Strawberry picking, pond swimming, bbq-ing, mini-golfing, potlucking, soccering, badmintoning, suppering... And building those cities.

Going to Boston has been one of my best decisions this year... And I miss you even more now.

The key to finding (and devouring sweet strawberries) - Randomly pluck berries from different plants and gobble them. Upon gobbling a sweet strawberry, alert your crew (limited to 1 other person only to ensure that both of you have sufficient pickings) and devour the rest of the plant together.

Hiking in the Blue Hills. We picked Buck's Hill as our final destination, and had lunch on the peak. Kenneth outdid our freshly baked, home made gourmet Roast Beef sandwiches with his Chicken Rice Balls!

My belated birthday celebration at SidPac. Blueberry cheesecake from Finale.... yum. It was meant to be a surprise but I must have sensed the presence of the surprise and discovered it in Trev's fridge :P

2007-05-05T21:31:00.000+08:00

my mummy wants to open a joint bank account with me, to keep the money i give to her. I want her to use the money. I don't want her to give me back the money next time. but she does not want to spend the money. how?

2007-05-04T01:06:00.000+08:00

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?D

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just

2007-03-19T18:04:00.000+08:00

Drumstick with Kit Kat!!!

Not bad right, just stick a kit kat stick into a drumstick and voila! you have a new invention.

My next indulgence.

2007-03-14T20:30:00.000+08:00

Fiscal Policy Directorate Retreat

For Part 2 of my directorate retreat, I organised a cooking class for them. It was held at at-sunrice, a culinary academy on top of Fort Canning Park.

Before cooking class began, we went for a spice hunt around the spice garden at Fort Canning Park. Brings back fond memories of the orienteering race around MIT!

It was an amateur version of Iron chef, and our directorate of 21 people were split into 5 teams for a cooking competition. Our menu consisted of Chilli Crab, Popiah and Laksa, and Popiah was the competition dish. It was fun because we did not use Prima Packs! We actually had to pound our own spices and make our own laksa paste and chilli crab paste from scratch. What a change!

Having had some practice with wrapping Popiah (after undergoing intensive training at the Lynneth academy in Boston), my team (Team Onion!) came out tops. Our popiahs were judged the best wrapped, and our plating and garnishing the most attractive. We had to accompany our plating with a 2 minute advertising pitch on why our dish was the best. Hehe this was perhaps the most hilarious part of the session.

Pictures here:

Locating the 10 spices in the Spice Garden.... Tamarind, basil, clove, Traveller's Palm, cotton and more!

What happens when you have four men trying to cook laksa paste?

The Winning Popiah Dish!! - Isn't the Tomato Rose pretty? :P

Everyone enjoying their dinner al fresco on top of Fort Canning

Team Onion! (Yes we had groups named after spices.

There was Pepper, Cumin, Onion, Chilli and Basil)

2007-02-05T23:49:00.000+08:00

I have lost much. So much so that today I go into many new ventures with half the knowledge that I'm about to lose something. "So many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster". That line strikes a chord in me.

One Art
Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.
Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.
None of these will bring disaster.

.....

February 14th - February 15th. What important dates they are.

2007-02-05T00:12:00.000+08:00

National Pancake Day

Mat has informed Mao of the upcoming National Pancake Day on 20 Feb.

Mao is quite particular about pancakes, though. No thick doughy pancakes please. Occasionally, normal pancakes with butter and maple syrup do please Mao, but Mao cannot eat many of them. Pancakes that delight Mao shall be termed The ** Kueh from now onwards. They include (in random order):

1. The Munching Kueh

2. The Prata Kueh

3. The Scallion Kueh

Hmm. I almost added The Popiah Kueh and The Quesadilla Kueh but fortunately I realised in the nick of time that they are not pancakes. It would be a crime to mis-classify certain foods as pancakes on Pancake Day!

On another note, I really like "Amarantine" - A very sweet song from Enya. Especially the opening of the song (when you can actually hear what she is singing!) :
...You know when you give your love away...
...It opens your heart, everything is new...
...And you know time will always find a way...
...To let your heart believe it's true...

2007-02-01T01:37:00.000+08:00

2006-12-09T20:54:00.000+08:00

Really thinking of giving it a shot again.

I have all these reasons why it'd be pointless to try, but I always ask myself, why am I making all these excuses? I could do it in the past because I always told myself I could, but now I'm so... hmm, scared to fail?

Heh. Ok think short term goals first. :P

I must say though, it's such a good feeling to be on the court again after so long....

2006-12-08T21:23:00.000+08:00

I am eating some yummy green tapioca kueh now.

Pasar Malam tapioca kueh. MMMmmm...

Anyway, work has been pretty interesting for me. It's quite fast paced and challenging, and I get to work on the latest policies being rolled out. My bosses have also given me quite a bit of exposure, and I have had the honor of meeting with some VIPs (and subsequently of course having to do work for them) But... so far so good! It's actually quite a nice environment to work in, people-wise, and every afternoon about 5pm I will play foosball for an hour.

Today we all gathered in the lounge at 5.30 to watch the news release of the Sentosa IR bid. Quite a few of us from MOF were involved in the whole project so it was quite an important event in the office. I was really rooting for Eight Wonder and their Harry's island. Unfortunately, the bid was won by Genting... BOO!!! So boring...

I miss my family though, and I wish they'd all come back soon.

2006-12-01T00:31:00.000+08:00

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

2006-11-17T23:12:00.000+08:00

The purpose of the GST hike is neither solely to help low income households nor to compensate for the possible loss of money from Temasek's Shin Corp episode. It is, however, very interesting to see how the public ties together certain events and come up with intriguing conclusions.

As with any tax increase, the purpose is to finance an increase in expenditure. Be it infrastructure development, building of more rail lines, school buildings, hospital wards.. or the financing of service provision. What the revenue is spent on, that's up to the government to prioritise after taking into account the needs of the population.

There are so many demands for more money. It is unbelievable.

I have taken a liking to the $1 beef rendang pie at Delifrance. Yum yum. There are some nights I go to bed looking forward to the beef rendang pie the next morning.

It is very interesting talking to the admin staff who have been working for a really long time. They have the most fascinating stories about the VIPs and they know all these details that really make my day so much more exciting. Lunch time with them is always more fun than lunchtime with people who like to discuss work.

I recommend a good dose of allrecipes.com when you are bored. Looking at nice recipes of yummy food always makes the day brighter.

2006-11-07T15:03:00.000+08:00

What has Mao been up to?

Well. It is my self-implemented break time now because I messed up an Excel sheet pretty bad this morning. In the excitement of trying to save some money for the government, I double counted some gains and happily wrote chunks of stuff about the wondrous things that can be done with the extra money. This morning I started getting a little suspicious of my numbers and thought through my formulas a bit more and uh-oh.... realized my boo-boo.

Fortunately excel-rescue is often a time-consuming process, and before I knew it it was lunch time! Today for lunch we decided to eat a little better than usual and journeyed to Cafe Amigo, a small kantang restaurant in Funan. Supposedly well known for their wine selection (bottles, not glasses), they also offered a weekday set lunch at $10.50. Today's menu was Beef Stroganoff with Rice, with Minestrone soup, bread, and tea/coffee. The beef and accompanying sauce was really good but unfortunately, the portions (like most set lunches) were too small. The rice portion I think was about 1/4 the amount I typically eat in a meal. :'( Nevertheless the lunch was a good timeout for me.

Haha there was a spelling error in the menu. "Thusday" instead of "Thursday". Always remember to track changes, save and run spell check.

Tomorrow I return to the world of Economical Rice. Cheap and sufficient. Throw in a Joy Juice to brighten my day.

There are many things I want to say and do. There are also many things I hope for but I know will not happen. Like taxi fares to be the same as bus fares. Life is kind of different now, and I will accept the fact that I have to stop wishing for the maybes and should haves and could haves. Like working in the civil service, nothing drastic can happen in a short time. So I'll just have to wean myself off slowly slowly slowly.

Training is lots of fun. Unfortunately I cannot find my ankle guards and have had to train under some mental duress. I am unashamed to say that the ankle guards have since become a psychological crutch... I need them!!!!! Where are they where are they. There's a competition this coming Sunday, it has been a while since I have played netball competitively so it should be fun.

Last week some of my teammates were fooling around and laughing about Zhou Hua Jian, and started singing the 朋友song. I remember being quite addicted to this song many years ago.

這些年一個人風也過雨也走有過淚有過錯還記得堅持甚麼
真愛過才會懂會寂寞會回首終有夢終有你在心中
朋友一生一起走那些日子不再有一句話一輩子一生情一杯酒
朋友不曾孤單過一聲朋友你會懂
還有傷還有痛還要走還有我

2006-09-24T15:36:00.000+08:00

After a rather long run yesterday evening, I have decided to sit on the couch today. Tiring run, but it makes the after-run 100+ tastes even more shiok. Must down a can at one shot, then you will feel very very happy.

So I browsed through my many photos in my laptop, which brought back so many happy memories!! Here are some:

The Amazing Race at Newport cliff walk, where only one pair managed to reach the finishing line. Which two of the above? This excursion also marked the emergence of the mysterious Tomb Raider. She was well equipped to tackle the dangerous cliffs!! Unfortunately, she is camera shy and therefore was not captured in the shot.

You thought making games was easy? Think again!! Hehehe but I must say, it is hard to realize how fun making the games can be, until you actually make them. There is a steep learning curve, but economies of scale are quite applicable in this case. When you start making many many games, it becomes easier and easier. Try this Name-the-Same: A perspicacious engineer. And the answer is not charsiew, nor is it I am Char Siew.

This is the calm after the storm. You think these people are gentle and friendly and CALM? Think again!! Hahaha one must watch the videos to know how excited and worked up these people can be. Don't be fooled into thinking that the people at the back are very tall. They are probably standing on stacks of the Yellow Book.

I want a Pie now!! Pies pies pies pies pies. After a while "pies" look as though they should be pronounced as "pees".

Since I don't have a pie, its time for some mooncake.

2006-09-20T22:52:00.000+08:00

Why it is difficult to groom budding artists in Singapore

Yes, Singapore education is world class, but based on astute observations, empirical evidence and personal experience, the primary school art syllabus needs a slight revamp in order to ensure that budding artists are given the opportunity to pursue their dreams. It is already extremely difficult for students to spend time on Art homework because of the heavy academic workload, yet teachers still expect students to be capable of sourcing for raw materials necessary for their art lessons. These raw materials are not expensive, but getting them can be an enormous headache for the student as well as their parents (or maids). The classic examples are listed below

1. The Hollow Egg Shell

This is perhaps one of the most dreaded requirements. Parents and Maids alike dread the time of the year when art teachers send children home with instructions to "bring a hollow egg for the next class". Some knowledge of fracture mechanics is critical for the processing of these shells, and a lack of such knowledge is likely to lead to the production of domes instead of egg shells. These egg shells are then used for painting or for making caricatures of humans and animals. One would imagine that the replacement of these shells by ping pong balls may be a viable and welcomed suggestion.

2. Toilet Roll Tube

Imagine a child going home on a Monday night and telling his parents "I have to bring at least 5 cardboard tubes from toilet paper rolls for art next week". Worse, imagine the kid forgetting this until Sunday night the following week. This cheap raw material is often used for craft lessons, where teachers like to ask their charges to design and make pencil holders or sculptures using cardboard rolls. What they do not realize is that this raw material has to be ordered way in advance, so as to allow families to use toilet paper at a normal and sane rate. Imagine having to use 5 rolls of toilet paper on a Sunday night! I remember my mum unrolling toilet paper onto a bamboo rod in order to provide me with a few cardboard rolls.

3. Ice Cream stick art

This is my favorite of course. When I have to bring ice cream sticks for art or for craft projects, I will start imagining how many ice creams I have to eat in order to accumulate a sufficient number of sticks. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs have already spotted this lucrative business opportunity, and packs of ice cream sticks have entered the market since the good ol days of ice cream binges. I remember having a discussion during art classes with my friend about our favorite icecreams, since we were both lucky enough to have been able to consume large quantities of ice cream based on the need for ice cream sticks.

2006-09-14T19:21:00.000+08:00

Some people are naturally good at remembering songs or phrases from TV shows and advertisements. I am not one of them. Today I was trying to recall the advertisement for WGBH Create, and I couldn't think of it at all!! I can remember the pictures, as in the sequence of pictures, but I just could not remember the words.

My brother and sister are both good at it. They will be able to sing the theme songs from the Channel 8 serials after watching for 2 or 3 days. As for me, I might be able to sing it after about 30 episodes. Lousy indeed!! But I actually have quite a good memory. I can remember visual details, so if you let me see the words I will probably be able to remember. Strange eh.

I had a quarter of a Delifrance baguette yesterday. It was dense on the inside, and even after heating it up in a toaster oven, the result was unsatisfactory. I have been spoilt by the Whole Foods baguette!! Just thinking about it makes me hungry. When will I get to eat it again?

Some mornings when I wake up I will lie in bed and think about Boston places to eat. I will perform an exercise in my mind, asking myself when I go back to visit, in which order will I visit the different restaurants. Somewhere on top of my list will be Shanghai gate. Actually perhaps those foods can actually be found in Singapore, and it is more the company or the circumstances that I miss. I would love to have some Ma Lan Tou and Hua Shui for dinner tonight!! :P

It is time for some netball. It has been a while since I last played. Hopefully it does not rain tonight.

On another note, I made a fool of myself on Tuesday, when I tried to step onto an escalator going the wrong direction. It was a Down escalator but I was trying to go Up. It was rather embarrassing!! I was thinking about something and very distracted, hence the boo boo. My sister could not stop laughing for the next 10 minutes.

2006-09-13T11:56:00.000+08:00

4 weeks

Anxiously waiting for work to start.

Mao doesn't know what to say actually. On paper always seem so smart, in real life stupid like idiot.

2006-09-10T19:28:00.000+08:00

Prelude to Mid Autumn Festival

I really like mooncakes.

I like them so much I am thinking about getting some right now.

But I only like the traditional mooncakes, the ones with the brown skin. I don't really eat the Hokkien mooncakes, which kind of look like Tau Sar Piah, nor the flaky Teochew mooncakes that are usually filled with Yam filling. Soon my mother and I will make our annual pilgrimage to Johor to buy mooncakes. The brand is called Shi Xin Yue Bing. The filling is perfectly moist, and the skin is thin and soft. When we don't have access to any of these mooncakes, we usually settle for Prima Deli mooncakes, which are rather expensive but of acceptable quality.
Some people say the Da Zhong Guo ones are good... I have tried some before a long time ago and don't have much of an impression, so perhaps this year I will get some to do a Taste Test!

I also like the Ju Zai Bengs very much. Perhaps because they are more or less made of the mooncake skin material but do not contain any lotus paste at all. I wonder why they are made in the shape of piglets... time to do some research!! They used to sell these Ju Zais at the mama shops, in the neon green, pink or yellow baskets. Now after some upgrading works, the pigs now live in luxurious plastic transparent boxes decorated with lace or ribbons. They even have plastic black eyes now!

Last but not least are the Pomelos! I always enjoy sitting around the dinner table sharing a big plate of pomelo with my family. The reddish-flesh ones are usually sweeter than the whitish-flesh ones, but the whites are usually more juicy.

2006-09-10T10:39:00.000+08:00

My mum and sister are home from Copenhagen, it was a nice feeling to be on the waiting side in the arrival hall this morning. My mum misses my dad already, but he is coming back at the end of September for a short visit so she just has to wait about 2 weeks. My dad says that it is during the weekends when you will miss your loved ones the most.

Already feeling a little distant.

I am starting work soon, ministry of finance. I will have a better description of what I am doing in a few weeks time.

I also used up my first tank of petrol.

2006-09-03T14:28:00.000+08:00

The WalMaot Show

Mat, Wally and Mao had a very enjoyable outing to the Zoo and the night safari. Fully confident of our Amazing Race talents, we arrived at the zoo at 5.30pm, well aware that the zoo closes at 6. We not only planned to see SOME animals, we strategized to walk the entire zoo. And we did!

Trying to look like we are studying the map.
Mat doing his part in the 4 million smiles campaign.

Unfortunately we didn't see some of the animals.... we suspect that they are doing a double shift at the zoo and the night safari. The giraffe enclosure was eerily empty, and we saw the elephants leaving their enclosure hastily. They must have been on their trek towards the night safari!!! Then there were animals like the Binturong and the Babirusa that appeared in both the zoo and the safari.
We didn't manage to see the Jaguar (which was adopted by the car manufactuer Jaguar) but we did manage to see the Jaguar bin. There were also Zebra, Giraffe, Leopard and Flamingo bins. I think they were made to comfort you in case you can't see the animal.

So dao. White tigers pretending to ignore us.
They refuse to make it 4 million and 2 smiles.

The Zoo is nicely renovated now. It is also entertainingly educational... for example we learnt that elephants are afraid of chilli.

Does this mean that Lynette is an elephant?

Mat and Wally took photos with snakes. I scared of snakes lah, you should have seen me when I was watching Snakes on Plane with the gang. EEEEE. There was also a bat enclosure in the night safari which was rather eerie. Because you walk into the enclosure which is quite dark, and the bats can be hanging on that leaf right beside you. Of course it was silly of me to express my fear of bats before entering, because upon walking in, the two bullies began to scare me with taps on the shoulder and shouts of "eh bat!".

We made some stupid videos too. The conclusion is that these attractions can be really fun if you go with the right people. Cannot go with people who will complain complain about being hot or tired or bored. And of course, cannot go with people with no interest in animals.

------

We had out first potluck yesterday. It felt *almost* like good ol times in Boston! Sit around and talk and laugh. :) No games yet though... gotta start slow.

------

I am feeling a bit antisocial because I don't like to engage in the usual mundane conversations about school or work or posting or personal life etc. It's not that I have forgotten about my friends, so please dun be annoyed. It is not easy adjusting to life back at home, but it is going well because I am still well connected to Boston. Right now I don't mind a double scoop of mango in a waffle cone though... mmmm.... some choco raspberry would be sweet too :P

2006-08-26T20:33:00.000+08:00

I managed to set up wireless internet in my house. Now my mum and I can both enjoy the benefits of technology and talk to Them people at the far ends of the earth, at the same time! She also smart already, now if got technical difficulties with the video conversation, she doesn't have to shout loudly for my assistance anymore. She will msn me -- "Can you come up and adjust the speakers for me" or "Difficulty hearing daddy, please come up". Then I have to hop up 3 storeys to provide technical assistance.

Today at 6.43pm the Ice Cream Man came. *Ling ling ling ling ling!!*

Now he very professional leh. Last time when I was in Primary school, the ice cream man was always on a bicycle and only sold about 5 flavors of Wafer icecream or icecream in bread. The bread also very old school one. Today, I was so surprised to see that
1. the ice cream man looked like he was below the age of 75
2. the ice cream man was on a motorbike
3. he sold 17 flavors -- including honeydew, ripple, chocolate chip, vanilla, red bean, chocolate, yam, sweet corn, durian, green tea, orange, strawberry, blueberry, MANGO and MANGO MEAT.

For one second I thought mango-meat was a rather strange combination for fruity carnivores. I bought MANGO of course!!!! a 1" by 5" piece of icecream between two pieces of wafer. Aiyah but the mango is obviously unnatural flavoring. I have been spoilt by Christina's... so nothing will ever be the same again!!! I spent the next half hour telling my sister about the Mango icecream in Boston. Now she is convinced that she has to try it. Hehehehe.

I so deserve a best-customer award from Bob.

2006-08-20T20:36:00.000+08:00

Oh dear!! One more piece of luggage still not here!! And the Danes don't work on Sundays...

Today I went to church with my dad. Twas good, but a loooong walk away. The pastor was from Singapore!! Although he has been away for more than 15 years.

On the way home we stopped at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, across the street from Tivoli Gardens. This is an eclectic art museum about 10 minutes from the apartment, and the collection inside is built around the personal collection of Carlsberg Beer founder Carl Jacobsen. There were sculptures, paintings, and various other forms of arts. I don't really know how to appreciate sculptures or portraits of humans.... but I really really like paintings of water bodies and forests or woods. There was a series of paintings by a Danish painter called Christian Kobke that I really liked, especially one entitled Autumn Morning on Lake Sortedam (1838). It was so pretty.... I had to stare at it for quite a while!

It was quite chilly outside for me today. I haven't been sleeping very well, a combination of jetlag and heartache. But I am quite happy, because there are things I can look forward to for now. Haha today while walking home with my dad, we were thinking, shall we eat out? And almost immediately we both said, dowan lah... let's go home and cook. So expensive to eat out here, and the food also not that great. So we went to Fakta, a supermarket near the apartment, and stocked up the fridge.

I couldn't help noticing how I immediately picked up the basket on the way in and insisted on carrying it for my dad. Haha :P And the basket was grey. Over here, plastic bags have to be bought for 2.50 kroners apiece (about 50 cents US). So we bought 2 and lugged the rest of the stuff home by hand. Danish cashiers are much faster than American cashiers. But I still think I will be fastest!

I saw many Super Cornettos today. But just many other things (or types of yummy food), they are only really nice when shared. With some people.

2006-08-19T19:44:00.000+08:00

Mao sneaking up on Mao

My camera is with me again, so today can happily take photos. My dad loves to take photos of flowers, so I took 52 flower pictures today. I shall not post them here, will only post pics i find amusing. The above cat(s) were taken outside Rosenburg Slot aka Rosenburg castle. The real cat was very tao. I thought it would run away but it just bochap me all the while. Below is a bigger picture of the tao mao.

Today we walked for 5 hours in total. We went to see parks and gardens and citadels. We also went to see Gay Pride Parade. My dad took photo under a stage banner that said "Find Him a Boyfriend". As we walked down the Pedestrian Street called Stroget, I was reminiscing about Christinas and so I took this picture:

Boo hoo! Its not Mango!

2006-08-19T07:27:00.000+08:00

Today I took an Easterly route but did not wander far before I got a call from my dad, requesting for some help to make some calls. My mum had prepared a shipment of 8 parcels for my dad, and they were supposed to arrive today. However, some misunderstand had occurred and for some reason, the freight company refused to deliver until Monday. On Monday I am leaving Copenhagen, and my dad has a board meeting, so no one will be around to receive the parcels. Hence it was my duty to sort things out. Fast forward -- parcels arrived at 6pm after much much hassle and frustration. I then spent 2 hours unpacking everything -- which includes kaya and milo, my dad's mini amplifier set, bolsters and pillows, detergent and listerine, Ma Ling luncheon meat, Lee Kum Kee XO Sauce, herbs, dried foods and a million other things. At the end of it, I thought to myself, wah at home also dun have so many goodies man.

Dinner menu today was:
1. Carrot Onion Potato Soup with lots of pepper, cooked with chicken drumstick bones. The chicken drumstick meat was used to make
2. Stir fried chicken a light curry sauce with some cauliflower and tomatoes
3. Stir fried cabbage with dried shrimps

I found the precious book and am now reading it. But I started to feel really sad after a while, and my mind started to fill up with thoughts...

Of...

Charades, Christinas and CXY
Potlucks, Pot Pies and Pyramids

Badminton and Baguettes
Stalingrad and ShanghaiGate
Flour and Full Metal Jacket

Wine Gums, Whole Foods and World Cup
Jellyfish, Jeepers and Jeopardy

Hugs and Tears
On a solo chair for two.

-------

2006-08-18T03:43:00.000+08:00

On top Of Fakse, I Make a home for my dad In denmark. Simple meals, Simple talk... but Yet enough to make him feel a little warmer Outside of his Usual home.

I went for a 4 hour walk this morning, from 9am to 1pm. Walk until legs so tired.... today I did a Westbound walk. Tomorrow I think I will walk the other direction. Copenhagen is good for people who like to shop I suppose. So many shops... but I am not interested. I want to take train go to the outskirts to see the castles, see the rocks and forests and hills. Will probably take a train to Kronburg Castle on Saturday. There is a river here that I have to cross each morning (using a bridge of course). The river reminds me of the Charles River.

Today I found Egg Tofu. That yellow treasure in a plastic round tube. I found it in a small Thai supermarket which was at the end of a street of sex shops and butcher shops. Each tube of egg tofu costs S$4 -- 12 kroners. If my dad knows the price he sure say dun buy, eat cheaper food. But based on my observation skills, he has been eating lots of instant noodles to save money, so in the end I bought 2 tubes of egg tofu, plus a jar of black pepper sauce. Lucky never close credit card account, still can use credit card although sure have to pay some fee lah.

At 5pm, dinner preparations were underway. The menu was:

1. Vegetable Soup
2. Black pepper pork with baby bak choy
3. Pan-fried egg tofu with scrambled egg and tomato sauce.

The tofu not easy to cook. Have to pan fry until crispy on the outside first, then set aside. Then fry the sliced tomatoes until they are lightly brown on the edges but not soft and mushy, then set aside. Beat one egg and add a bit of milk to the egg, pour into pan and fry for a while, then add the tomatoes back in, then add the crispy tofu in for a short flash and season quickly before serving.

The black pepper pork was fantabulicious. First I cut the pork into thin slices... this one i marinated since 3pm. Frying it damn simple lah, but the end result was "outstanding!" Even Sybor would have agreed I'm sure. I also made sure I added some water at the end so that my dad will have sauce to eat with the rice.

The rice, in fact, was the hardest. Because the rice is different from the one I usually use, and the rice cooker also different. So have to agah agah use Oof's Finger Technique, otherwise known as Wu Mi Zhi (Oof Rice Finger). It once again proves reliable, and the rice was firm but moist.

7pm my dad comes back, first thing he says is... Wah! House smell so nice ah!! (black pepper meat smell fills the air...) Then he walks over to the stove and steals a piece of black pepper pork, claiming that he needs to see if it has been adequately seasoned. Yah right. I thought I cooked too much, but we eat until like not enough like that. After dinner still must eat fruits then full. Then I wash the dishes somemore!! The dish soap smells damn nice, lucky lor, because dish soap not nice I will not wash dishes.

Now there is a soccer game on TV. Got Ronaldinho. Reminds me of Naijia leh. Let's see if he does the Ronaldinho Elastico!!

2006-08-17T04:44:00.000+08:00

I was very very happy the past two weeks.

So happy until I cried so much when I left. Actually I am still kind of happy, but also very sad. Hehe, how odd.

Yah lor. You only really feel the pain when you know what happiness feels like. Don't worry, Mao is not in the mood for sounding cheem. Mao is really quite sad, but lucky got Daddy around so still quite ok.

I am in Copenhagen now. But my luggages are not!!! All three check in luggages. I was so disappointed, because I wanted to take some pictures and post them online so that my existence can be verified. I also packed some stuff for my dad and his colleagues, but of course, can't give them yet. The plane ride was ooook.... slept from boston to jfk and then couldn't sleep on the SQ flight to frankfurt. Forgot the sleeping pillls somemore so cannot concuss. Also no mood to watch movies, so I had to rely on the tony cooking book to keep me company.

Now that I am in the land of Scan Cook, I have no idea what food to try. Everything is so ridiculously expensive here I feel guilty even thinking about eating good food. Yes yes yes, must remind myself that I am here to cook!! not to dine!! Which brings me to Operation Cookout 1 beginning tomorrow. What is for dinner tomorrow? Tonight was Rice + omelette + Stir fried pork with carrots and cauli and celery + Watercress and fishball soup. A medley of ingredients thrown together to create a meal. A little more creativity shall be needed tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you who sent me off physically or with long distance wishes :)

I update more soon. Now must eat some choco first.

2006-08-03T21:07:00.000+08:00

They say in the darkest night
Theres a light beyond
And the ending always
Comes at last
Endings always
Come too fast
They come too fast
And they pass too slow

2006-07-28T02:54:00.000+08:00

一胆二力三技术

I remember we had this sign on our netball board in secondary school. I think as you get older, you start thinking that it should be more like 一胆二技术三力.

Haha.

I was talking to my dad, and he was telling me that he is leaving his department that he has been in for 20 years, how they are going to give him a farewell party etc etc. I told him I could understand how he is feeling... and then we started talking about changes in life. How when we start off we all have these great plans of what we want to do with our lives, we have these fantasies or how we envision our lives to be like. But as we grow up we realize that most of our dreams don't come true, most of our plans don't work out, and eventually most of the time we are just kind of driftin drifting aimlessly. It is not that we are unhappy that our dreams or plans don't work out. Actually sometimes we are very happy because circumstances that change our plans can turn out to be really really good. So anyway I was telling him that yah I feel a little aimless sometimes because I have decided to just go with the flow of things instead of always making plans for this or that.

And he says, "A ship will anchor itself when it sees the shore."

Wah. Stunned.

Then I said... well yah i suppose so, but what if you see 2 or more shores, all equidistant from the ship, then how?

And he says, "You can't go wrong heading for home."

Wah. Again.

Then I said... well yah i suppose so, but what if you don't quite know where is home anymore? You know who is your family, but the place is so foreign etc etc....then how?

Then he went offline.

I made a list of "things to bring to copenhagen" for him. I am going to make sure he is all nicely settled in, and the place is set up for my mum and sister to go visit in September. This I will do when I go to Copenhagen for a week after I leave Boston. My prof asked whether I wanted to go to Berlin for another conference. I don't think so already. I am tired. And my heart will not be there anyway.

2006-07-27T06:13:00.000+08:00

Over the past 2 weeks, the parking garage beside my office has slowly been demolished. Everyday when I walk past it, a little bit more of it is gone. One morning, I stood by the sidewalk and watched them swing the demolition ball into the pillars. Although I hardly take notice of this building usually, its progressive demolition has caught my eye over the past 2 weeks.

I wonder what they will build in its place.

I suppose they can build another parking garage. Maybe it will be much better than the old one, maybe it will not be. Who knows. But it won't be the same parking garage. But I don't think they will build another garage. Probably will build another lab, with some in-fashion research like biotech or nanotech. Who cares anyway.

Now its all a pile of rubble. My colleague says it was a lousy parking garage, so its good they tore it down. I am curious why they didn't use explosives, just bust the pillars and let the building crumble down. Why tear it down slowly.

I think I will buy a freehold property if I ever buy a property. Must be sad, to own something knowing that it will be taken away from you after some time.

Houses and Spouses
Blouses and Trousers
Some keep them forever, some have to change all the time.

Ok better stop, or else will feel like thinking of words that rhyme for the next hour.

Roast Duck and Potlucks

Ok enough.

2006-07-24T11:39:00.000+08:00

Maybe. Perhaps. See How.
Possibly. Likely. I'll think about it.

Words that can be very useful in life. I was scolded by a friend once, who always tried to jio me out but always gets the response "see how lah" from me. You see, I am quite impromptu one. I feel like doing something, I will do it. Don't feel like, then don't do. Don't really like making detailed plans ahead of time, especially plans that have to do with how I use my time.

Maybe is especially useful if you are unsure about facts. Maybe it is open, maybe Christina's doesn't have chocolate raspberry today, maybe courts are booked.

See how is especially useful when you are unsure what you want to do with your time. Whether you want to sleep or go out. Whether you want to play sports (because legs aching).

Possibly is especially useful when you don't want to make people feel that you don't want to hang out with them, but you really just want to slack at home. Possibly has a positive connotation to it, maybe because it starts with P. (See, the argument for Maybe fits in here)

The important thing to note about "I'll think about it" is that it s commonly used when you don't intend to think about that it yet. It is a phrase used for procrastination, but somehow it makes some people think that you are a rational, practical, realistic, careful planner type of person.

Although this entry so far makes it seem like the use of these words is no good, there is great skill involved in discerning whether a person really means "see how" when he or she says "see how". Or sometimes when someone uses all of the words in one consecutive phrase, it might mean something different too. If you don't like it when your friend says "see how", you must ask "see what how?" with a thick singlish accent. If your friend continues to say "see how lor" too many times, you are then permitted to say "fine. suan le."

---------

I love talking about things we did when we are young. Stupid games played, real cartoons watched, make-believe stories, lies our parents tell us, what we wanted to be when we grow up, what we believed of the world. It's almost like talking about another world, in another time.
Sometimes you end up talking about things that you realize your friends also did. Like playing Alley Cat or watching GI Joe. Then it makes you feel like you all share some small little secret that only cool people know about. Next thing you end up doing is wikipedia-ing or googling it. I always spend a lot of time doing such things (notice, I didn't say "I always waste......").

2006-07-22T20:24:00.000+08:00

Cruel cruel beast of time
Why make a fool of me

Go on and laugh at me
Amuse yourself
And watch my heart trip my mind.

Trickery
A year's too short, why bother
And then a year's too long.

2006-07-21T20:14:00.000+08:00

你怕黑吗？

我怕

1. When balloons are black.
2. When I bike home after midnight and it is quite black outside
3. When my toast become chao ta
4. When people I love have black face
5. When my brother came back from BMT the first time and he was very black and lean. Looked like he went through concentration camp.
6. When we play dark vs light and the dark side has hooligans.

我不怕
1. When the bbq chicken wing got some bits of black charcoal on it
2. When I am tired of white carrot cake
3. When shooting stars appear on a black night in the middle of winter
4. When I wake up thinking I am late but then the sky is still black
5. When I have no one to play basketball with and I have to play with the black boys
6. When you ask me to choose between Batman and Penguin

What a random blog.

My dad is posted to Copenhagen for half a year. My mum is not happy about it. I am trying hard to make things better for both of them. I try to be online all the time so that they have someone to talk to. But it is rather tiring, because I don't know how to make my mum feel better / less lonely / convince her to support my dad. I also don't know how to tell my dad that he needs to communicate better with my mum. My parents are really loving, sometimes I find it very heartwarming that they are so loving even after so many years of marraige. But they still have problems.

You see the world expanding when you’re younger
I don’t see that now
As you age you start to feel a hunger
It tries to bring you down
Love and greed the things you need or wanted
It’s hard to figure out
Until it’s clear your teased or haunted
Without a doubt

When it’s all right I don’t want to say
When it’s all night I just want to stay
When it’s all fun I just want to play
I just want to play the game

Sometimes the sun and moon just seem to anchor
The planets all align
You feel the sense of harmony you’re thankful
Everything is fine
Nothing ever stays the way you want it
Everybody knows
Death will come to even those who taunt it
Everybody goes

I know that time will pass me by
While sitting still I watch it fly
That’s why I always try and make
It worth each breath I take

2006-07-18T02:18:00.000+08:00

Fleeting Fireworks

July 4th came and went. A year ago, and then a week ago. The fireworks were spectacular, the company atop the Sloan rooftop was perfect -- a group of friends at MIT that have become family. I think about last year, and how different things were then. It was a strange feeling. I hear the 1812 concerto and watch the synchronized fireworks and yet my heart felt so so heavy.

My life is happy. Sometimes happy until I get sad that maybe I will not feel like this anymore next time.

Sometimes funny things happen. Like when we had dinner at Green Tea and dessert at Picco. Thinking about the waiter Andy now makes me want to laugh out loud. *Pick up bowl, put down bowl, put down entire tray*. "General Gau's? What is that? Trash!!" hehehe. "Don't get me started on the Big Dig...."

And afterwards icecream at Picco -- made me feel like a traitor because I didn't eat Christina's and because I said Picco was not bad. Not bad, BUT not better for sure! I ain't no fickle-minded customer. I stand by Christina's!

Sometimes I feel sad. Because this is such a happy time of my life -- that I don't want it to end. The company here is, as Sybor would call it, "Outstanding!". And where am I going to find a similar mix of friends? Not even if I walk till the ends of the earth. Actually it would be ok if everyone's going back to Singapore. But those I really will miss will not be.

Don't tell me "Life is like that one lah". That one I can tell myself, no need tape recorders to repeat to me. And it doesn't matter how many times I hear it also. Because if I had things my way, life will not be "like that one".

If I could have things my way,

ribena will never run out, bear's noses will be cold, the french would have opened their eyes while playing soccer,

i would have been a little earlier, a tad braver,

i wouldn't have to go.

2006-06-30T10:52:00.000+08:00

Mao

2006-06-24T06:43:00.000+08:00

I am in Lisbon now, after my 7th flight of the trip! There is free wireless at the hotel, so here are some photos I took in Santorini, Greece. In a few words -- I had a really good time. Good = excellent conference, accommodation, food, time alone. Eggplant eggplant eggplant eggplant. Chickpeas chickpeas. I have a lot to say but getting sleepy. Shall go and dream of the aubergines...

First up, Santorini. Maybe tomorrow if I feel like it I will upload Athens photos. Should have taken a photo of the food that I ate leh, but of course when I saw the food.... who can remember to take photo??!!

Sunset in Santorini. I took this from the balcony at the Nomikos conference center. We always had the receptions and coffee breaks there. Haha during the presentations, they had to draw the blinds because they said the view was too distracting.

This was also taken from the conference center balcony. Photo of the Caldera, the remains of the volcano that blew up.

The town of Fira. At the bottom of this page you will see the church that appears at the top of this photo. Fira was quite nice to stroll through. But rather touristy. I was staying about 15 min walk from Fira, in an area called Firostefani, which I felt was much more peaceful and pretty. Most of the food and shops are in Fira though.

Donkeys walking up the steps from the Old Port of Fira to the town. I think the donkeys quite poor thing, that's all they do the whole day, walk up and walk down carrying humans. The donkeys (or mules) are quite smelly. And they shit all over the steps!!

I thought this was quite a cool photo because it is taken of a tunnel that leads from the hotel pool to my room. The hotel was called Santorini Palace. And yes it was quite a palace.

My room. One person occupy 2 beds. Shiok ah. Can roll and roll and roll. Can use many pillows. Can anyhow throw clothes around. Hahahaha

This is the church. I thought the architecture was nice, and it looked great against the cloudless sky. Which reminds me... when I kept looking at the sky, I thought of the blue color -- cobalt blue, in the color pencil box. The one where the color pencils have 2 colors, one on each end. Cobalt blue.

Close up shot of Fira. As you can see, there are many cafes and restaurants. All with a view.

We were treated to a wine-tasting session at this winery. There are 3 main types of wines from Santorini. They were all really good. I seldom say wine tastes good, so these must have been really quite good. The dessert wine Vinsanto especially. Vinsanto is a sun-dried wine, super duper sweet. I'd liken it to something like Ribena liqour. Really very shiok. Darn. I should have bought a bottle at the airport!!!! Now while blogging about it I keep thinking about it. We had it once at the winery, then at the end of dinner they served us the wine again in adorable little glasses. Ah. Dang.

Ok Sleepy Deepee Doo.

2006-06-18T05:55:00.000+08:00

The Lisbon airport not nice one. Boring. But got Macdonalds McFlurry, which tastes really good after spending such a long time in the air and moving around. And of course, got internet, which helps a lot when you are travelling alone. I almost lost my poster!!! Left it at the check in counter... then after walking away for a few minutes I realized. Panic. Run back. Heng they kept it for me. That was the excitement of the day.

TAP Portugal is not too bad an airline to fly. I took it from Frankfurt to Lisbon, and the supposedly swissair flight to zurich was manned by TAP crew too. They serve drinks non stop one. Which is funny because I think there is only 1 toilet in the whole plane or something, cos the queue always super long. They have a super wide variety of drinks also. I tried the Portugese sparkling wine, which was quite light. But all things fizzy always taste shiok, so it was good.

So I am at Zurich airport now, after about 20 hours of travelling. I am in the Dayroom, which is what Singapore would probably call the transit hotel. For about half the price of an average airport hotel outside the airport, you can stay at the Dayroom inside the transit area. You get a nice clean room to yourself, with a sink inside. Hot shower, soap and shampoo, and a comfortable bed. Got friendly security guard who I am sure I will not find friendly when he gives me the wake up call tomorrow. I cannot wait to get to the Santorini hotel, where I can stay for the next 4 nights. Sian of moving around already, want to throw my stuff all over the room and not having to tidy up.

I realize I get very paranoid when I travel. Very paranoid about my baggage. I think its because I was scarred last time, after losing my precious water bottle on a trip to the US when I was 7 or 8. Nowadays I keep having these sudden "oh no where is my ___" feelings, then I will scramble and open up my bag and dig and then realize that the ___ was there all along.

I love Zurich. Switzerland in general. Makes me feel safe and comfortable. I think I will wake up and walk walk around the shops for a bit before my flight leaves. Hunt for the chocolates.

Ok hitting the bed liao.

2006-06-17T11:42:00.000+08:00

Travelling alone is rather scary.

I love it and I hate it. Love it because I can do anything I want (within financial means), I can read on the plane, watch movies, read on the road, write, anything. There's so much personal time that I can really enjoy.

But it gets lonely, and scary. And sometimes when I am alone I will think of things that make me sad.

Right now I am in the air, aboard Lufthansa. Cool right, got internet. When I was on the train today I was thinking, why do I want to have internet connection so much? To the extent that I choose my hotels based on whether they have internet access. It's because of a few things. Actually, it's because of a few people.

I miss you.

On another note, I am a little excited about touching down in Frankfurt, because maybe there will be football in the air. Like maybe everywhere I walk there will be some football excitement. I want to play soccer, how? Hehehe... how come I am now playing soccer? I have no idea. But it is quite fun, except when I tackle myself.

Anyway, its Father's Day on Sunday. Don't forget your Daddies ok.

2006-06-16T23:26:00.000+08:00

I am going to Greece and Portugal from the 17-28th of June. Don't be mistaken, it is not a total holiday. I am attending two conferences, with erm, some R&R of course.

Hopefully can watch World Cup and NBA finals. hehehe

2006-05-31T07:04:00.000+08:00

The Weekend

My weekend began on Friday night with a farewell-to-the-temp pool+drinks gimmick at Flat Top Johnny's, at Kendall Square. It was a hilarious outing because 1. the group consisted of 3 girls and 3 guys all named Alex, 2. we were terrible pool players and 3. a love saga evolved -- my colleague, a blonde hot chick who graduated from Wellesley was eyeing a boy the whole night. We eventually convinced her to write her phone number on a napkin and drop it off at his pool table upon our departure. She did, and the story remained To-be-continued until today, when I found out they actually went out on Saturday! But unfortunately he is 21, a year younger than her, and he lives in California but was here visiting his brother. Too bad.

Ok. Now the DUCKS.

You see, we have had this discussion about ducks. It started with Roast Duck at Super 88. We concluded that ducks taste good, but some ducks taste better than others. Bigger juicier ducks with lots of fats of course taste better, but it also depends on how they are cooked. The next time we talked about ducks, it actually started from a discussion about porridge, and how Cantonese porridge is much nicer than Teochew porridge. We then concluded that Cantonese duck is nicer than Teochew duck, because Teochew ducks tended to be thin and bony. I called them refugee ducks -- because they were truly very lean. As you can see, the topic of Ducks was gaining importance in our conversations, and during our excursions over the weekend, we agreed that a Duck assessment was in order.

Which Duck will prevail??

On Saturday, we stopped at the Ivy restaurant along Temple Street in downtown Boston. As expected, we exceeded the waitress's recommendation of 4-6 small plates for a party of 3, and commenced to order 8 in total. One of them was... Long Island duck confit with greens and pomegranate redux. Well well, there we have our first Iron-Duck. How will it fare relative to the tried and tested? Ahhhh.... crispy skin with an adequate amount of fat.... but... could be better. For now, above the Teochew but below the Cantonese, I would say. *this review has not been approved by the other judges*.

On Sunday, we tried the Shanghainese duck at Shanghai gate. If I remember correctly, it was called the 酱鸭 -- the Sauce Duck. The name itself is rather unimaginative. The sauce was good, but unfortunately, lean ducks are mean ducks. Un-crispy skins do not appeal, and therefore the Shanghai duck is no match for even the Long Island duck.

The rankings currently stand:

1. Extra Fatty and Juicy Cantonese Roast Duck

2. Peking duck (too bad the meat not that great but the skin is so shiok)

3. 素鸭 Mock Duck -- I like, don't argue.

3. The Long Island Duck consumed on Saturday

4. The Shanghai Gate Sauce Duck

5. Kway Chap duck (but it has to come with the taupok and the egg or else it shall be relegated to the bottom of the list)
6. Teochew Duck (don't say i mean ah, the teochew duck picture is the biggest one)

2006-05-23T18:56:00.000+08:00

MIT AgeLab, 2006

We had our lab party last Friday. This is the bunch of people I work with, mostly the ones on the right. As can be seen, I am dressed to match the car perfectly. And there is a reason why I am taking up so much photo space. Because if I stood behind the car, you wouldn't be able to see me. Our lab is getting a new Volvo soon. It will be fixed up with all sorts of sensors and be tested on the road. I am promised by Alex (my colleague who feeds me chocolates all the time -- the one beside my prof with the folded arms) that if the car arrives before August, I will be taken for a spin in it.

2006-05-14T03:18:00.000+08:00

“People grow old only by deserting their ideals, Macarthur had written. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away.”

- Douglas MacArther, 1880-1964, Commander of the Southwest Pacific Theatre in World War II

2006-05-07T06:00:00.000+08:00

My Mum

My mummy's name is Lim Swee Eng. She always insists that she doesn't want to be called Mrs Lau because her surname is Lim. My mum gave birth my all her three children by Caesarean section, I like to tell her that I really appreciate it because I had an easy path in life from Day 1. I have spent so much time writing papers this year. I think it is time to write a paper about my mummy.

My mum is quite funny. She likes the movie Child's Play a lot. And her favorite action movie is Speed. She is quite a scaredy cat actually because she will cover her eyes when she watches shows that involve dangerous stunts. By "dangerous stunts", I mean, Spiderman jumping from one building to another and looking like he's going to fall to the ground. She is also very scared when we get our school results back. Scared until she cannot eat breakfast on the day we get out results. Hahahaha. She likes to play tricks on us too. She used to tell my brother and I that she is actually a fox and she needs to return to her fox babies after taking care of us for one year more. That makes us hysterical and I tell you, I really believed it then. My mum is occasionally prone to violence too. In kindergarten, there was a day when I refused to go to school, and the school bus was honking away outside the house. She proceeded to kick me under the table. She also threatened to throw me out of the window a few times, and she also threatened to chop us up with her kitchen chopper if we did not finish our dinners. Hehehe

I used to argue with my mum a lot. I remember telling her in Primary 2 that "My teacher said that a rabbit is not a mammal". I told her that because she was not taught by the same teacher, she of course does not know the truth. I remember her throwing my ring file at me and saying in Chinese, "If you are so smart you can study on your own". The next day she sat down with me to teach me again.

I continued to argue with my mum. From Nursery to Primary School to Secondary School to Junior College to University. In Secondary School she picked me up from school everyday. On the single day of the week that I did not have netball training, she would come at 2.15pm and wait at the RGS busstop for me. I remember bluffing her many times that I had to "hand up homework" so she must come later at 2.45.... this was so that I could play basketball for half an hour more. I would then climb into the car all sweaty and disgusting, insist on turning up the aircon full blast and stopping by the hawker center to pick up lunch on the way home. When she picked me up after trainings at about 5, I used to get really frustrated when she was late, because I hated waiting in school alone. In Sec 4, she told me not to go for combined schools trials and that if i went and screwed up my o levels, she will ban me from netball forever. She knew me inside out. She knew I had too much pride in me, she knew I hated to disappoint my parents, she knew that I was too greedy and wanted everything, and she knew that I would join combined schools and do well for my o levels. I tell you, my mum is way smarter than me, in fact she was so smart she did it again for my A levels.

Although I had good grades, my mum always felt that other things were more important, so each time my brother and I were ill-disciplined, my mum would pull out the same card from her deck. She would say " 什么 GEP 几百个 A1 几十个 A 都没有用的 , 我宁可有两个白痴听话的孩子 !" Of course, my brother and I would get really upset, but she did get her point across.

My mum's advice has never been wrong or bad. Of course when she dishes out her advice it always seems wrong AND bad, but each time on hindsight she's always right. It took me 21 years to realize that but now I think I finally get the point. Ok, other than for her advice to "just let the other player get the ball, don't fight and end up falling down!" Talking about that, my mum was an ardent fan of mine. However, she never liked watching me play, because she said that
1. she cannot stand the tension of close games and half the time she feels like covering her eyes when my shooters shoot because she gets too scared that they will miss,
2. she is too scared to watch me play because she has seen me collide with too many players and end up on the floor,
3. she doesn't understand what is going on when the umpires keep blowing their whistles .
4. she cannot bear to see me get scolded by the coach or benched by the coach.
5. she cannot bear to see me cry.

About Point No.5. She came to watch a match I had in Secondary 2, National Finals. We lost, I cried, she said it broke her heart. In J1, I broke my collarbone in Australia on a training tour just before my first national team game. When I came back and she picked me up from the airport, I cried and she said it broke her heart. When I had my first breakup, I cried for a few days and it broke her heart. Now, I think it is about time I stop breaking her heart eh? So I try, instead of breaking her heart, I want her to be proud of me and proud of her family. Each small achievement I have, I want to share with her because I know it fills her up with joy. One of the traits I admire most about her is her humility. She doesn't boast about her children to anyone, even though all the other relatives can boast non-stop about their kids. She leads a simple frugal lifestyle even though my dad gives her the freedom to use his money. When I tell her of my achievements, the only person she boasts about it to is my dad.

When I was in hospital for a 4mth stretch in Primary school, I remember her crying many times. I know I was pretty drugged out once and was going for a CT scan, and just before I was pushed into the room with the scanner, I remember seeing her crying and holding my dad's hand, saying that she will never be able to live another day if something bad happened to me. I also remember her getting scolded by the doctors for asking too many questions and making too many requests. She never felt embarrassed and she never felt insulted even though all the english educated doctors spoke to her with such arrogant, insulting tones.

My mum has rheumatoid arthritis. She walks with pain in her feet, and her joints ache constantly. Yet she does the housework with no complaints, she fetches my sister to and from school everyday, and she puts a homecooked meal on the table for my dad every night. It pains me to hear that she is not well and I get nightmares that one day she will not be in my life anymore. When I told her maybe I didn't want to go home to work in the civil service because there were other opportunities available for me, I could tell that she was disappointed but she never said no. When I later told her on the phone that I changed my mind and that I am going home, she said she was really happy and wanted to tell my dad right away. She did tell my dad right away, and she also repeated how glad she was that I was going home, each time we spoke in the following days.

Some people complain all the time about their parents. They feel that their parents could have and can do more for them. They feel that their parents should give them more money, should give them cars, should not do this and that. I say, time to give back. I should be the one giving them the chance to enjoy their golden years.

2006-04-14T06:10:00.000+08:00

Ahhhh.

So many ideas and so little time.
---------------------------

In Peter Drucker's Age of Discontinuity, he suggests that corporations and governments have a natural tendency to cling onto past successes and not realize when these past successes are no longer useful. He likens it to a human -- i.e. he says it's a "natural human tendency"

Then there are experts who call for what Drucker would term "planned abandonment", where a policy or a set of policies are put in place to identify investments and projects that are past their prime and phase them out. Add to these policies even more policies to help identify cases of discontinuous change that would therefore call for disruptive technologies... some feel that governments ought not to invest in sure-wins that have a low rate of return, but high-risk areas with potentially huge rates of return.

Some of us call governments inhumane, distant, a grey cold block of concrete that acts independent of what the society really wants. But ironically, if Drucker's description has any truth in it, the institutions that govern us are in fact scaled up replicas of us! Don't we all cling to our past successes and stick to what we thought we were good at? So many of us fear change and justify our current pursuits as "oh this is what I am truly interested in" when in reality it is more like "oh this is what I think I am good at" or worse still, "this is what people have told me I am good at".

If we call for governments or those cold-hearted-institutions to incorporate "planned abandonment" into national policies, rid the old and embrace the new, wouldn't it not be ironic for us to cover up our own insecurities using the same excuses? That we need to justify our actions because our parents or whoever-else-pays-our-tuition has invested so much in us, that we need to account to those who trust their resources in us, that "if all along I have done well in this, so why should I change?".

Something to think about? If the US academics lament the inability of the US government to pour funding into high risk (and potentially high returns) investments, then perhaps the Innovation-Agency-of-Sang-Nila-Utama's (IASNU) island is actually doing the right thing? Pour money into things that may not end up anywhere, but... there's that little possibility of huge success. Even more justification -- the little island doesn't have much to fall back on, the only way to survive is to make big investments in many high risk areas and hope that one makes it?

More irony. Those who lament IASNU's so-called indiscriminate funding of high-risk and perhaps short term bubbles go abroad and question why countries like the US attempt to fund these same "bubbles". Well someone has to do it after all right? And if the argument is that small countries with limited resources should "spend them more wisely", shouldn't the big developed countries therefore provide the funding? And vice versa of course, if you disagree with me.

----------------------

On another note. The Honda Element is, to me, an ugly car. But ahh.... the beauty of the design process and market segmentation strategy behind it. Functionality and Persona selleth a car, I say. Put a seating design specialist behind an automobile design project and he turns a car into a transformer toy. And its essentially the same power train and engine etc etc as the Honda CRVs out there (which surprisingly was designed for young women) except for the front water tank which was flattened out because the front of the Element is so flat. Turns out that the Element was designed for young men looking to buy their first car. And true enough, they made up 45% of the buyers.

---------------------

If you have the time, take a look at the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). This think tank was set up in 1997 as an NPO with the objective of promoting American global leadership. Noble you think? Think again. The US assumes that it is the world leader, and that their position (and thus their assistance) is what the rest of the world desires. You sit in a class in an American university and you hear Americans criticize the historical British imperialism and slavery... you hear them argue against child labor in Africa... and you start to think, what do they think of their own country? Imperialist? Expansionist?

PNAC discusses the potential benefits of developing a microbe that targets a specific genome of an individual. In other words, the development of a weapon that can only kill one target. So then perhaps they can pour some of it into Saddam Hussein's milk (if he drinks milk) or Diet Coke and then poof, destroyed. How would you like that? Hah. Kinda easy for any politician with a quick mind and a capable tongue to paint such a Weapon-Of-Minute-Destruction as a Free-Us-From-Terrorism-Drug, don't you think?

2006-04-05T11:06:00.000+08:00

The CRUNCH bar

Life isn't so bad when you have tiny pleasures to get you through the day. While stumbling through my packed day and trying to plan my assault strategy on work (in other words, procrastinating the actual doing of the work), a suggestion was made by dondonburi to escape reality by indulging in a Crunch bar. Although I did not heed the valuable advice there and then, since I was in class (and accidentally also on msn), I could only obtain the crunch bar 1.5 hours later. The passing of time may have reduced the efficacy of the crunch bar therapy, but based on physiological and emotional response of the subject, it can be concluded that the incremental cost-effectiveness of a Crunch bar compared to other inferior alternatives, is excellent.

To show appreciation for the Crunch, this blog entry is hereby dedicated to the species from the Nestle genus -- Crispo oryza candella Chocolato.

Nestle Crunch was born in 1938, the second offspring of the Nestle couple. Crunch's elder sibling, born in 1919, was known as the Milk Chocolate bar.

Although their grandparents were from Switzerland, they were true blue Americans. Crunch was uniquely different from Milk Chocolate. It was born as crisped rice mixed with milk chocolate, and was named after that sound made when someone tries to chew at it.

Around the same time Crunch was born, its star potential was quickly noted by the Nestle family nemesis -- H**shey. The evil twin was thus born, named Kr*ckel. Hah! Just the thought of the "krackling" sound alone makes this candy bar sound eeeevil.

The next generations of Nestle descendents never quite earned the same amount of respect as Crunch. Take 100 Grand Bar for example, born in 1966, made of caramel and crisped rice with milk chocolate. The caramel infusion doesn't do the trick at all... it will probably only be popular if sold beside a slot machine in Las Vegas. This is the only place I can imagine someone hallucinating the sound "100 grand 100 grand" while munching on a candy bar.

--- Sincere apologies.... the author needs to return to reading about Saccharin and rats for the time being.

2006-04-04T00:28:00.000+08:00

Inside Man is a good show!! I didnt know what was happening until maybe half an hour from the end of the show. And I didn't have to ask anyone "Got ppl die" because the show had a happy ending. Hehehe.

I had a good time in Cornell :) Nothing beats slacking with family and sleeping on a bed twice the size of your own. Can sprawl all over the bed without falling off. THANKS KOR!! I also watched an acapella concert where the guest performers outshone the core performers. To the extent that you would have paid twice the price if you could watch the guests perform throughout the whole show. The guest group was an all-female group called Divisi from University of Oregon. Power stuff man...

Cornell brought back memories. Whitney Point hot chocolate... hehe. Happy memories, but kinda left me wondering why things change so fast. Not like I don't know the answer... rhetorical question I suppose.

My mum got bullied by condo tenant. Guy wants to terminate early but tells my mum that the contract says she cannot forfeit the security deposit. My mum's English isn't very good so she didn't know if it was true. Grrrr.. what a liar man that guy. I wished I was at home to stand up for her... this is one good thing about growing up, you can start to defend your parents instead of them defending you like before. Can't stand it when people I love get bullied.

When you have good news, who is the first person you tell?

2006-03-28T11:51:00.000+08:00

Captured all too well, that split second moment of joy that narrates a season of hard work.

Photos can be viewed again, videos can be watched again, but these moments can never be relived. How I wish they could.

We all have our moments. And then we shuffle on with life.

2006-03-23T19:22:00.000+08:00

Quotes

Who says what??

1. "eh btw" "that true"

2. "jas jas jas jas jas" "how how how how how"

3. "hmprh"

4. "http://video.google.com/videoplay?
docid=-2460944945363859076&q=stunt+city"

5. "maomao" "momo" "mama"

6. "nzzzsm" "wsmnbwmdthxbgmgrk"

7. "lunch?" "dinner?"

8. "bluriblob" "kaoministan" "korombobiton"

9. "I block and taichi the arrow to you"

10. "can ar... thanks ar..." "jialat ar..."

Whoever can get all 10 right will get a prize.

2006-03-22T13:33:00.000+08:00

I had lunch with Edward and Jiamin today. There are people you can talk about anything and everything with, and there are people you can't continue a 2 min conversation with. Too bad lunch was too short!!! But it was so nice to see a Penn face. I miss Penn people. Actually, I'm not sure if it's Penn or maybe there are just times when I ruminate and miss the past.

Today was TMAD. Test-My-Ankle-Day. After the week of in-bed, in-class ankle exercises, I decided that it was time to proceed to the real test. So I went to the gym. Elliptical... pass. Bike... pass. Then I hit the treadmill. Wah the first 2 minutes was.. ahem..a challenge. I tried to turn up the volume of my mp3 player so that I will not hear the voice in my head going ouch.ouch.ouch. but wah... quite painful ah.

Fast forward a few painful minutes. I felt a slight bounce in my step. I turned up the speed... 6.5..6.6.. boing boing boing boing. Yay!! Pain subsides from "Sharp" to "Sore" to "Tight". My ankle is now certified FTR. Fit-To-Run. But... unidirectional. Next I will proceed to changes-in-direction. Tomorrow shall be officially known as TMAD2.

Things are getting tough on the work front. I am trying quite hard I think, but there are days when I ask myself why I am even trying. I think trying to run with a sore ankle is easier than trying to graduate by June.

But otherwise, life is good. I'm going to miss a lot of people here.

2006-03-20T08:16:00.000+08:00

"Humility doesn't mean thinking less of yourself; it means thinking of yourself less."

Oh and how hard it seems for people nowadays to think of themselves less.

But what a joy it is to do so, because the smiles you can light up on faces blaze way beyond what you can fathom glowing on your own face. The unravelling of the world as you realize that you are not the epicenter... does that not excite some of you to give more and take less?

When you accept and embrace the truth that you are a pixel, a cell, a letter... whatever you want to liken it to... then your troubles seem to fade because you're not the only one having them, the world seems more fair to you because you stop comparing yourself to she-who-is-beside-you, and contentment fills you up inside because jealousy, greed, vanity and all those nasty broths spill over and out.

Why do some people think that the world revolves around them, that it exists to please them, to comfort them, to satisfy and to serve them? Take it all as a bonus I say, and then spin the world around those you love.

2006-03-14T12:43:00.000+08:00

Old feelings die hard? No.. they don't die, they just... fade.
And then you feel bad that they faded,
because you wonder what they meant when you had them.
But... if old feelings don't fade, there won't be room for new ones.
.
.
.
.

A picture from Killington Ski Trip!

.
.
.
.
I love my brother! Cos he was nice enough to draw me my pyramids... I shall therefore honor him by posting a picture of him on my blog. He is a little confused due to turbulence on the plane, and therefore has mistaken the earphones for a stethoscope. I am going to look for him at the end of the month in cornell, where the cows moo. Kor you better make sure ur tv has more than one channel when i get there or somebody's gonna get hurt real bad.

2006-03-13T04:03:00.000+08:00

I want to post a photo of my sprained ankle to scare everyone. Hahaha... but my camera is in my office. No lah actually i wanted to post a pic cos its a very classic sprained ankle, bruising observed at the exact predicted locations, swelling at the right spots etc. The pain I don't care... but it's certainly very emotionally traumatizing!!! Especially because I tackled myself. hahahaha. ok not funny already.

Instead, I will post a picture of Beef Rendang. I would have preferred a picture of beef-mutton rendang, which would have been a correct depiction of The-Dish-Cooked.

We had potluck yesterday. Yes, Again! But this time I had to work hard for it... including climbing 11 storeys. Good right... sprain ankle already still get salt rubbed onto the wound. But, what is 11 storeys when there's good food waiting upstairs?

By the way, I think getting injured makes you feel like sleeping all the time. Not that I get sleepy more easily, but I have this hope that each time I wake up... voila! it was all a bad dream. Hahaha :)

Ok I sian already. I foresee myself blogging more... since I can't move around much for now.

2006-02-15T08:06:00.000+08:00

The Orange Lobster Restaurant

Jim walks into a Orange Lobster restaurant and sits down at a table to eat.

Rob strolls in, picks up the menu, and orders a Steamed Lobster for Jim. The waiter tells Rob that the restaurant only sells Boiled Lobsters, don't have Steamed Lobster.

Rob leaves.

Jim eats half of the Boiled Lobster and "ta pau" the rest home. Boiled Lobster seems to be giving him a stomachache, but because he knows lobster is expensive, he thinks he will keep it for tomorrow's lunch, or maybe give it to his sister to eat if she's hungry.

Jim pays 10% of the bill, gets up and leaves the restaurant.

Tommy from Gigantous Eaters Pte Ltd enters the restaurant, looks at the bill (for Jim's lobster) on the table and goes to the waiter. Tommy says, "We always order lobsters from you, you better give us discount!!" And he gets at 20% discount, pays the restaurant, and leaves.

Hahahaha. See if you all can figure out what real world system my lobster story describes. Cheem hor. Now I hungry.

2006-02-01T05:43:00.000+08:00

"What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

Pitch black when I lift my eyes
But the streetlights and the fresh snow
Harmonize

I've got that route still etched in my head
Door closing behind, I race out
Still warm.

The snow crunches a solo in the still night
Junction, make a right, then a left, and right.
Almost,

I could have waited
But I couldn't keep as still as the night
And neither could you
...

I never did like New York anyway.

2006-01-30T19:26:00.000+08:00

I LIKE. NOT JUST 黄黎挞

Ingredients to yummy tarts: Shortcrust Pastry, Pineapple Jam, Friends and a Happy heart

Shortcrust pastry -- Sift 23 heaped tablespoons of all purpose flour+3 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar+2 teaspoons of baking powder+1/2teaspoon salt. Rub 3 sticks of cold unsalted butter into flour until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add about 3 eggyolks and knead into a dough. I don't have weighing scale so must anyhow estimate. 1 heaped tablespoon is usually about 25 grams. Pastry is easier to make if you usually have cold hands, cos then the butter doesn't melt as easily. After kneading, put the dough in the fridge to cool (so butter doesn't melt)

Pineapple Jam -- Buy a not-so-ripe whole pineapple, shave off skin (careful don't prick yourself), cut a slice to eat (must feed the chef) and grate the rest into a small saucepan. Grate = hold pineapple in hand and move back and forth quickly on a grater. Hahaha. Add about 200g sugar for one pineapple, then boil over a low heat. To accelerate the caramelization, remove the liquid occasionally over a period of about 4 hours. Cook until the jam is thick and golden (instead of yellow), then cool and put inside fridge to let it gel even more.

Friends -- This one secret recipe, cannot post online. If you really want to try making the above tarts and need the secret recipe, please request for it personally.

A Happy Heart -- :)

They weren't very consistent in size, some were darker and some were lighter. Some didn't have the cross on top, some had more filling than others. Sure signs that the tarts were home (and hand)made. I like making such things. I like staying up late at night grating pineapple and boiling it slowly and watching the sugar caramelize. I like to feel like I'm paying attention to the small details behind the scenes. And, most importantly, I like pineapple tarts.

The tarts are hard to make, just like friendships are hard to keep. Nice to eat, hard to make. Money gets u tarts, but don't homemade ones taste better? Money sometimes can get you friends too, but...? Ironically, money gets you tarts that sometimes keep much longer than homemade ones. On another note, the best things in life sometimes don't require much effort. Like sambal stingray. It's probably one of the simplest dishes to make, but yet such a delight.

I like the smell of the air after it rains, though I don't like rain. But the latter must happen before I can enjoy the former, so suck it up mao. I want good times, but not exactly good memories. Memories are always in the past, and they keep tugging. But the latter occurs naturally after the former, so suck it up too mao.

I like you because you're weird.

2006-01-25T21:53:00.000+08:00

As I was running on the treadmill last night, I started thinking about.... Eggs. How come White Eggs are cheaper than Brown Eggs? Are they of inferior quality? I wanted to find out, but I had to wait until I was done with my run, since the "ok-because-i-have-to-find-out-about-eggs" reason was not a good reason to stop the treadmill (even though its validity increased with each minute that passed). Ok fine so maybe everyone knows the difference, except for me... and for that you can laugh at me if you want, but curiosity was killing the mao, so when I came home, (you guessed it) I googled it.

Tadang!! So the shell color of the egg is determined by the breed of the chicken. White eggs come from white chickens and brown eggs from brown chickens! "The color difference is due to the specific breed of hen, according to the Egg Nutrition Center. Hens with white feathers and white earlobes will lay white eggs, whereas hens with red feathers and matching-colored earlobes give us brown eggs." Even though there is no difference between white and brown eggs other than the shell color, brown eggs are slightly more expensive because the breeds that lay them are larger and require additional food.

The most common breeds of chickens whose eggs we enjoy are the White Leghorn, the Rhode Island Red, and the New Hampshire. The first is White, the other two are brown.

Hmm. Imagine what chickens who lay these eggs would look like.

2006-01-22T07:53:00.000+08:00

Snowflakes-a-fluttering, heartbeats-a-pattering

I made a concoction today using ingredients from the pantry. I think I can start a business selling Pantry Chocochinos. Take 2 packets of Swiss Miss Hot chocolate with marshmellows, and add one cup worth of hot water. Stir until marshmellows melt and add in about 1 tablespoon of half and half. Pour into a cup filled with ice. Add half a cup of gourmet coffee (the kind you find in my pantry) and cover plastic cup with fitted cover. Shake until ice cold. Suck with straw. Shiok. My colleagues are going to boycott Starbucks now and hire me to make drinks for them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Funny when you stop and think,
Time goes faster than you blink,
Nothing’s ever like it was"

After a while, you just stop telling people about how you really feel. There's not much point, because you used to do that but it hurt quite badly each time someone leaves. And so, why not just let things be, let them float away or pretend not to notice. Anyway as the days pass, these things always become less important. And then after a while things change and there's no need to deal with them anymore. Time keeps ticking anyway. Just keep standing still.

2006-01-19T00:18:00.000+08:00

The Pergamon Museum

In Berlin, I visited the Pergamon Museum on Museum Island. I've never been much of a museum person, usually find museums very boring, but this one was unique. I spent a total of 4 hours in it. There were a few main exhibits, the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, and the Market Gate of Miletus. In primary school when I started reading Roman and Greek mythology, I was always very hooked on the stories and fascinated by the characters. So this museum was quite perfect for me.

1. The Pergamon Altar -- an ancient temple dedicated to the Greek God Zeus, built in Greece in 2nd century BC. There was a Telephos frieze at the top of the altar dedicated to Telelphos, son of Heracles and Auge. In short, he almost married his mother but was stopped by a serpent, he fought for the Greeks in the Trojan war and was wounded and later on healed by Archilles.

This is an example of a panel on the frieze surrounding the entire altar. This one shows Athena, goddess of wisdom and Nike , goddess of victory.

2. Ishtar Gate of Babylon -- built by King Nebuchadrezzar II for the goddess Ishtar, the Ishtar gate was one of the eight gates into the city of Babylon. Although the exhibit was a reconstruction using fragments from archaelogical findings, it was stunning.

3. Market Gate of Miletus -- Miletus was an ancient city in Anatolia, and it was the first Roman city where city planning was used to construct a grid like city layout. It is mentioned in the New Testament that Miletus was where apostle Paul met with elders of the Ephesus church before being captured and sent to Rome for trial.

I could not resist buying a book on the Pergamon Altar which is filled with more stories about the friezes found encircling the altar. Each panel on the frieze depicts a story, and most of them are about Greek gods fighting with giants and monsters.

Next edition -- the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg, principal Nazi camp for the Berlin area.

2006-01-08T05:31:00.000+08:00

More fun in China

1. The sign on the grass says Please Keep Off the Grass. But there were workers sleeping on the grass. We wanted a piece of the action too.

2. This sign was found in a restaurant where we had lunch. Actually they were very honest. The sign says No unreal price marking -- there was no prices stated at all. Actually there wasn't even a menu. My parents were led to the kitchen to pick out the dishes they wanted and then they were told the price after the orders were made. No unreal information -- true again, cos there was no information given. No unreal discounts -- true also, because there was no discount in the first place.

3. Washless toilet. Clean anot? Dunno. Never go in.

2006-01-07T16:31:00.000+08:00

Our Holiday -- Yunnan 2005

Lovely, lovely, scenery and company.

This is my sister. 9 years old already. I still remember folding her cloth diapers for her when she was a baby. Now she's in Primary 4 and can make her own instant noodles. She also remembers to buy a tiny curry puff for me from her school canteen each day. How sweet.

In Kunming, we visited the Shi Lin (Stone Forest) and Jiu Xiang (a limestone cave). I think the number of photos taken at the beginning of the trip was much higher than towards the end. Especially the first day... haha my brother was so trigger happy.

This is the Stone Forest, with its stunning rock formations: Clockwise -- Dragon's teeth, Mouse eating a block of cheese, Tortoise, Phoenix cleaning its feathers, Dangerous overhanging rocks, 2 lions.

This is where Sun WuKong was filmed emerging from the rocks.

Profiles. Trigger happy.

Nice to take photo of, but not nice to sleep on

Took a few tries to get the pose right. We were trying to get our dad to look a bit more serious and our mum to look a bit more scared.

Family

My sister and my brother

Pretty pictures of everyday things. Peanuts, Pumpkins, Old blocks of tea, Eggshells (according to my mother, the egg shells are difficult to peel off cleanly if the eggs are very fresh), Teapots, Tea leaves.This is Jiu Xiang, the limestone cave. I think it would have been a lot nicer without the touristy neon lights. There were pink blue green purple yellow orange lights all over, plus lots of vendors offering to take your photos for a price. I get quite annoyed when they harrass us, but well, can understand also lah.. its their livelihood.

See what I mean by multi colored lights?

Ok tired already. Continue next time

2005-12-31T15:49:00.000+08:00

Almost 2006 already!

I left for Singapore on 19th Dec, arrived at 12.20am on 21st, bought popiah and ice jelly, repacked, and flew off to China for a week. Kunming, Dali and Lijiang. The trip quite fun lah, but China toilets really very dirty. Got lots of photos but too lazy to upload for now. Flew back to Singapore on 28th, now just relaxing for a week.

Each time i come home I feel a little disappointed that things are changing so fast. I would sit in the car and ask my mum, "how about we go to XXX tomorrow?" only to hear "oh XXX close already".. or go shopping center and feel so lost because everything is different.

Yesterday went to Parkway, wah now so high crass already. Everywhere also gourmet this gourmet that, got porter-square like jap shop, even got some food court with Embience. hahahaha. The roads around my house also all under construction, I couldn't even recognize the paya lebar airport junction anymore today.

I think I'm very stubborn, I don't like it when everything keeps changing so fast. I want to come back each time and see the same stuff... hehehe so selfish right. But I don't quite care for swanky new hawker centres or gourmet shops filled shopping malls. I also don't quite care for neatly pruned saplings lining the newly paved roads near my house.

I lost my trusty casio watch that I had since I was in primary 4. I used it for a year or so back then, then I started using swatch, but after going through a few watches that all either break down or run out of battery too often, I decided to use my Casio again. This $30 dollar watch was still working even though I had not changed the battery since I got it. Now its nowhere to be found... I think tomorrow I will go and hunt for a similar watch at the watch shop outside Heartland Mall. See lah I always end up going to the same places to get the same stuff... what would I do when these places close down??!!!

I'm so happy to be with family again. Happy until dunno how to write.

2005-12-14T15:05:00.000+08:00

What would I want to do if this was my last week here?

I have no idea. So much to see to do to find to try... snapshots of everything and anything that I can possibly stuff into my mind or into a photo album of computer folder or blog. And it never really ends does it, the amount of things you hope to accomplish, the friendships you hope to develop further, the places you want to revisit...

I let the days go by like there are infinitely more to follow. Taking my chances that things will happen... that my wishes come true and my dreams turn to reality when i say hocus pocus locus mocus.

Guess, debate, wonder, if i should?
I could sit around and let these words consume my thoughts but
i can't wait for endings
so I pretend to pick my own.

Why, how, when, if I choose?
I could drive around in circles and feel all dizzy but
i can't live without answers
so I make up my own.

Enough, sure, convinced, if I will?
I could create a million reasons and weave a story but
it isn't the one I'd like to hear
so I ignore my own lies.

Streets of London. First heard it on karaoke, when they still still used videotapes and wired microphones. The lyrics to this song ain't about love or war or death, but hearing them evokes a reaction in me..... It's like there are these images you have of certain important times in your life that remind you how transient your life is... and this is the one song that sets off that reel in my mind and I watch those images flash on and off like a slideshow. Maybe its just the acoustic guitar strumming on a cold sleepy night.

When I walked out of the Harvard T today, I almost felt as though the frigid air was biting me and laughing at me. Then I remembered.. hahaha I have my Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate! The feeling of hot cocoa running down your throat as the icy breeze envelopes you is.... erm... quite shiok actually. I was thinking, so the cold isn't so bad after all cos if it was hot I wouldn't be appreciating my hot chocolate so much.

Home bound I am... in a couple of days. I'll be flying around as though a plane is a zipcar.

2005-12-03T11:29:00.000+08:00

Piroulines Pirouettes.... Kuih Kapit?

Chocolate filled or hazelnut filled wafer sticks. My first encounter with them was in RGPS along Holland Grove Road. There was a canteen stall that sold them in big tins. One for 10cents. I used to buy 5 before going out to the road to wait for my mum to pick me up. The uncle will put 5 into one of those plastic bags with the bright pink strings. This is what they looked like.

Recently, they have appeared in my life again. In the form of Pirouettes. Or Piroulines, depending on where they are bought and what brand they come in. The first ones I bought in Boston were from Trader Joe's. Mmmm. Of course, me being me, I bought the double pack one. Hehehehe.

Now there is a tin of Bolero Chocolate-Hazelnut filled Wafer Sticks on my table. They were from Whole Foods. They taste good.

There is still the Pepperidge Farm one that I always see in the Confectionery Aisle in the grocery stores. I have not tried them yet. After Bolero is completely consumed... I think I will try them. I figure... about the time I am done with them... it will be close to going home time. And I will get myself some Chinese New Year love letters. Ji Dan Juan. Loosely translated to be Egg Twirls. Maybe Egg Rolls, but then Egg Rolls sound like the greasy stuff u get at the food trucks. My grandma always orders one tin of homemade Ji Dan Juan from her gambling kaki. They are plain but very nice... though a bit messy to eat. I usually eat them layer by layer....

They are also known as Kuih Kapit I think.

For now... I will enjoy my Kuih Pirouettes :)

2005-11-21T13:38:00.000+08:00

2005-11-18T03:43:00.000+08:00

My coach gave me The Little Prince book. I read it in less than half a day.

"Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye."

But most times, because you can't see, you don't believe.

--------------

I woke up at twenty past eight
Feet laden with a heavy weight
Chugged down a mug of iced water
Grabbed my bag and rushed out in a fluster.

The sun was out
But gloves I was without
This poem is starting to suck
I want to eat some roast duck.

Had a Harvard class at half past eleven
Already thinking if I should play soccer at seven
Today needs to end
I don't like playing pretend

Its November
Almost December
Why still waiting
I need oil for brownie baking

Poems I can't write
Essays I can't type
Wrongs I can't make right
Fall asleep in class I might.
--------------------------

What an amazing piece of literary creation.

2005-11-16T11:36:00.000+08:00

I dropped by the bookstore for a short peek today.

There was a book by Dave Eggers. It's called "How we are hungry". I thought it was some cool recipe book or at least some book to do with food, so my attention was drawn towards it.

It is a collection of 15 short stories. I picked it up and flipped to the one entitled "About the man who began flying after meeting her". It was only 2 pages long, but it was such a gem.

If you have time, read it.

You can read it while listening to Leslie Cheung's "Zui". Makes for a good pairing i think.

2005-11-09T03:25:00.000+08:00

Coke war -- Plastic bottles vs. Aluminium cans

Over lunch one day at 100plus' lab, somehow the topic of canned vs. plastic-bottled sodas was raised. It was noted that Coca-cola in cans tasted better than Coca-cola in plastic bottles. This observation was concurred by a few others, although as usual there were the outliers who insisted that Pepsi tasted better. Anyway, I decided to do a little investigation into this matter...

The reason why some of us think that Soda (or Pop) (or Coke) tastes better in cans is because of difference in the degree of fizziness we experience. Canned soda in general tastes more fizzy than the plastic-bottled soda. Plastic soda bottles are made of PET -- polyethylene terephthalate -- and they were patented in 1973 by the inventor Nathaniel Wyeth. Before the PET bottles were invented, plastic was never an option for storing soda because it was not strong enough and would explode under pressure due to the release of carbon dioxide from soda. Wyeth invented PET (details of the chemical properties of PET will not be included here) which had superior elastic properties.

So what's the deal with plastic soda bottles? They are permeable to gas. Not only does the carbon dioxide in the soda diffuse out of the bottle, the carbonated beverage may end up taking in oxygen as well. The structure of PET also enables it to absorb flavor from the beverage, as the polymer molecules that make up the polyester function as a sponge for flavor absorption. These factors work together to decrease the shelf-life of PET bottled sodas.

I just spent 20 min reading about PET and its gas permeability properties. I am now going home, but not before stopping by the convenience store for a bottle of Sprite. Hehehe

2005-10-23T12:45:00.000+08:00

As I was flipping through some photos in my digicam, I came across some photos I took in 2002 while on a road trip in Canada. Phliadelphia-Ithaca-Niagara-Montreal-Quebec-Moncton-Bay of Fundy-Saint John-Boston-Philadelphia.

So at Moncton, which is somewhere on the eastern coast of New Brunswick, we visited this attraction called the Magnetic Hill. We had to pay C$5 to drive to the bottom of this slope. Then we put the car in neutral, and the car somehow starts to move on its own up the slope. Till today I still don't know how it works. At that point of time my mind was screaming "Hoax Hoax!" but somehow I still can't really figure it out.

So that's me pretending to be a piece of iron getting stuck to a magnet. Note the incriminating evidence in my right hand -- a large bag of Lays Original Potato Chips. I think it's very bad to hold such things while taking photos, it totally takes away any "Sei" in you. Hahaha :P

This is one of those places that left a deep impression on me. No that tiny speck isn't me. So this place is Hopewell Rocks, located at the Bay of Fundy. We went there at low tide so can see the rocks all the way to the bottom. Can even go down jalan jalan. When the tides are high, u can only see the top parts with grass. So pretty u know, New Brunswick... they have these scenic drives specially marked out for ppl to drive and enjoy the scenery. You feel like stopping every 3 minutes to take photos.

I wonder when my next holiday will be. I want to go to Turkey leh, or Israel. And I want to go to the Scandinavian countries. I'm such a sucker for pretty scenery or historical monuments or old old architecture... the kind you can stand there and go "wah...." for super long.

My favorite family holiday location is Zermatt. My parents liked it so much we went there twice. Every morning you walk out of your hotel you can look up towards the Matterhorn and just stare for like 2 minutes. And that place had almost zero cars... i think i remember seeing 1 delivery truck only. The first time we went, I think I was 9? 11? can't remember. Tried to ski and ended up twisting my knee. Hehehe.... 2nd time my brother and I took ski lessons. My brother almost knocked me off the mountain. He was skiing behind me and the instructor said stop but he never stop so crash into me. Then the path that we were navigating down was very narrow, and on our right got no barrier one, fall over will drop down all the way already. Lucky I still alive to tell the story. I also remember, the bread that I ate in Switzerland was very nice. Every morning at the hotel they had these mini croissants that were so nice I always take a few and bring back to the room with me after that. I really like croissants actually, come to think of it.

-------------------------------------------

Today I made a Quiche. To be specific, a Bacon-Sausage-Mushroom Quiche. I really like to cook, and if I had much more time I would spend more time experimenting. At first I almost bought a Graham pie crust, lucky saw the plain ones in the freezer... then when I was mixing the cream cheese and milk and eggs, I don't know why I couldnt be bothered to look at the proportions in the recipe. Anyhow add my own concoction. Looking for trouble only cos for the next half hour I was so paranoid that the quiche wouldn't set. But everything turned out well and now the quiche is gone. Tomorrow its steak pie day :P

2005-10-20T08:25:00.000+08:00

Challenger Disaster

Today for class the prof talked about the Challenger Disaster. I remember last time in the Chinese textbook there was a story about the Challenger, and about how one of the astronauts was a teacher. I never really knew the full story of the Challenger until today.

So basically, the O-rings between the segments of the solid rocket booster became eroded and leaked. They were unable to stop the hot gas blow by, because on the day of the launch they were cold. The solid rocket steel wall failed at the burnt through point, the solid rocket then pivoted inwards into the large external tank, caused the hydrogen gas to leak out, which then burnt upon contact with oxygen, therefore causing the Challenger to basically burn itself up at a super fast rate (which was seen as an explosion). Ok so the scary part is that the night before the launch the engineers brought up the exact problem to the managers because they had done tests that showed failure (erosion) of the O-rings at lower temperatures. Look at the graph below, which clearly shows correlation between low temp and higher erosion.

The tragic story -- engineers did not speak up or threaten to resign if decision was made to launch. They'd rather let someone else make the final decision and not take any responsibility upon themselves. Anyway.... so during the class there was a discussion about values and ethics blah blah blah. I suppose, we all have a fundamental set of values based on our integrity and technical competence... so what do we do when we hit our baseline? Throw in the towel and threaten to call some super authority or just diam diam go home play with kids and go to bed?

O-rings burnt out.... I also burnt out. Haha... now temperatures outside dropping also... low temps likely to result in disastrous consequences for me too.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am going to bid farewell to my Asics GT 2090s and lay them to rest. The 2090s were my very first pair of proper running shoes, and they bear sweet memories with them... They have served me well, clocking a mileage of over 250 miles + basketball + japalan sports. 2090s remind me of IM bball with And3, Schukyell River in Philly, running through the woods in Cornell, Summer time netball, and the new jersey marathon. I love them alot... but the soles are worn out, holes are starting to appear, and my heels are starting to hurt due to lack of support. So with a heavy heart... I have to let them go. *wipes tear*

* P.S. Of course I will still keep them lah. Haha... too sentimental. But just cannot keep using them for sports already or else my feet will die.

2005-10-18T03:13:00.000+08:00

The next movie I want to watch -- The Bridge on the River Kwai

This film super old, made in 1957, directed by David Lean who also directed Lawrence of Arabia in 1962. Based on a French novel by the same name, the movie is set in WW2 and chronicles the building of the Death railway between Thailand and Burma. The story in the movie is supposed to depict real-life characters -- Allied POW's who were ordered by the Japanese to build 2 Kwai River bridges between 1942 and 1943. Can you imagine? Your enemy asking you to build bridge for them to transport their supplies and troops so that they can bomb your army even more. At first the Allied troops damn sian dowan to build bridge, but after a while it became their source of pride. They completed the project on time and it was a super zai piece of work. Zai until when the Allied Colonel Toosey discovered that British and American troops secretly planned to bomb the bridge, he attacked his own people.

Ok. Why I blog about this?
1) I like war movies and I want to justify why I ought to watch another one
2) This story got good moral --
(a) Don't get distracted from your bigger goals -- Sometimes you have a big goal, then u divide your tasks up into small small ones.... then u focus on all the details... then u start falling into quicksand, sucked into a small task that is actually not that significant to your ultimate objective
(b) Stick to your principles -- which side are you on? The Japs praised the British POW colonel for his efficiency and competency. The colonel thought that his own army was losing. After a while he began to forget his principles. All the pledges they make in army camp... he throw out of his mind liao.
---------------------

I have spent many late nights in the office. Before you think this is a horrible horrible experience... let me convince you otherwise. You see, there's this flavor of tea in the pantry -- Celestial Seasonings White Peach Tea. Damn nice lah... I keep drinking it I think after a while they are going to start wondering how come the supply depletes so fast. So when I start feeling guilty, I will drink a cup of normal Lipton Tea.

The tea bag is such a clever invention you know, I have respect for the inventor. It not only fun to tarik tarik the tea bag... the tea bag functions as a stirrer too. For lazy people like me, it's perfect. Don't have to stir the sugar or creamer, just agitate the liquid buy pulling the tea bag up and down damn fast.

As leisure today, after doing quite a lot of work, I read the article "Will humans swim faster or slower in syrup?" by Edward Cussler. Studying fluid mechanics of swimming, they wanted to find out if people could swim faster in higher viscosity liquid. Damn cool lah the way they set up the pool for testing, they actually used 310kg of guar gum to thicken the water. If you want, read the article here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/109667863/HTMLSTART

I think I'd rather have the syrup on my pancakes though. Don't think I want to swim through syrup, though maybe I'll get a sugar high from it.

2005-10-16T11:50:00.000+08:00

Happy Times

Photo to entertain you!

Yay for happy times. This weekend mixed bag of feelings.... but as u can see from the above, there are smiley faces going around! Ok but the rain was jialat man... hate hate hate hate hate.

Idina came! And we ate. and ate and ate. Flour cafe, Korean food at Union Square, Toscaninis, Ihop, next morning 8am Neighborhood restaurant. But I so happy you know. :P

Right now a bit sian. Why leh? :P

U guess correct i give u.... nerd pride cap.

Quick guess now. Now now now now now.

2005-10-08T22:03:00.000+08:00

Billions of blue bilious blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon!!!

(pictures courtesy of Wikipedia)

I used to go to Geylang East library and hunt for Tin-tin books. Damn hard to find, cos I bet lots of other kids were hunting (and hoarding) tin-tin comics too. I had to resort to giving my friends bits of my stickers collection in exchange for Tin-tin book loans. My mum never allowed me to buy comics, cos she said it was a waste of money and time (which... ok lah... quite true, i mean, look at what i'm blogging about now).

My favorite character is not Tin-tin. Actually he's quite a boring fellow. What made the series so fun to read was actually the combination of all the other characters. Let's start off with Thompson and Thomson. Their bowler hats damn cute man... and whoa where got ppl dress like that one. The way they talk also super funny. See below

Thompson: He wont get far, if my name's Thompson!�
Thomson: To be precise: if my name's Thomson we won't get far!

Thompson: Bother! We were mistaken!
Thomson: To be precise: we're a mistake.

And then there's Professor Calculus who was a little deaf. He was always carrying his pendulum around no matter where he was.
My favorite book was The Blue Lotus. Actually Tin-tin not bad you know.... I think Herge tried his best to be politically sensitive, he even gave Tin-tin a good chinese friend in The Blue Lotus. The Blue Lotus was actually the 2nd part of a longer story, and it was about Tin-tin going to China to stop some opium gang or something.

Ok I going to do work now. That's why my mother's advice is always good for me.

2005-10-07T10:50:00.000+08:00

I feel a bit disappointed. I'm not a very good judge of people, I always think that everyone quite nice, everyone has a good heart, everyone quite zi dong.

I need to write some rubbish now.

I like apples more than oranges. I used to like green apples quite a bit, because in Singapore the red apples often turn out soft and mushy, or maybe I just don't quite know how to choose them. But green apples are always crunchy. I like the jumbo navel oranges actually, but they have to be very sweet and juicy. I don't cut my oranges, I peel them. I like to peel off all the skin in one continuous string.... then the peel is like all curled up.

I like green grapes. I like green pears. I also like Shui Jing Li. Translated as Crystal Pears. My dad used to buy fruits from this fruit shop along Upper Paya Lebar, but it has since closed down due to MRT line construction. He used to buy one whole bag of them, and they all came nicely packaged and protected in the foamy wrap. I eat them very fast, can slurp slurp all the juice. I only realized after a couple of years, that these pears were very expensive actually. My dad must love me very much, because he always replenished the stash in the fridge even though I gobbled them up so fast.

Today I had a conversation with my meimei about "sleeping in class". I told her I always very sleepy in class. She asked me if I drool in class, because she said her classmate fell asleep once and drooled all over the worksheet. I was like "huh??!!! Primary 3 where got fall asleep in class one?". My sister is very good at getting what she wants. She always sound very sad when she asks me when I will call her again. I was walking into the subway station already so I told her ok I have to go cos no reception... then I felt so bad about it, I told her ok i call her same time tmr. She good man. She also asked me whether I can play neopets for her in class. I told her I have a laptop now so she can come on msn anytime and I will be there most of the time. Then she said, so in class u can use internet right? How about playing neopets for me? Champion. I think my sister is quite cool actually. If I were 4 years old I think I will have a crush on her... so cool right. So bo chap attitude. Not like me so geeky. Hehehe

2005-10-03T10:52:00.000+08:00

Babysitting

Last night my church had a family ministry night so Serena (my junior from RGS netball who is now in Boston and attending the same church as me) and I agreed to help the adults baby-sit their kids. 10 little bouncy kids in all, from 3 different families, breakdown is 4-4-2. Anyway I think my church would be very welcomed in Singapore due to their amazing ability to reproduce. The senior pastor has 7 kids. So anyway, I thought, how hard can it be right, take care of 10 kids for 3 hours. No problem lah.

WHOA. You see, taking care of these kids is probably like running a country. You can’t take your eyes off any of them, if you do so there’s a huge risk of revolt. Or the citizens will endanger their own lives (by putting rubbish into their mouths). There are so many intricate interpersonal relationships to balance. So ok, we played monkey. Simple? Nooooo. You have one kid who die die also always want to be monkey, so he will purposely throw the ball to the current monkey to catch. Other kids buay song, complain. Complaint evolves into fight which becomes Cry. One kid threatens to run upstairs to complain to his dad that he hates the Monkey game. The rest say who cares, they will just continue. What should I do?

1) Stop the game, anger 5 kids but no complaints to the adults upstairs
2) Let them go on playing and risk the adult coming down to the basement for inspection
3) Think of another game that everyone will play

Meanwhile, the 2 one-year-olds keep trodding around the basement risking their own lives because there are flying scooters and big bouncing balls and Little Tikes cars.

Scene 2. After the Monkey fiasco, Mao orders all kids to go upstairs and watch video. For a while, perfect siah… everyone happy run upstairs sit on bed (except for the 2 one year olds). Turn on video… barely started…. They start fighting on the bed over who gets to sit at the edge of the bed. Then the oldest boy wants to turn off the lights but the girls dowan and keep screaming. Scream evolves into Cry. Ok fine Mao says “leave the lights on!”. Ten minutes later (obviously the kids weren’t even watching the video at all, can’t blame them cos the one they chose was about some boring fat caterpillar who keeps coughing and eventually is supposed to turn into a butterfly) they want to change activity and play hide and seek.

Chaos. Mao sets the rules already but 2 seconds later there erupts a fight about whether they can play in the dark (i.e. switch off the lights). Girls cry. Mao says leave the lights on. Boys cry say no fun. But ok lah in the end, got consensus to play with lights on. Choose seeker also takes like 5 minutes. Fight fight fight everyone wants to be seeker. Then choose already, seeker anyhow count 1 to 20. “1 skip skip skip 10 skip skip 20”. Complain complain complain no time to hide.

Mao is very amused at this stage. Ok fast forward to 8.30pm. Fwah finally the parents are done. Exhausting sia.

Ok to entertain you --

This is what Mao looked like:

2005-09-27T11:35:00.000+08:00

On Sunday I wanted to eat Sambal Stingray. But WholeFoods ruined my plan... got no more Skate. Skate is like Stingray but the tail got no spikes I think. So in the end we left with the usual loot... french baguette. Every week I feel like I need to make the pilgrimage there to get the baguette. When we were there on Sunday, I saw the WF woman carry one whole stack of fresh baguettes towards the shelf, and I was like "AHH!!!! FRESH!!!!" Must have looked quite embarrassing but I was so happy. Haha.

Today is Monday. I had so much reading to do for class today, and tomorrow even more jialat. But I dun like to spend my time complaining about work cos I still try and do my work as best as I can.... so just suck it up lor. Read read read read then my classes will all seem so interesting. I really like school actually, even though sometimes I complain "how come have to go to school".

I got my toy today. So happy. Hehe... dun really want to type here already cos tonight already so happy over msn. I now have my entire song library again!!!! Got my chinese song selection again... so nice you know. I was looking through the library, then keep clicking on the songs even before the previous one is finished. I still remember very clearly when I downloaded which songs... what were the circumstances...who recommended the songs. So nostalgic.

Tomorrow gonna put in Office into my new toy. I suddenly feel very motivated to work harder. But I also want to play basketball tomorrow. How how how. Why always like that. :)