宅男日记

to the point

2012-02-11T12:53:00.002+08:00

long blogs bore me. that's why i always cheat by inserting random/related photos inbetween to make it seem less long.

it's like advertisements, as much as we hate them, they are sometimes necessary for our brain to take a break from following the plot and to absorb and understand the significance of the intricate details.

maybe it's because i am getting more short tempered due to the stresses at work. a few projects quickly approaching deadline and the penalty, known as Liquidated Damages in our industry, is at least $20,000 per day, per project. at least.

usually i try to be very respectful and patient to the older colleagues. they've been in the industry for so much longer than i have, and i acknowledge that i have much to learn from them

BUT CAN HE GET TO THE FREAKING POINT ALREADY!?!?!??!?!?

we had this meeting, he went on and on for 10, 15 minutes and he still hasnt answered my question or said anything that any of us didn't already know.

it's a neat trick. to talk a lot but say nothing of importance. to portray the impression of having a lot to say, going on and on about an issue. people's assumption is that if we keep using different words that mean the same thing, we are talking about something different, which might not always be the case. the important thing is to always be logical, and to stay to the point. don't try to insert anything controversial, or anything that the other person might have an interest in, or might have an opinion or objection to. stick to simple, logical statements and don't talk too fast, cos if you talk too fast, you'll very fast run out of things to say. if we talk slowly, there is even a chance we can go back to using some of the words we used earlier and hope that no one notices. because we had already said so much, people, who already not paying attention at this point in time, might not even remember what the entire conversation, or monologue, is about and start thinking that we know a lot. which we know to be not true, because we actually haven't said that much at all. however, due to the fact that everything being said is logical, and there is nothing we say that catches their attention, and nothing coming out of our mouths that they object to, they see no reason to think of us as anything other than long-winded. which is by itself, not that big of a deal. and since i have so many things to say, the other assumption is that i must know what i am talking about, otherwise how on earth would i have so many things to say? also, maintain good eye contact, so that people get the feeling that we are confident about what we are saying. which is not that difficult when we think about it, there is nothing so complicated about the things we are saying. best part is, remind ourselves that at the end of the day, noone will remember what the conversation was about. and people forget about the real issue, which is that i might not even have answered their question. i would just sufficiently confused everyone into thinking that, yes, i am doing my job, yes, i know what i am doing, and yes, it is too complicated for you to understand, so leave me alone to do what you have always assumed i was doing. of cos it also helps if i keep talking and don't leave space for people to interject. and that leads us back to the point of not talking too fast, because we want people to be able to follow what we are saying, we just want to bore them into choosing not to follow. we are not trying to confuse them with big ideas and complicated theories, we are merely trying to get their brains to shut off and go into screen saver mode. that way, they can't blame us or be angry with us because they would feel embarrassed that they were not paying attention. and they won't dare to ask questions because they aren't sure if it is something we have already said just now in the very long statement.

in summary:
main point is to not give people a reason to get you to stop talking till you mean to stop.
-use simple, logical statements so people won't object to what we are saying
-don't talk too fast. aim to bore, not confuse or infuriate.
-use different words, or phase the same points differently

Early Valentines' Day

2012-02-10T13:26:00.001+08:00

neither of us are very detail-orientated people.

it was the basis of our relationship. from the start, we came to a mutual agreement to set our anniversary date as 11th November so that it can be remembered more easily.

she reminded me yesterday that our first valentines' day present to each other were both very poorly wrapped by ourselves. which i had no recollection of.
i don't usually wrap presents, but it sounds like something i would try to do to impress her.

as it is, we were both very excited about the presents we bought for this year valentines' and i figured, why should we wait till the 14th? LET'S JUST EXCHANGE PRESENTS TONIGHT!!

=) so we did.

i had no idea what she was going to get me, so i was very surprised to see that it was a pair of beats earphones!!

all the more exciting because i actually wanted to buy a pair for myself while i was shopping for her present! =X

meanwhile, i bought her a lomo camera which she mentioned before in passing that she would love to have!

we had fun figuring out how to work it last night, and shot almost a whole roll in our room. =)
it's quite a feeling, shooting and shooting and not knowing how the photos will turn out, just waiting to be surprised.

i also bought her a pillow for her birthday cos she was complaining her pillow too high for her.
so as there's no sense in denying her the pleasure of using it already. so i gave it to her as well.
also, i just didnt know where to hide it.

=) it's a warm fuzzy, feeling, being with someone who likes the same things and knows me so well.
secretly, i plan to borrow her camera, and she outrightly demanded that she inherits my old set of shure earphones. =X

Intimidated

2012-02-09T11:07:00.000+08:00

the hardest part about being in management is figuring out how to stop people from finding out how i am really feeling.
kinda like playing poker.

*poke poke poke her face*

2 colleagues nearly broke out into a fight in front of me during a meeting(i was chairing), shouting at each other and at one point 1 of them picked up his chair and slammed it down on the floor.
2 other colleagues at the same meeting looked at me, expecting me to somehow stop this fight.

so i had to sit there, stare at them, tell them to please stop this nonsense and get back to the issues at hand.

and pray my voice dun tremble. while contemplating what to do if they wouldn't listen.

should i shout louder than them?
or run?
or maybe hide under the table?

nobody teaches such things at management school.

thankfully they did listen and calmed down.

so i pretended nothing happened,
closed the issue by making a totally random decision cos i was too rattled to think straight
and moved on to the next point.

Decline of Morality Among Youths in Modern Day Singapore

2012-02-08T10:58:00.001+08:00

how about that for a attention catching headline

"Undergrads Get Maids To Clean Their Hostel Rooms"

i am quite torn when i heard about this over the radio and news.

i can't decide if we have run out of local news to report, or if these are news that Singaporeans are genuinely interested in.

my first thought was "WHO GIVES A SHIT!??!?!"
initially, the radio said that maids were spotted coming in and out of hostels, and i thought they brought their maids to the hostels to have affairs with them or something.
that would be kinda sick, but at least something juicy.

but not as juicy as this banana

or if the maids looked like this

but to my disappointment, no.
the maids were there to.... clean.

legality aside (yes, this is illegal. but then again, so is getting maid to clean your car at a public carpark, and jay walking is also illegal, and speeding, that is illegal too, and littering, and drinking mineral water on public transportation, and downloading music, also illegal), what is the fuss about?

it is wrong because it shows how spoilt singaporean youths are, unable to clean their own hostel rooms?
but then it is ok if the maids clean the same youth's room at home? hello?? what's the logic??

personally, i have never done it before, because i think it's a hassle to have to drive the maid to my hostel room and then back home.
and also because my roommate cleans the room every now and then. =)
he even mops the floor on my side of the room, how nice is that?

u know what i do do tho?
i never once washed my own clothes while staying at the hostel.
i throw the clothes i wore in that week into a basket and every friday, i lug it home for them to wash.
on sunday, the clothes would have been washed and folded, so i take them back to the hostel to wear for the brand new week.

if anything, i think that what i did is more spoilt than getting maids to clean the room.
but i guess luckily for me, back then, people had more interesting things to talk about, and newspapers had more important things to write about.

spin doctor

2012-02-07T15:24:00.002+08:00

as defined by wikipedia, spin is a form of propaganda achieved through creative presentation of facts.
and anything can be spun, or spinned.

which is the best part about numbers and statistics.
i can choose to show you some real number, and interpret it in a way that suits me.

simple example,

CNA: Number of immigration offenders arrested drops 35%

the article chose to attribute the decrease in arrests to "thorough examinations and tightened security at the checkpoints to sieve out immigration offenders".

can't i also say that maybe more are getting past our checkpoints undetected?
with more thorough examinations, shouldn't more offenders be caught?

100% decrease in arrests. best security guard in the world.

1 of my favourite tricks is to put my handphone on silent so that when someone calls me and i don't feel like answering, i will just let it ring.
after that, when i feel like returning the call, or when the person calls me back, i can very honestly tell the person i didnt hear the phone ring the 1st time cos it was on silent.
what i don't say, is that i saw the call come in, and i purposefully chose not to answer it.

that is the 1st method of spinning: selectively presenting facts that support my position.

2nd method: non-denial denial.
statements like these appear to be clear cut denials, but when studied closely, actually doesn't answer the accusations at all.

example,
wife: are you cheating on me??
husband: how can you accuse me of sleeping with another woman behind your back?!? so to answer your question, NO, i am not having an affair with another woman!

fact: he is gay and having an affair with another man.
so he wasn't lying at all

3rd method: euphemisms
euphemism is the substitution of indirect and vague expressions with the aim to confuse or mislead.

commonly used euphemisms:
adult entertainment = porn
armed intervention = war
correctional facility = jail
environmental maintainance executive = cleaner

1 that i will always remember is "retrospectively normalised",
which basically means i am doing something wrong/illegal now, but i will correct it in due course.
example: i skip this year's taxes, but next year i promise to pay more.

personnel realignment and downsizing policy

4th method: burying the bad news
to announce good news along with several bad news, focusing the attention on the good news.

example: mom, today i failed math and science, but i finally passed my english! did you know that only 4 people in the whole class passed english???

i'm also helping their kids, not just killing their adults

it's good to be aware of how facts can be manipulated.
not just because we can use it on other people.
but also for how we know when people are using it on us.

be wise as serpents.

wisdom

case-study

2012-02-06T10:58:00.001+08:00

she has to do a "show-and-tell" at work tomorrow on any topic relating to their industry, i.e. theatre productions.

and without hesitation, she turned to me and said "help me do leeeeh"

i can refuse all i want, but we all know a woman gets what a woman wants.
especially since her birthday coming soon and i haven't gotten a present. need to score some points whenever possible.

suggested to her to do the presentation based on the 2 broadway musicals we watched, Spiderman: Turn off the dark, and Book of Mormon.

secretly, i quite enjoyed the process. it's like back when i was doing my MBA, we had to do these case studies and compare different companies and/or scenarios to identify the learning points.

so while watching soccer, i did some research on my ipad and she.. well.. she wrote down what i said.

here was what we(read: i) came up with.

1. Investments does not work the same way as Gravity.

For gravity, we always say, what goes up, must come down.
For investments, what goes in, might never come out. because a large budget is never a guarantee for high returns.

Spiderman set the record for the most expensive Broadway production ever, at US$75million, and weekly running costs of US$1million or more, and weekly net income of US$100,000 to US$300,000.
It is estimated that at this current rate, the show would need to run for at least 5 years in order to cover its production costs. and very few shows achieve 5 year runs on Broadway.

meanwhile, Book of Mormon had a budget of US11million, and costing only US$9million.
within 9 months, the entire production cost was recouped due to the high attendance and aggressive(read: bloody expensive) ticket pricing.

2. Don't Under-Sell, but Never Over-Promise

It is essential to identify the selling point, or the strength of the musical, and focus on it, so that people are not overly hyped up over something they'll end up getting disappointed with.

Spiderman got big names such as U2's Bono and The Edge to write music for the production, which is constantly stressed in their marketing campaigns.
however, reviews to date constantly lament that the show suffers from weak plot and bad music, which leads to the question of how familiar are those stars with Broadway productions.

i gave her the example, just because A-Mei is a great singer, doesn't mean that she'll do well in a musical as she has no prior experience and no track record to boast of.
so i might not be very wise if i intend to spend millions to get her to sing it 1.

Another of Spiderman's focus was on their highly technial stunts, with the actors swinging above the audience and landing on platforms on the 2nd and 3rd storey of the theatre. but on numerous occasions the stunts failed halfway during shows, resulting in embarrassing delays during which actors could be left hanging in mid-air.
there was even once the actor missed the platform and fell 20 feet into the audience.

on the other hand, Book of Mormon highlighted on the fact that it was co-created by writers, creators and composers for animated comedy South Park and Avenue Q.
just with those names alone, the audience has a rough idea of what to expect, and the show does not disappoint in the least. the plot was belly-achingly hilarious, the songs were catchy and memorable, the stage was grand enough to impress.
and the result? highest charting Broadway cast album in over 4 decades, fastest-selling Broadway cast album on iTunes, nominated for 14 Tony's and won 9, including best musical and best director.

(performance during Tony Awards Ceremony)

3. Same-Same or Different-Different

How many ways can Spiderman be remade?

Spiderman with wings

How can I make Book of Mormon interesting?

do i want to do something "same-same but different"? i.e. something that has been done before hundreds of times, but in a different way?

Lion King is a show everyone is familiar with, from the plot to the song, and yet its results on Broadway are phenomenal. because it didn't try to change the things about the show people loved, the song, the story. what it did focus its efforts on were the breath-taking sets, immaculately detailed costumes and the props which were nothing sort of engineering feats.

or do i want to do something "different-different"? i.e. something that has never been done before.
the problem then becomes how to generate interest in something that is completely alien to the general public.

any sane person would have thought, a musical about mormons, really?
i can barely stand to talk to one for a minute, now you want me to sit through 2 hours? and i still have to pay?!?!?

if anything, this should teach us that there are no limits to creativity.

thank you.

just a wife, not a bride

2012-02-05T17:03:00.002+08:00

she picked this phrase up from who-knows-where and has been repeating it since 1st of January, or the 2nd.

"i am now just a wife, no longer a bride"

and we actually discussed this at length (from this you can probably tell we don't have very deep meaningful conversations about Syria and the possible future of Eurozone.)

in chinese, a bride is called a 新娘, and a wife is called a 老婆.
within a day, she changed from 新(new) to 老(old), and from 娘(girl/lady) to 婆(aunty/grandmother)

not much better for the groom, from a 新郎 to a 老公.
chinese actually quite fair in that aspect, 郎 means a young strapping chap, and 公 means grandfather.

=)

we are having what i call a very Lazy 老夫老妻 Sunday.
skipped church cos we went on Friday, woke up at 9:30 and headed to Holland Village for dimsum breakfast.
watched service using ipad while watching soccer highlights on TV while playing Scramble with Friends on iphone with each other, while lying on the bed.

that didn't last long tho cos she fell asleep before preaching started. =X

napped till 3pm, had some porridge for lunch, and watched Mission Impossible 2.

ok she's done showering. Mission Impossible 3 next!

traditions, habits, practices

2012-02-04T10:47:00.002+08:00

came across this article recently:

There was an experiment done with five monkeys locked in a cage with a ladder that led to a banana.

Every time one of the monkeys would climb the ladder, a scientist would spray ALL the monkeys with ice-cold water.

When a different monkey tried the same thing, they got the same results, everyone got drenched in ice-cold water. The monkeys decided that banana wasn’t worth it, if another monkey tried for the banana, the others would beat him up before he could get up the ladder to ensure they would not get sprayed with the water.

After the all monkeys stopped going for the banana, a new monkey was replaced and the scientist would no longer spray the monkeys no matter what happened. Of course, when this new monkey saw the banana he would make his way toward the ladder only to get beat up by the fellow monkeys. The newbie quickly understood that ladder was not to be climbed.

When a second monkey replaced one of the originals, he too would start to make his way toward the banana. Just like before, all of the monkeys would beat up the monkey going toward the banana. What’s interesting is that the monkey who was never sprayed with the water would beat up the new monkey with just as much enthusiasm as the others.

This same thing would happen even when all of the monkeys in the cage had been replaced, and none of them had ever been sprayed with cold water.

If one of the monkeys asked, “Why do you beat me up when I try to get the banana?”
The others would respond, “I don’t know, that’s just the way we do things around here.”

(guess it or not, i did all the illustrations myself. whoever said that working on saturdays are not productive. i do my best drawings on saturdays when people are not always looking for me.)

a lot of time, we do things just because it is tradition, it is how things are always done, it is the standard practice. we make the assumption that we are new, so the more experienced people would always know better.
bit by bit, we stop asking why things are done they way they are done, and only ask how to them..

what is the reason behind traditions and common practices?
do those reasons still apply?
do they apply to everyone?
should they apply to everyone?

have we all become monkeys?

(random funny photos i found abt evolution)

Peach Garden

2012-02-03T11:58:00.004+08:00

after all the hoo-ha aboout Peach Garden and their XO chay tau guay (click to read)

i joked about it in passing during the dinner. and 1 of the aunties decided to tell Veronica (co-founder of Peach Garden) about it when she came into the room.

personally, i don't know much about food, and i really can't tell expensive food from cheap 1s. but i really gotta commend them on their service.

once she heard that most of us have never tried it before, she went straight to the kitchen and got the chef to prepare some for us to try.
and her chef asked her "are you sure you are ok? you wan me to fry carrot cake during dinner service?"

it was funny. =)

was it nice? yup
do i think $10 is too much to pay for chye tau guay? probably.
after this experience, would i go back to Peach Garden again? likely.
would i order chye tau guay if i am there? good chance. cos it is really quite nice.

that's how you become successful.
by getting people to willingly pay more than what they think the thing is worth.
and still be happy about it.

confrontation styles

2012-02-02T10:44:00.001+08:00

all along, my confrontation style has been very simple.

just one word: avoid.

avoid whenever possible, avoid at all cost.
or as the chinese saying goes, 忍一时，风平浪静。退一步，海阔天空 (bear with it awhile, the wind and wave no more. give in 1 step, the sky open and sea peaceful.)

when i started managing people at work, this 1 person always got on my nerves.

initially, i talked nicely to him.
after that, i wrote strongly worded emails to him.
then, i got HR to issue him with an official warning letter.

when even that didn't work, i sat the department down in a group setting and specifically stated my expectations and requirements for them.

i am a nice guy, or a coward.
i don't like head-to-head confrontations.
i'm always thinking, "what if he screams back at me, i really wouldn't know what to do".

until this week, i couldn't take it anymore - tasks assigned to him before my honeymoon were undone, people were complaining to me about him left right and center, he seemed to be totally clueless about what was going on, and he disregards my clear instructions to stay behind to finish work instead of leaving on the dot every single day.

so again, i listed down everything he owed me, got the 5 of them together and point by point i asked him why it was not done, why people were saying those things about him, why my instructions were not followed.

when he tried to smoke me, gave rubbish excuses and finally kept quiet, i lost it and screamed at him.
it was quite interesting, looking at the faces of the people in that room.
they probably never knew i could scold people.

and it really had its desired effect. for the first time since he joined the company more than a year ago, he worked past 7pm.
which, just to put it into context, doesn't even put him in the list for the last 10 people to leave the office that day.

although, having said that, i must admit that i was having five-star chicken rice when i got his email at 7:24pm.

growing into a role is quite a challenge.
but also a very interesting experience.

what's married life like?

2012-02-01T14:14:00.001+08:00

that is the question i've been asked the most.

though i often think that it should be asked of couples who have been married for significantly longer periods than we have.
(side note: we celebrate our month-ni-versary today! and i made her a special card just for the occasion!!)

in fact, carrying on the side note, there are ridiculously lots of dates to remember so i won't bother remembering anymore.

e.g. the 11th of every month is the month-ni-versary of us getting attached. and don't ask me how long we've been together. last i heard was 3 or 4 years something.
then 11th of November is our get together anniversary, i not sure which year. most probably either 2008 or 2009.

then on the 1st of every month is the wedding month-ni-versary.
of cos 1st of Jan is wedding anniversary.

after that she reminded me 11th December 2011 is the proposal anniversary.
(?!??! who remembers such things?!)

add to all that her birthday on the 16th feb, and then valentines day on 14th feb.

anyway, back to topic. so far, married life has been great.
the thing i enjoy most is not having to send her to bukit batok every night! =)

our tiny room is nicely compartmentalised so we can both do our own things comfortably without annoying each other, tho i suspect there will still be plenty of time for that in the days to come.

also, we've worked out a nice schedule for both of us to have breakfast every morning and then get to work, so things are convenient, and we get to spend some time together every morning.
on her hand, it is faster for her to get to work now than when she stayed at bukit batok as well, so all is goooooooood...

now, i wish people would stop asking about the kids thing already..
crossing our fingers it's just a newly married + chinese new year thing.

things to look forward to in 2012

2012-01-31T14:44:00.002+08:00

1. birth of dragon 1

my first army buddy going to have a son! =) we were so excited that we couldn't help buying clothes for him while we were at US. teeeny wheeny baby clothes!!

2. birth of dragon 2

our benefactors' going to have a child!! =) we were similarly excited, but duno what gender, so never buy teeny wheeny baby clothes(yet).
though my theory is that if the baby can kiap the legs so tight, most likely is girl.
(oh they are our benefactors because they sorta intro-ed jy and myself)

3. birth of dragon 3

this 1 currently i just feel so sorry for the wife. heard it happen theorectically, but always thought it is stories made up by mothers to convince their children that mothers are 伟大.
never knew someone can puke so much.

4. changing my IC

i've been trying to preserve my IC as much as possible so that i won't have to pay $100 to get it replaced. and finally, this is the year i can get a free IC!

point 4 leads to point 5

5. turning 30
not so much looking forward to it, as wanting to get it over and done with. was lamenting to friends during a gathering that 30 seems so old, but someone commented that i got my masters, and i am married, so that was pretty much everything on my pre-30 bucket list.

other than complete a marathon. but i suppose completing 1 post-30 is even more of an achievement.

6. weddings
looking forward to attending a wedding of a close friend this year.
and also my first wedding on the other side of the line.

7. Australia trip
planning a family trip to Perth during Easter. given that i was 7 the last time i went Perth, i consider this my first trip there! =)

fingers crossed, with the cooling-off measures implemented last december, real estate prices drop enough for us to get a condominium somewhere decent, either in 2012 or 2013.
so that's kinda exciting.

i was just thinking last night, that i need to find things to do and/or learn in 2012.
for the first half of the year i was still finishing my MBA, and the second half i was occupied with the wedding.

1st thing that comes to mind is
piano
haven't touched it since 1st of January *shudders at the memory*
also, my piano teacher for the past few years has gone back to Indonesia, so i need to find a new 1.
anyone has any recommendations?

prooooobably should start attending choir practices also, but that 1 i can barely bring myself to type out, so we shall see how.

really miss playing badminton, though that 1 need kakis. anyone interested? can arrange weekly sessions.

first month flew by just like that. so not counted.
tomorrow shall be the official start of my 2012!

so HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

New York!

2012-01-30T13:07:00.000+08:00

third and final leg was to new york

and our first stop was to the was museum:

where i became good friends with bieber

and gave my inaugural speech as the President of the United States

and she fell asleep with a mummy

other than the tourist-y places such as empire state building and statue of liberty, we also went to the Museum of Natural History, where the movie "Night at the Museum" was filmed.

it was more interesting than we thought and we ended up spending almost 2 hours there.

another thing we did a lot of, besides eating, is shopping!

(well, she did anyway)

what else did we do in New York..

we watched 2 broadway shows, and realised why there are unsold tickets and why unsold tickets go for half price. (cos they are barely half as good)

we stayed at the same hotel Lady Gaga stayed in, about 50 meters from Times Square.

we went to the factory outlets at Jersey for tax-free shopping.

we got lost in Central Park for 2 hours.
only to realise we had walked 1 big round and ended up about 100 metres from where we started =X

we took a taxi in NYC.
and experienced the famous traffic in New York first hand. gosh, to think that we think Singapore drivers are horrible and impatient and reckless.
a driver as excellent as myself felt like breaking down uncontrollably into tears while running out of the vehicle screaming and pulling my hair out all at the same time.
i wasn't even driving. just staring in disbelief at the cars zipping in and out of lanes.

we had the nicest cheesecake in the world. and saw obama in the shop. actually just an autographed photo of him in the shop, but it's almost the same thing.

all in all, we had so much fun this honeymoon =)

and honeymoon is really a time where we learn more about each other.
like how she needs 30mins to put on her make-up when i am all ready and raring to go explore new york.

quite an experience, being with another person 24 hours a day for 15 days straight.
but i wouldn't have had it any other way.

Kennedy Space Centre and Bahamas Cruise

2012-01-27T14:23:00.002+08:00

following the exciting theme park portion of our trip, we were headed for rest and relaxing phase: 4 days on board a cruise!

but before that we had sometime, so stopped by the Kennedy Space Centre to learn how to moonwalk.

the actual space shuttle that flew to the moon or something.

they discontinued the space program, so it is now being stripped down to be put in some museum. like very sad like that. no use then kena thrown into museum.

on to the cruise.

the room was a lot bigger than i had thought, even comes with a balcony and a whirlpool bathtub (which we never got to try)

as on any cruise, we caught up on sleep. she was practically sleeping 12 to 15 hours every day, which left me to read my book, watch tv, and play ipad games..

there were times i just stood at our balcony and played with my camera

went on 2 land tours, while we were on Nassau and Grand Bahamas.

first up, we went to play with the dolphins at Atlantis, where we got to dance with them while holding on to their fins, and also to hug them, and kiss them.

they are sooo cute and the way their mouths are shaped make them seem like they are always smiling and so happy! they feel very cold and rubbery tho. and their kiss is salty. =P we had a lot of fun interacting with dolphins for close to an hour

after the activities, they wanted to charge us USD70 for 5 of the photos, or USD 150 for every photo taken as they do not sell individual photos.
there was no way we are paying that kind of money for a few lousy photos.
so we can only take away memories. =X

at Grand Bahamas, we signed up for a jeep tour to drive around the island and take in the sights.

our jeeps

through the radio in the car, the guide went on about the different vegetation in the different parts of the island, and for a good half hour, this was all we saw.

after the tour, and lunch, we spent an hour at the beach, where we promptly dozed off in the sun.

water was so clear, i was almost sure that it isn't salty. i mean, how can seawater be this clear.
it has to be some sort of a gigantic man-made reservoir.

after that, the cruise brought us back to Florida, where we jumped on the plane to New York, third and final leg of our journey!

DisneyWorld and Universal Studios Florida (updated)

2012-01-26T20:36:00.000+08:00

because i only managed to clear about 20 emails whole morning, i decided my time would be better spent blogging instead.

the honeymoon was awesome, and we had so much fun at all the different places we visited!

disneyworld was so huge that it is impossible to walk from 1 place to another, so there are shuttle buses and boats provided between attractions.

we stayed at the yellow circle and only managed to visit Magic Kingdom, which is commonly known as disneyland, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

there was this safari ride at the Animal Kingdom, which we thought would just be a ride to see some chickens running around. but we actually saw lions, tigers, zebras, elephants, giraffes and a lot of other animals all at close distance!

followed by 2 days in Universal Studios Florida

highlight of the place was naturally....

where we had 5, 6 butterbeers

i think it is essentially just rootbeer float. and very sweet.
but even so, we couldn't miss the chance to have as much as our stomachs could take while we were there.

people were just standing along the streets enjoying the whole atmosphere of hogwarts and hogsmeade.

pirated Harry Potter

random shops along the street

a peek into the shops

and then some of the rides in the park were so terrifying,

vertically upwards, and a terrifying journey downwards

big splash, Orlando-style

free-fall, anyone?

this guy just couldn't stop puking

the weather was great while we were in Orlando, about 15-20, which made it all the more enjoyable taking the rides. =)
plus the queues for rides were really not all that long, except for the harry potter ride which we waited about 30mins for on the first day. 2nd day, the queues were even shorter, so we never waited for more than 10 mins for any of the rides.

tho we did feel sick after consecutive mind-numbing rides. =X spent a few hours just exploring different areas of the park,

where we bumped into her!

and some of her other Pixar friends. =)

after that we were looking for a place to have dinner when we saw this sign.

obediently, we stood for a while at the porch of indecision while we made up our mind about what to have for dinner.

we stayed at Hard Rock Hotel for the 2 Universal Studios night, and they were so nice once they found out we were there for our honeymoon!

free kisses and a bottle of wine =)

favourite honeymoon photos

2012-01-25T14:01:00.003+08:00

too lazy to start writing. just going to post a few of my favourite photos taken during the trip =)

resort we stayed in disneyland

snow-covered mountain contains the yeti-adventure ride we both loved to bits

went on a safari ride within disney, that would kick night safari's ass, day or night.

disneyland, the happiest place on earth

part of Universal Studio Orlando, where Harry lives.

visited hogwarts, magical =)

loved the harry potter ride, even tho i got so dizzy after that

some other crazy rides, like the hulk rollercoaster on the left, and free fall towers on the right

the hulk ride in action. most exciting ride ever.

lots of photo ops in comic strip land.

first sunrise at the cruise to bahamas

second sunrise, with clearer skies and a bigger sun

our jeep ride to the most beautiful places in grand bahama

gorgeous beach, gorgeous weather, goegeous babe

new york, no place like it on earth


"give me liberty, or give me death"

times square

central park, where we got lost for 2 hours

叶子的离去，是因为风的追求，还是树的不挽留

cyclist dont need follow traffic light

sunset from empire state building

the city that never sleeps

lots more photos to be uploaded on facebook. but i wanted blog readers to see them first! honored anot!!

and of cos, no honeymoon photo collage would be complete without at least a nice shot of the couple.
except in this case, we have 4 nice shots!

if u r interested, some more of my favourite photos can be seen on my flickr account for now.

Book of Mormon

2012-01-18T12:14:00.001+08:00

Just caught the musical on broadway and it was hilarious!

Humour aside, I had some takeaway from the plot.

A brief summary of the story:

2 new Mormons graduated from the school of Mormon and was sent to Uganda as missionaries.
People there were facing problems like widespread AIDs, and tribal wars, so they didn't care about a religion which could do nothing for them.

Events transpired such that the tribe got so desperate when faced imminent death and decided to give the new Mormon a chance. Except the Mormon who was to share the word with them hasn't read the book of Mormon before cos he thought it was "boring".

After hours of simply reading the book of Mormon to them, as can be imagined, the tribal people lost interest and wanted to walk away. Which was when the missionary improvised: he started making up stories which they can relate to and claiming that the stories he just made up came directly from the book passed down from centuries ago.

The stories gave the people hope, thinking that it came from a god they can relate to, and believing in the promises of a paradise they can go to in the latter days.

Eventually, one of them found out the stories were all lies, but couldn't bring herself to tell the truth to her fellow tribesman and kill their dreams of a god and of paradise. Especially seeing as they were about to die anyway, so it doesn't make much of a difference.

But somehow, armed with that confidence in a totally made-up god, they faced the rival tribe leader who was about to kill them and won him over.

The Mormon headquarters found out and disowned those missionaries as they have warped the real Mormon message to such a great extent.

So the missionaries decided to stay behind and spread their new message to the tribes in Uganda, and brought peace to the land.

The new message is disgustingly funny, including angels descending from the Death Star, and god firing a torpedo at people who don't follow his rules.

But the message really doesn't matter, cos essentially, it taught the people only good things.

I think that is what religion should be like.
People make it too complicated sometimes.

But more importantly, we both enjoyed our once in a lifetime broadway experience tremendously. =)

Different faces of Disney

2012-01-09T10:54:00.001+08:00

It was a magical night. :)
With many faces of the Disney castle

We had a good spot to see the 20 min firework

Realised it is very hard to take photos of fireworks without a tripod :x so gave up after a while.

And we are headed out for supper now!

honeymoon time!

2012-01-06T10:24:00.001+08:00

Just imagine, 2 days from now, we'll be at DisneyWorld!!

and 2 days later, Universal Studios Orlando and.....

THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER!!!

and then 2 days later.. Kennedy Space Centre

and then a four day cruise on board this!

Carnival Cruise Ecstasy

signed up for tours in the cruise

Atlantis Dolphin Shallow Water & Aquaventure

where we'll get to swim with dolphins

and play at this aquaventure park

then... we are going on a Bahamas Jeep Adventure!

which was why i had to get my driving licence in a hurry =X

after that, it is back to New York for 4 days, visiting the standard fare of

(interesting side note about the statue of liberty. it used to be translated as "自由女神" but has since been changed to “自由神像". maybe they decided that she is not really a she afterall.)

hopefully King Kong won't be home

planning to do a pose just like that at times square. =)

hoping to catch a show or 2 at broadway

Central Park

of cos, being winter and everything, it'll more likely look like this..

and much much more!!!!

=) IT IS ALL SO EXCITING!!!!!!!

thank you

2012-01-03T21:06:00.002+08:00

it was the most amazing day for both of us. =)

and it won't have been possible if not for so many people who helped us in all their own different ways.

(disclaimer: i havent gotten any of the photos from my photographers. =X all these are kapo-ed from facebook)

friends who saw my stiff hands trembling while practicing on the unfamiliar keyboard less than an hour before the start of the ceremony and scampered around to find ways to make me more comfortable: higher chairs, better positioning of the mic, trying in vain to make me more relaxed, i apologise, for i might not have adequately expressed my gratitude that day, but it made a huge difference, knowing there will always be friends like you, cheering me on.

(side note: a standard full-sized keyboard which i had practised the last 8 months on, has 88 keys. the 1 that was available that day had 76. and for a noob like me who played according to memory of the position of the keys, it made a huge difference)

and to friends who told me in no certain terms that i would regret it for the rest of my life if i chickened out on the item minutes before it began. thank you.
of cos, the one who promised never to let me forget it if i had wasted all her efforts in doing up the montage.

in all honesty, this has not been an easy wedding to plan. and we know how much time and effort went on before it even began. friends who worked into the wee hours for the carpet and brooches, friends who travelled across the island and back to stuff their cars full of equipment, and the friend who carried a board twice her size and walked across town.

yes. a petite woman carried that big-ass backdrop across town.

the whole day was a dream come true for us, in so many ways.
it was exactly like we imagined it, and more.

it was the love of friends who offered their help, some arranged months in advance, some urgently required for hours before the wedding,
but everyone was so ready to jump in and help in whatever ways they could, it touched both of us tremendously.
a particular reply from a dear friend was simply this: "consider it done."
and man, was it done.

friends who offered to physically make a chalkboard by looking up online on how it was done, after hearing that we have problems finding chalkboards in singapore.

just look at the board. ignore the message

the friend who found out we didnt have an angbao box and searched all across singapore to make us the unique letterbox angbao box.

friends who reached early to help prepare and do up the place so nicely

so to all our very very dear friends, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for the part you played in making our big day a perfect one. =)

i was telling a friend who claimed he did nothing, that if nothing else, the fact that i noticed the huge smile on his face as he was excitedly cheering for us when we marched past him in the ballroom, that made all the difference in the world for us:

to know that we were surrounded by people who love us,
to know that we were sharing the moment with people whom have shaped our lives,
to know that we were in the company of friends who will continue walking with us on this journey as we stepped into the next chapter of our lives.

i doubt words can ever adequately express my gratitude,
but it is my sincere hope that time will. =)

thank you, our very dear friends.

socialism

2011-12-30T13:58:00.000+08:00

saw this article on facebook and i thought it is an excellent read. =)

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

the samaritan

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000+08:00

my car is due for servicing tomorrow, and i had this brilliant idea to check off my long list of errands using only public transport.

such great plans they were too, i would tweet and take photos along the way, and hope i would be so lucky as to be on the train that breaks down so i can update my facebook while strolling along the MRT tunnels, or smash a window or 2 for ventilation when the train is stuck somewhere.

so this was my intended schedule:

- send car in for servicing at bukit timah.
- make way to clementi interchange (bus/walk)
- drop off 3 cheques at POSB
- make payment for credit card at UOB
- meet friend for lunch at commonwealth mrt (mrt)
- head to bugis to pass some cards to gf (mrt)
- get to Traffic Police Department at Ubi to make a replacement driving licence.

and that was when i hit the first hitch of my plan.

where is Ubi MRT station? why is Ubi so ulu?

should i walk from paya lebar to A? it looks a bit far.

or how do i get to MacPherson? CC = Circle Line? i think gf mentioned before that Bugis is some sort of interchange? or was that Bras Basah?
can i go direct from Bras Basah to MacPherson?
is it walkable? from MacPherson to Ubi Ave. 10?

so i gave up and posted on facebook "can anyone lend me a car tomorrow?"

now, i wasn't really expecting a reply, or any useful replies, but the spate of comments that followed got me thinking.

the responses fell into a few categories:

first category

1. i can help you, but.... he can help you even better
2. i can help you, but.... i am sure you won't want my help, so i won't offer
3. i can help you, but.... it's too much trouble, so i'm just gonna make a joke about all of it.
4. i can help you, but.... i don't trust you.

second category

1. i cannot help you, but if i could, i would.
2. i cannot help you, but i am not sure if you would do the same if the roles were reversed, so i am not sure if i would.

third category

1. ok.

just like the story of the good samaritan, the offer to help came from the most unexpected source, which made it all the more significant.

have this weird urge to really get the car from the friend. =P just to see if he meant it.
but that would mean giving up the chance to maybe break a few windows on the MRT.

so that's a tough choice.

it did really get me thinking, if the roles were reversed, which category will i fall into?
and it is with a lot of shame that i admit it would most likely category 1.

i guess it is true.. we really do we reap what we sow =P

徒勞無功

2011-12-27T09:25:00.004+08:00

人生本來就有很多事是徒勞無功的啊

1 of the famous quotes from 《那些年》

a couple of things happened over this xmas long weekend that really reminded me of that verse.

firstly, a friend who was supposed to be in our church's christmas drama fell down during the final rehearsal hours before the first show. and got hospitalised.
thankfully, it appears to be nothing serious. but it meant months of rehearsals that lasted till 3, 4am went down the drain just like that.

visited him in the hospital and i could honestly feel his pain.
(and not just because of the $10 parking fee i paid for less than 2 hours of parking)
tho i suppose like Calvin's father would say, experiences like these build character.

then, met up with friends for thanksgiving, and it reminded me of the friendships that gf and myself have built with people along the years. it really warms my heart to have people come up to me and offer advice or help for our wedding.

there are times i feel bad that i have to ask people to go out of their way to collect some stuff or run some errands for the wedding or to help with some ushering duty during the matrimony, and it's so touching when friends are so willing and excited to help.

we might not always see or remember the seeds we sow, and then slowly, without us noticing, one day, we are shocked to find that before us stands this tall, magnificent tree called friendship.

cheesy ttm.
i can go tcs be scriptwriter.

last official day of work for 2011 before i go on leave. =) happy holidays everyone!

我要...

2011-12-23T10:39:00.000+08:00

can't even remember if i blogged about this before..

when colleagues asked me what they can get me as a wedding gift, i thought about it long and hard, and then i told them seriously.

我要... 幸福.

幸福一斤多少钱?

i think wedding preparations are a serious test on relationships and friendships.

got upset when we got back the RSVP list.
some friends who told me they would be attending our wedding just backed out, without having the courtesy of letting us know directly that they won't be able to make it.

got agitated when things were not done the way i anticipated.
and i am slowly finding out that nothing will go the way it's planned in a wedding.

got touched when friends go out of their way to make sure things go smoothly for us.

anticipating all the different things that can go wrong.
occupational hazard.

as a construction worker, i simply cannot just accept answers such as "we'll settle on that day" or "we'll solve this problem when it comes along".
in my experience, that means either
1. that thing is not settled and just omitted on that day, leading to its own set of problems
2. that thing is done in a seriously cock up way.

got very pissed at a project manager who did everything last minute, and every day, for 2 weeks came up to me and told me he needs additional resources cos something on his site is urgent.
my point to him is very simple
i can understand when we miss things out during the planning stage, or unexpected problems pop out,
but if everyday i am hearing that you need extra resources because everything is urgent, it just shows you are not very good at managing the project.

to me, a project manager's role is to anticipate problems and solve it BEFORE it becomes urgent. if you are only highlighting it to me WHEN it becomes urgent, i don't need you at all. cos when it is urgent, the client will automatically jump on my back, with or without your existence.

=P i know i am not the easiest person to work for.
the HR aunty was quite shocked when i told her i want to issue a letter of warning with intention to sack someone. she actually told the poor dude "the weiyang i know very nice 1, so i don't know what you did to piss him off so bad, but you better start working harder."

9 days to the wedding.
我要....
冷静.

NUTS

2011-12-22T09:46:00.001+08:00

there was this debate going on Radio 1003 the other day with regards to this incident

the point of debate is not whether the person should or should not have broken the train window, but rather the reaction to his actions.

should he have been commended for thinking out of the box? would that encourage people to break windows every single time the train stops?

should he be fined? reprimanded?

did he consider the possible repercussions of his actions? e.g. there could be carbon monoxide or other poisonous gases in the tunnel that could cause everyone in the cabin to die a slow and painful death.

the official response from SMRT is merely this: that they will not "pursue" the matter, or seek out the person who broke the window, i.e. won't make him pay for it.

the person has since then stood up and said that he did consider about the possible harmful gases in the tunnel, but the cabin was getting too stuffy and people were feeling faint from the lack of oxygen.

so he made the decision, he got the other passengers to stay away from the window, and used the fire extinguisher to break the window while another passenger used a handphone as a torch so they can see what they are doing.

it is not like what some headlines described "Angry Commuters Smashed MRT Train Window"

personally, i feel the person should be applauded.
for too long, singapores have been suffering the No U-Turn Syndrome (NUTS), famously coined by Creative founder Sim Wong Hoo.

did you know that previously in Singapore, U-turns are ONLY allowed on roads with the U-turn sign?

watchdog to give summons

according to him, in most other countries, drivers are allowed to U-turn on all roads, other than roads with No U-Turn signs.

it shows the different culture in Singapore, that we only do what we are told to do. and we don't bother to think for ourselves whether it is safe to do a U-turn.
and perhaps more importantly, that the authorities doesn't trust us to make that decision for ourselves.

smash windows. think out of the box. =)

the different funnies

2011-12-21T09:55:00.002+08:00

there are a few kinds of funny in the world.

1. some things are funny because it is untrue.

question: what color is spiderman?
answer: white, because it is 白-的-man

question: who is the most helpful cartoon character?
answer: 小叮当, cos he always 伸出圆(援)手

everyone knows spiderman is blue and red,

and everyone knows the most helpful cartoon character is little miss helpful.

but the answers are funny exactly because they are untrue.

if i asked
"why did the chicken cross the road"

and told you the answer was
"cos the other side got food and this side don't have"

or
"cos this side got a cat"

it is very logical but just not funny at all.

2. some things are funny because they are (somewhat) true.

Men are like......

.....placemats
they only show up when there's food on the table.

.....mascara
they usually run at the first sign of emotion.

.....bike helmets
they're good in emergencies but usually just look silly.

.....government bonds
they take so long to mature.

.....copiers
you need them in reproduction but that's about it.

so when i see so much hooha over 1 photo, i get amused. are people really upset over this photo?

yes, the photo is real, and not photoshopped, but it is clear that it was all done in the name of good fun.
if anything, i think she is being quite a good sport by placing herself in such a situation.

then again, she probably did not foresee the breakdowns, or the leakage of this photo, and how it can become a field day for social media and tabloids.

still, i can't imagine people getting angry because of this photo. which is just crazy.

i think we all need to lighten up a bit. otherwise it just kills humour.

everyone knows this is not true, cos 1. very hard to climb staircase in a 轿子, and 2, very hard to squeeze all into elevator.

and everyone knows this can't be real, cos angry birds fly, they dun take MRTs.

so no one really needs a detailed explanation on why we shouldn't compare men to placemats or mascaras or anything.....

other than bank accounts
because without a lot of money they don't generate a lot of interest.

will you be my 8072?

2011-12-20T10:00:00.001+08:00

沈佳宜!!!

light and darkness

2011-12-19T11:59:00.001+08:00

i like christmas. it has a very magical feel about it. probably because it's 6 days from the end of the year, so everyone wants to have a good ending, and looking forward to an even better beginning.
a fresh start.

forgot when it started to be a tradition, but i really enjoy the annual candlelight service held by my church.

the whole atmosphere is filled with love, warmth, and hope.
and faith to believe that as long as we have God and one another, we'll always be alright.

the 1 service we are encouraged to take out our phones, and cameras, to take photos with our friends and loved ones.

everyone needs god sometime in their lives.
maybe not right now,
and maybe not even the same god i believe in.

but whenever,or if ever, you feel you want to know more about Jesus and my church, i'm always happy to show you around.

never perfect, but always trying

what it means to be a man

2011-12-16T09:03:00.001+08:00

yesterday, i learnt that it means having to overcome your fears to protect the woman.

and no, not by making a threatening video and posting it on youtube.
definitely not by encouraging your foe to drink more milk cos it contains calcium that makes your bones strong.

so here's what happened:

i was happily playing computer when gf ran out of the toilet, and jumped onto my lap, claiming to see a giant lizard with spots in the toilet.
and told me to get rid of it.

if you know me at all, there are only a few things i am afraid of in this world,
1. ghosts,

2. cockroaches,

3. rats,

4. zombies,

5. vampires,

6. werewolves,

7. psychopaths,

8. crying women,

(ok i sian le. posting pictures take up a lot of time)

9. horror movies,

(ok i sian le. posting pictures take up a lot of time)

10. sharks,

(ok i sian le. posting pictures take up a lot of time)

11. snakes,

(ok i sian le. posting pictures take up a lot of time)

12. big poisonous spiders

last 1 must have.

and somewhere in the list, are LIZARDS.

they are eeky and slimey.
i once stepped on 1 accidentally, barefooted, and it was cold, and yucky.

worst part, you can't kill them like you kill a cockroach, cos technically, they are good, cos they eat insects.
and they dun die as easily or cleanly.

back to the story
she threw the "you are a man, so you must go get rid of it", poke my male ego, knowing the male ego can't stand poking. no choice, i had to step up to the plate and do what has to be done.

LOL. random pic of male ego. geddit?

first, i thought about what i used to do when there were lizard problems in the past.
but that wasn't helpful,
cos the maid is probably asleep, and it is not very manly to get her to come up and rescue us.

then i decided it is best to just projectile weapons instead of melee weapons, cos at least then i'll have an advantage over it.
(for the un-initiated: projectile weapons are like magic missiles, you can stand at the distance and fire. melee weapons are like swords, you have to fight at close range)

so i went to get the can of insecticide.

it was at this point me and gf had a long discussion about whether lizards are insects. i think she has the understanding that pests = insects, which means rats are probably insects to her. but no, the definition of insects are creatures with 6 legs.
and no, spiders are not insects. they are arachnids cos they have 8 legs. (wow i know this without googling. nerd alert)

anyway, irrelevant discussion.

between spraying insecticide on the lizard and jumping, screaming like a girl, and running away in the opposite direction whenever the lizard made the slightest movement, bit by bit, we chased the lizard into the shower area.

interesting fact: insecticide might not kill a lizard, but it takes away a lizard's ability to climb walls.
something to remember next time a radioactive lizard bites someone and transforms him into a super hero/villian.

suddenly, a brilliant idea hit me.
i grabbed the showerhead, turned the water to the hottest temperature, and tried to boil/drown the lizard, whichever comes first.
that's the thing about being cold-blooded (yes, lizards, like snakes, are reptiles, which are cold-blooded), it doesn't take very hot water to boil them alive.

the amount of general knowledge i have is astonishing, isn't it? and all while i am facing 1 of my most dreaded creatures.

long story short, (a bit too late for that, i know), eventually it boiled to death, i opened up the cover where water flows down (can't rem the name), and the body got flushed down the pipe.

and once again, the man saves the day. =)

失宠

2011-12-14T08:56:00.000+08:00

yesterday, when gf came over, my mother passed her a gift from 1 of my mother's friends.

the thing is, how come it is OUR wedding, but the gift is only for HER? a bit the not fair right?

she claims that i can use it if i want. but it is a women's watch lo!!! ZZzzz... so please, if you are giving gifts, it has to come in a pair!
otherwise it'll cause conflict.
mainly from me.

then later during the night, my mother came and gave her a bowl of bird's nest porridge!
since when people use bird's nest to make porridge?!?!
so ridiculous.

看来我在家的地位不保了.

*叹气*

passport

2011-12-13T11:26:00.003+08:00

omg. i got my passport.

i can't believe i chose that photo. i think it's a big mistake.

and i can't believe ICA approved it.

they are so going to make me do squats whenever i go malaysia, and conduct a full body cavity search when i go USA.

and no, i am not going to show it here.

if you could be someone for a day...

2011-12-09T09:07:00.001+08:00

so a friend went for an interview, and this was the question she was given:

if you could be someone, anyone, for a day, who would you be? and why?

her answer, which i think is bimbotic, was

Celine Dion.

cos she sings so well, and i love to sing.

and the best part, after giving her answer, she laughed to herself.
in front of the interviewers.

she asked me the same question, before she told me her answer, and without hesitation,
my answer was

Hebe.

cos then I can see myself naked everyday.

of cos, at that point, i didn't realise that she meant for the question to be replied to in front of a panel of 6, 7 interviewers and about 50 other candidates.

in turn, we asked another friend, and her answer was

myself.

cos i am unique. and no one else can ever be me.

personally, i think that is such a "world peace" answer.
boring.

who would you be? if you can be anyone for a day?

phototaking debacle

2011-12-08T09:58:00.001+08:00

yesterday, girlfriend posted on twitter that a month from now, we'll be on our way to new york. =)

and it struck me, "eh, i tot need the new biometric passport to go?" *panic*

so i asked a friend, searched online, and realised that

1. SHIT!! I NEED THE NEW PASSPORT!!!
2. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE 1?!?!
3. WHAT IF I CAN'T MAKE IT IN TIME TO GO THE TRIP??!?!?!?

thankfully, my friend reassured me that we no longer need to go down to ICA and queue for hours to make a passport. everything can be done online, and usually takes no more than 2 weeks.

so we went home, and realised that we need a passport photo. the following are all the photos we took.

rejected. need white background.

rejected. girlfrend took too long to press the shutter

rejected. i look too happy.

rejected. i look like a psycho.

rejected. why i so fat?

rejected. i scratched my forehead. now i look like harry potter

rejected. need to wait for harry potter scar to disappear.

rejected. girlfriend went to run errands, i自拍 fail.

rejected. i tried to do the upwards angles thing so i look slimmer. but i end up looking like a girl.

rejected. got the white line behind.

eh shit. i forgot which of the above i sent as the actual photo.

questions and answers

2011-12-07T11:05:00.001+08:00

i read a quotation once before that says you can always tell more about a person from the questions he asks than the answers he gives.

and i proved how true that is to girlfriend over the past few days. =)

we suspected someone was hiding something. or rather, i did. so very cleverly, i posted a 似懂非懂 status on my facebook, which thankfully generated enough attention for the person in question to take note of.

and she tried to casually ask me about it. and i found it very hard to keep a straight face as i deflected the question, claiming it was in reference to some other matter.

if i had asked her, i am very sure she won't tell us, cos she is probably sworn to secrecy.

but through that question, we know that she knows, and she is probably still wondering how come we know.
and the best part is, she can't ask me more without telling me even more!!!

=) i think i will make a brilliant detective. and i'm very happy for my dear friends!!!!

attended a meeting with some suppliers, and i had to act like i knew what was going on even though i was dragged in halfway. so instead of making some big speech to show off how much i know, which is not much, i did the smarter thing:

i asked a very intelligent question someone once asked me about the subject matter that i could not answer.

=)

something my 1st supervisor at work taught me,
if your subordinate asks u a question that u duno how to answer, just keep serious face, look straight at him, and ask
"what do you think we should do?"

1. it doesnt say that we don't know what to do.
2. and he might take it to mean that we respect his experience and input.

we might not always have the best answers, but we can always ask clever questions.

compliments & love languages

2011-12-06T09:14:00.001+08:00

generally speaking, there are 5 love languages, or ways through which a person feels loved, and appreciated:

1. Physical Touch
person feels most loved when hugged, etc.

2. Gifts
person feels most loved when receiving gifts

3. Quality Time
person feels most loved when spending quality time with people.

4. Words of Affirmation
person feels most loved when people praise him, and appreciate his actions with words.

5. Acts of Service
person feels most loved when people do things for him.

the key to building a strong relationship or friendship is to identify how the other person feels loved, and appreciated.
otherwise, it's like 对牛弹琴, or playing piano to the cow, who won't know how to appreciate it.

for example, there is no sense in buying gifts for my mother, cos she has everything she wants. i guess she'd prefer quality time, which i admit i seldom give. =X

how do you feel loved? how do you think your partners/friends feel loved?

for me, it is definitely words of affirmation.

sometime ago, a random guest posted on my tagboard that he/she liked a particular post, and that made me happy for quite sometime.

a week ago, a friend told me that she looks forward to reading my blog everyday. and reading the nonsensical posts i write cheers her up.

yesterday, out of nowhere, another friend commented that she thinks i write better than some famous bloggers. and even though i was sick the whole weekend and yesterday, it was something that i really really appreciated.

disclaimer at this point:
i'm not begging for compliments, and i really don't like it when people say nice things without meaning it, which sadly i have a fair knack of sensing for.

but when people out of the blue come up and tell me they liked something i had spent effort on, especially when it is something which i think i did well in, it brightens me up, to know that it was not for nothing, that somewhere out in the vast cyberspace, there are/is people/a person reading this rojak blog and looking forward to it every (week)day.

so just a shout-out to all my regular readers out there. =)
thank you for taking the few minutes everyday to catch up on my life and my nonsense!
i am not a famous blogger(with sponsored reviews and free tickets to movies), and i will never be.

but thank you so much for making me feel like 1!!!
it means more to me than any of the gifts and perks of being a real famous blogger

giving up

2011-12-05T12:03:00.001+08:00

the famous saying goes something like this
"a champion is not someone who never fails, but someone who never quits"

and for sometime, i've been thinking about if statement is really true..

for example, if michael jordan, instead of playing basketball, tried to play ping pong and failed.
but he is super determined to be the world number 1 ping pong player. so he could very well have tried his whole life and died a mediocre ping pong-er.

instead, what if he realised he wasn't meant to be playing ping pong and quit the sport, to try something else, say... basketball?

i think the key to winning in life, is not in never quitting, but in knowing when to quit.

u know who else agrees with me?

Sun Zi does.

he has this saying "知己知彼，百战不殆", meaning if one knows oneself and knows the enemy, one can fight a hundred battles and not lose.

this is not to be confused with Mao Ze Dong's mis-quote of Sun Zi's saying as
"知己知彼，百战百胜", which means you can fight a hundred battles and win a hundred battles if you know yourself and if you know your enemy.

the subtle but significant difference between the 2 is that Sun Zi is implying that armed with the knowledge about yourself and your opponent, you can pick the right battles. meaning, don't fight those battles that you can't win.

saddened last night to read about the 22 year old runner who collapsed after completing his half-marathon.

1 hour 53 mins and 20 seconds.
super fit.
plays the clarinet.
undergraduate at SMU.

and now...

personally, i don't think there is any shame in giving up.
what is important is what we take away from that experience.
maybe we'll try it again, maybe we won't.
but through the experience, at the very least, we have learnt what we are good at, and what we are not.

做人不可以太执着. 不可以准牛角尖.
有时候，钻得太深，会钻不出来的.

run your own race

2011-12-03T09:30:00.001+08:00

i've never fallen out from a run before.

but then again, i've never tried ~~running~~ completing 42 km before. =X

like the famous saying
"we are here to complete,
not to compete."

OOSH!

World Aids Day

2011-12-01T08:42:00.001+08:00

have you ever wondered what it would be like if one day, you realise someone around you has had AIDS for years, just that you never knew?

what would you do different?

for most of us, we probably know enough about AIDS by now to know that it won't be transmitted through saliva, or physical contact, so it's ok to share food, or watch a movie with someone with AIDS.

but information is 1 thing, and the application of that information, is quite another.

information is useful if used in decision-making process

i only found out recently, thanks to a program on Radio 1003, that medicine has been developed to allow AIDS patients to live longer with greatly improved quality of lives.
in fact, many are living normal lives for years after they have been diagnosed.

which led to my sudden realisation that there could very well be people around us with AIDS that we don't know about.

that got me thinking, would i treat them any different if i knew?

and if even someone like me, who claims to be reasonably informed about the disease could, maybe, subconsciously, somehow behave differently, can we blame them for not coming out of the closet and announcing their condition outright?

find out more about AIDS and what you can do today to raise awareness for AIDS. =)
http://www.worldaidsday.org/

would you treat me different if i told you that i have AIDS?

biting my tongue

2011-11-30T09:29:00.001+08:00

been biting it a lot recently. and i fear 1 fine day it will just drop out.

wasn't the photo i wanted, but too cute not to post

duno how to say, duno what to say, duno if should say.

social media is dangerous.
especially when used as an indirect form of communication.

is your tweet talking about me? my facebook status, was it regarding you?

all the guessing, not good for building relationships.

有话说就当面说，不该说就不要说.

all the parable thing, just leave it to Jesus, ya?
it's almost 2012 (*gasp*), 不流行了

even Jesus has moved on with the times, shouldn't we do the same?

how far are you willing to go?

2011-11-29T09:58:00.001+08:00

this is a post on dedication.

this morning, on my way to work, i witnessed this person who is extremely committed to his beliefs.

here is what happened:

there is this motorcycle on lane 1, and this car in lane 2, wanting to cut into lane 1. but the motorcycle just refused to let the car in, to the extent of speeding up to block the car.

so the car had no choice but to follow behind the motorbike.

i used the wrong shade of blue, but it's actually the same car.

you can imagine how pissed the car driver was, especially when the motorbike purposely slowed down to allow cars to cut in front of him.

so the car, who was either very impatient or in a hurry, cut to the left 3 lanes to try to squeeze in front of the bike. and you have to understand this is peak hour traffic, so it was by no means an easy or safe task.

but, the motorcyclist, being extremely dedicated, sped in front, just to block the car from coming into the first lane. and in doing so, allowed more cars behind it in the 1st lane to move in front.

you can tell it was purely to piss the car off. and they exchanged what i can only describe as a few friendly gestures to commend each other for their commitment to their respective causes.

eventually, the blue car was stuck in the second lane behind a slower moving lorry, and being unable to cut into the first lane due to the motorbike, he lagged behind and disappeared into oblivion.

really, i respect this motorbike guy. he was like 螳臂当车 (praying mantis block the car). but fearless. like david and goliath.

a fine line between stupidity and tenacity.

putting his life on the line, for the cause.

for what cause, i am not too sure. and i am not sure he is either.

either way, he won this battle, and lived to tell the tale, for now.

to hebe

2011-11-28T08:46:00.001+08:00

i have been giving it a lot a thought, and as hard a decision as this was to make, i hope you understand that i am doing this for you, as much as it is for me.

like the song goes, "cos baby, sometimes love just ain't enough"

here are 10 reasons why we were never meant to be:

1. your ex-boyfriends are too intimidating. how can i ever compare with jay?

2. you would be busy travelling around for your 宣传s, and we would hardly ever get to spend time together. how then can we expect to build and strengthen the relationship?

3. i enjoy peace and quiet. but with you, it would only be a dream, because the dog reporters would follow you ever where. i cannot imagine having to sit 5 seats apart when watching a movie with my gf. or her having to wear gas masks during our dates.

4. your fans would drive me crazy. the amount of scrutiny i would be under would probably put xiaxue to shame. and while i don't mind going through it for you, i dread to think the impact it would have on your career.

5. i can't stand the thought of other people having huge posters of you in the bedrooms/toilets.

6. what would we talk about? we live in 2 different worlds. me and my singlish, you and your perfect chinese.

7. i will forever be known as hebe's other half.

8. ~~i can never afford the kind of wedding you would want. then again, maybe got sponsorship.~~ i can never enjoy another KTV session. it is way too stressful singing with you.

9. in fact, the whole relationship going to be so stressful it's just crazy. and you'll be forced to make a decision between your dream of being a singer, and love. and it's an impossible decision.
and i refuse to let you go through that.

10. i would have to blog in chinese and use weipo instead of twitter.
and (i'm guessing) iphone don't have weipo app. so that was never going to work.

so hebe, i'm sorry, but i'm going to have to let you go...

But there's a danger in loving somebody too much,
and it's sad when you know it's your heart you can't trust.
There's a reason why people don't stay where they are.
Baby, sometimes, love just aint enough.

room =)

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000+08:00

passion

2011-11-24T12:54:00.001+08:00

was talking to a photographer friend and he was lamenting about how his work hours are never fixed and that he doesn't have a social life anymore cos he would be working most weekends, covering events etc.

which prompted the response from me that

"at least you are doing something you love, and getting paid for it"

that is rare. when the trinity meets.

1. something you love
2. something you are good at
3. something ppl would pay you to do.

if you are ever lucky enough to find something right smack where the 3 intersects, grab on to it and never let go.

conversation led to how i became a construction worker.
i am no good at what i do.
and i don't think "love" is a good word to use to describe the way i feel for this industry.
but i am getting paid for it.

i guess sometimes life happens.

i have this crazy friend. i label him as crazy because he is. he works as i don't know what, and he spends nearly every waking hour obsessing over k-pop.

and mind you, he is not a geek. he has a master's, and is senior management at a MNC, earning waaaay more than me.

so he flies to korea to attend those concerts, bringing with him banners and ply cards and everything.

while i can't help but poke fun at him about it everytime we meet,
i really admire his passion. albeit for something as brainless and pointless as K-Pop.

maybe he will grow out of it, like most people do in their teens (regular joke i use on him),
but what is important is the passion.
passion is fuel for our soul.
the thing that keeps us going.

i think it is important to feel that passion for something, or for someone.
otherwise, we are no more than zombies, walking around, looking for our next meal.

asterix the wedding coordinator

2011-11-23T09:58:00.001+08:00

who would have thought that i would ever be a wedding coordinator?

or rather, who would have thought that anyone in the right frame of mind would ever trust me to run the most important day of their lives?

the common reaction of friends when i told them about this, is:
1. break out in laughter
2. stare in disbelief
3. asked if the couple made a mistake
4. wished the couple the best of luck.

there was this one friend who actually did all 4.

if nothing else, this is proof that God has a sense of humour.
~~especially considering how i got someone to not just coordinate the day, but to plan my entire wedding for me.~~

went for the wedding rehearsal last week, met up with the officiating pastor. he was very reassuring, telling me the couple that he has done this before many times at the couple's solemnization venue, so he would be able to guide me them along if any last minute thing happens.

after the meeting, i got so nervous that i would screw up their big day i actually wanted to outsource this to someone else, in exchange for 80% of the angbao the couple gives me.
~~but no one wanted to take the offer~~
but i decided to step up to the plate and do the best job i can!

so yesterday ran my first errands:

1. buying wafer and ribena (actually i got someone else to buy this for me, but only because she was in that area =X )

2. buying a set of candles (and i 顺便 got a set for myself. wahaha)

3. arranging to collect the sound system and the wedding box on Friday.

wedding's this Saturday.
hahah i am not sure if this is possible, but i think i am more nervous than the groom.

nightmare

2011-11-22T10:23:00.001+08:00

the saying goes that we must not say our wishes out, if not it would not come true..

so i have decided to share the nightmare i had last night with everyone, so it confirm chop won't happen.

here goes....

i was on a tour to india, with my family, army friends and gary neville.

and for last part of the trip, we visited mongolia.

and at the hotel, i realised that my brothers and my army friends were trying to kill me!

long story short, i had to outwit them and everything. not before i saw them kill gary neville by drugging him and throwing him off a tall building.

then while they went to dinner, i decided to make a run for it. so i had to decide what to take with me.

i chose:

1. my blackberry - even tho i have no more credits in it, so cannot make phone calls.
2. my blackberry charger - cos otherwise i reach back singapore i have to buy a new charger, and i don't know where to buy just the charger
3. my wallet - even tho got no money inside, i figured it's good to have my wallet.

then i ran to the airport. i can still remember how effortless the run was,
and i thought to myself, wah, maybe i really can complete the standard chartered marathon next week.

there was an MRT station opposite the hotel (we are still in mongolia), but i never top up my EZ-link card, so i ran. ran past a 西湖小吃

it was that exact font. i thought about the kong bar bao

but it was closed, and i had no money anyway. so i kept running.

then it hit me!

i left my passport in the hotel room!! how was i going to fly back to singapore without my passport?!??! i wondered if i can go the embassy and get a replacement. but in the end decided to run back to the hotel to find my passport.

it was then i woke up.

so scary.

Resumes

2011-11-21T10:57:00.001+08:00

my company is hiring, so we posted an ad on jobsdb.

it was frustrating, and hilarious, and exasperating at the same time.

so, here are some of the things you should not do when responding to a job ad online.

disclaimer: i am no HR expert, so these are purely personal opinions.

1. Just respond once.

honestly, this is not some persistent prayer thing. if i didnt reply to your email, means i not interested.
STOP FLOODING MY INBOX WITH YOUR RESUMES EVERY OTHER DAY!!!!!

2. If you are not even in the same country, and not willing to fly in just for an interview, don't waste my time reading through your entire 50 page C.V.

cannot be you expect me to hire you based purely on what is written there right? unless you are bill gates or someone famous. or jay chou.

3. Don't put your hobbies in your C.V.

you would be paid to work, i don't care what you do in your free time, unless your hobby is "working very hard to earn more money for the company".

your hobbies would just be made fun of.

like this guy, who stated his hobbies as "Swimming, Reading, Surfing Net. Shopping"

my first response "WHERE GOT GUYS LIKE SHOPPING DE?!?! MUST BE GAY!!!"
and girlfriend's first response "surfing net?! more like surfing porn!!!!!"

ya. so don't put ur hobbies. we don't care. you not applying to be matchmade.

4. Get the job appointment correct.

says a lot about your reading and comprehension abilities when i advertised for an engineer and you come tell me you looking for a job as an accountant.

5. If you don't have good references, don't put.

this applicant best. put his referee as the admin girl in his previous company.
i mean u wan to put the admin, then at least have the sense to not put her job title mah. i might guess that she is the CEO or something.

6. Educational background has to stop somewhere.

i am not going to hire you based on your PSLE results or which Primary School you came from. so take it out.
i don't like having my 0.2seconds wasted even glancing through that 3 lines.
it shows you don't value my time, or you don't have more interesting things to put in so have to anyhow whack crap in.
kills off my interest immediately.

to be continued....

food tasting

2011-11-19T08:30:00.000+08:00

i thought it would just be a regular dinner

but this was what greeted us at the lift lobby

the menu

beyond the food, they actually set up 3 tables in the room, from which we were to choose the table settings for the actual day

white table cloth with napkin holder

ivory table cloth with double fan napkin

bronze table cloth with birds of paradise napkin

who ever thought there were so many decisions to be made for a single dinner. =X

food tasting, gown fitting, etc.

2011-11-18T13:09:00.001+08:00

so exciting..

weddings are quite fun.. i can see why people get married..

=)
doing the food tasting tonight,
buying the rings next week,
choosing the gowns week after,
meeting the entourage,
sending out the invites..

and i think my job for the wedding is done.

oh, gotta plan the sitting arrangements also.

i think among all the money spent in the wedding, the wedding planner was the most worth it.

can plan taiwan itinerary,
can do make up in taiwan,
can help find emcee
can find keyboardist,
can bug the church wedding person for stuff,
can choose interpreter,
can find song leaders,
can settle all the entourage costumes,
can work out the whole schedule,
can find people to do deco,
can find people to do make-up, change hair do,
can print/write the names of the invitiation cards for me,
can pester the stupid cookie lady,

gosh, the list quite long.

i'm getting married in like X (lazy to count) days.
so exciting and scary at the same time.

dreams vs. reality

2011-11-17T14:40:00.001+08:00

this morning, on the way to work, i suddenly remembered that a colleague had called me yesterday to request that i conduct a site inspection at SGH.

so i key-ed it into my blackberry, and after clearing my emails and other misc. stuff, i drove down to the site.

when i reached the site, i gave him a call, and he just sounded very confused. he claimed he never called me, and there is no site inspection to be conducted.

at that moment, it struck me that i MIGHT have dreamt up the whole conversation, and embarrassedly told him i might have mixed up my appointments.

then, i thought i should check my recent calls, and i found that he never called me at all yesterday. =X

and at that moment, i recalled that in the same dream where i had the conversation with said colleague, i was also munching on a burger while screaming at some random workers who went lunch 15 minutes before they were supposed to.

=.="'

on a separate note, we got our wedding photos yesterday and they are gooooorrgeeeeoooussssssss!!! =D

Langkawi

2011-11-16T09:44:00.001+08:00

1 of the perks of the process of getting married is to get friends together to do stuff we've never done before.

so using the excuse of having a bachelor's night, or now more stylo-ish-ly known as stag's night, i got my army buddies to go with me to Langkawi for holidays!

we've known one another for more than 10 years now, and never been on a trip together outside of army. so it is as good a time as any for a first.

as you can probably imagine, holding on to the camera means i don't have much photos, and turns out. i don't have any at all. cos the 2 times someone(kelvin) took over my camera to take a photo with me in it, the shots were so ugly i deleted them straight away.

our accomodation. very nice, with 2 connecting rooms means we were constantly shouting at one another across rooms.

1 of the 1st things we did was to try to find "Yuan Spa", the spa owned by Jessica Liu

someone told me that all langkawian girls look like her, and gosh, how that turned out to be a lie.
so we were hoping at least her masseuses would look like her. but sadly, still no.

you would think that army-trained guys would be better at reading maps.

1 guy was looking at the map and leading the way, assuring us that we are on the right track.
another was looking at the map and checking that the first guy was right.

half an hour later, none of us knew where we were.

pissed, blank, amused

and by pure luck, while heading back to some place we recognised on the map, we realised we were standing in front of the spa. =.=""

the beaches are beautiful.

we took a cable car ride to the top of 1 of the mountains about 700m above sea level (peak of bukit timah is about 100m)

quite scary when the cable cars were heading upwards at 60degrees.

food there was very cheap. on our last night, we decided to go for an atas dinner to round it off. and so we cabbed to the most expensive-looking place on the island.

at the end, it worked out to be less than S$20 pax.

overall, a lot of fun with great company. =)

4 years

2011-11-11T09:46:00.001+08:00

this morning's conversation.

background:

we are going to Lawry's for dinner tonight cos i redeemed some vouchers with my DBS points, and the vouchers are with her.

this morning, on my way to work, i suddenly felt like i should remind her to take those vouchers out.
(purely out of the goodness of my heart, and not because she has a tendency to forget things like that)

so our sms conversation went like this:

"Pls rem to bring vouchers" (author's note: hey, i was driving lo. so cannot type long messages right? sweet and to the point)
"Nope. That's not the first thing to say on 11th nov."
"Wahaha happy anniversary!"

*5mins with no reply*

decided to risk my life and call her while driving, even though it is an extremely dangerous act.
(motto: always put out fires early. 打铁要趁热，救火要趁早)

turned out she doing make-up, no time to entertain me.

=)

happy four years anniversary!!

thanks for always believing in me, and putting up with me. =)

perspective

2011-11-10T10:51:00.002+08:00

so on the 1st of August 2011, a date i will always remember, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

and you can imagine what a shock it was to everyone, considering how he never smoked, seldom drank, exercised regularly, and for most parts was careful about what he ate.

if there ever should be a commercial on active lifestyles, he should have starred in it.
Tuesdays, he would go swimming.
Wednesdays/Thursdays, he would play badminton,
Sundays, he would go hiking at Bukit Timah.

and he doesn't even do those stuff like you imagine a 60 year old man would.
he always aimed to beat his previous timing, get another point, swim an additional lap.

but life is what it is.

for the initial period, my mother lived in a constant state of disbelief.
how can a person who lives the way he does get cancer, and worse still, lung cancer?!

the question she kept asking was, "how is it possible? how is it fair?"

until today, i overheard her saying, "instead of thinking about how unfair it is, maybe we should be glad he has such a healthy lifestyle. because that would increase his chances of beating this thing."

you see, life is all about perspective.

we can't change the past, that much we know for sure, until someone invents a time machine.
but we can hold on to the belief that we might still be able to shape the future.

sunset at no man's land

2011-11-08T13:03:00.001+08:00

first time so many ppl "like" my photo. must show off here.

taken while stuck in the jam at the causeway on the way back to Singapore.

our room =)

2011-11-04T09:33:00.000+08:00

finishing touches


cupboards

Bed & TV area

Computer area

Piano & Guitar area

Toilet

so exciting. =) everything will be ready by tomorrow, and i can start moving my things in over the weekend!

must choop space before gf moves her stuff in.

courage

2011-11-03T09:07:00.001+08:00

(decided to finally write something proper)

been a crazy week so far, to the extent i didn't realise coming monday is another PH, till someone mentioned it yesterday when we were discussing some schedules.

i keep coming across the term "courage" these few days, (most likely because it was preached over the weekend)

one thought i had on it was that it takes courage to make the right decision. and often, we don't realise that in not making a decision, we have actually made our decision, which is to do nothing. not necessarily a bad decision, but still, a decision.

so what triggered this thought?

1. the Greece Situation.

i think it is ridiculous that, as leaders, the government refuse stand up in this crucial time and make the right decision, unpopular as it might be, and instead choose to pass the buck along, to the people, no less.
yes, everyone has learnt through personal experience that the right decision is often not the easy decision, and in this case, probably a downright impossible 1, but it was still 1 that had to be made.
if every big decision was to be left to the people, the question arises, why do we bother with a government to begin with?
reminds me of the quote i heard from army
大事我做不了主
小事不要来烦我，

and the 1st situation linked to the 2nd situation, which directly affected me

2. stock market

all along, i consoled myself, as long as i dun sell it, i am only making paper loss. until a friend reminded me over dinner that when an area is affected, we need to cut it off, before it spreads and affects other areas as well.

so i did. and the next bloody day, Dow Jones shot up 300 points.

story of my life.

anyway, life's like that. and if nothing else, this year i have learnt to make decisions, big and small.
it's scary, when there's no one to seek approval from, and more importantly, no one to hide behind. so whatever consequence of my actions, or lack thereof, will come back to me.

maturity does not come naturally with age, or experience.
maturity comes with the acceptance of responsibility.

i remember this thing my dentist told me, that i can either pluck out my wisdom teeth at a time of my choosing, at a time of my convenience, or i can wait till it hurts that so much that i have to extract the tooth however inconvenient it might be.

we either make decisions, or we let life, or other people, make it for us.

then the question becomes, do we have the courage to make the right decision?

Singapore Kindness Movement: Say Thanks! Pass it On!

2011-11-02T09:41:00.001+08:00

i very pro-singapore movements 1.

and so yesterday after seeing all the tv commercials, i had this uncontrollable surge of gratitude, which resulted in this status!

=)

and so to all my readers,

THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG!!

1 step closer.

2011-11-01T08:44:00.004+08:00

2 more months. so scary.

Waterloo Street aka 四马路

2011-10-30T21:34:00.004+08:00

on saturday, while waiting for girlfriend to get off work, i roamed the streets of 四马 with my camera.

street photography is really not easy.
on 1 hand, i don't want to be beaten up because i offended some people by taking their photographs without their knowledge.
on the other hand, i also don't want to walk up to strangers and ask if i can take their photos. it kills the candidness and genuinity(is there such a word?) of the moment.

was talking with a couple of friends over lunch about what sort of shots we like to take.
some prefer photos of beautiful scenery, architecture, landmarks.

personally, i enjoy capturing the moment. expressions, actions, activities.
because those, i feel, are once in a lifetime.
with scenery, etc, chances are that hundreds of people have already taken glorious photos, nicer than i can ever manage, and thousands more will do it after i leave that place. so unless i can bring a whole new interpretation to that scenery, otherwise, most of the time i don't really bother with it.

or food.
i am not a huge food fan. i never know what to do with photos of food. for a while, i did take photos of them, until i realised that looking back, those are the 1s i really couldn't care less about. so i stopped.

so without further ado, the few photos i took that i was happy with =X

cute tourist. =)

the off-duty trishaw uncle

回家

do good. eat healthy. help the poor. defend the weak.

unicorn

2011-10-28T08:56:00.000+08:00

a bit slow, but i only watched the 2nd episode of Glee yesterday.

and i really liked the concept of "unicorn" introduced in it.

that all of us are unicorns.
we are special,
we are unique,
we are mystical.

people might not get us,
people might not believe in us,
but that is no reason for us not to believe in ourselves.

embrace the unicorn within.
don't try to cut away your horn, that which makes you special, so you can blend in with the rest of the boring horses.

you are given a gift. don't throw it away just because you want to belong.
write your own play.

i need to learn photoshop

my deepavali

2011-10-27T10:51:00.003+08:00

i had grand plans.

took my camera out, went on circle line to holland village.

but people were staring at my camera and i felt awkward. so i ended up shooting with instagram instead. =X

one-north

orderly singaporeans

crowded trains

climb the rainbow stairs to fitness

do you want?

FIVE TIMES!!


Horlend veeeelich!!

back again that night for drinks

this saturday. this saturday i promise i will bring out and USE my 60D.

friends

2011-10-25T09:24:00.001+08:00

doing the guest list really made me think about this a lot.

i suppose part of this invitation process is to meet up with people i haven't seen for ages, just to catch up before giving them the red bomb. so at least i don't feel that bad.

yesterday met up with a few JC friends. we meet once a year, always during chinese new year. and every year during that meet up, we would promise to meet more often, instead of only once a year.
and the next year, we'll meet up again during chinese new year, amd make the same promise. =P

it's funny like that, and we would have fun laughing, making fun of one another, just like we used to more than 10 years ago *gasp*

old orlehdi.

there was this thing 1 of them said. she said that actually when we look back, we realise that all of us turned out exactly how we thought we would in JC.

and her takeaway from that, was that we are all very genuine people.

quite looking forward to more of such meet ups. =)

1-6

2011-10-23T23:20:00.001+08:00

life is like that.

came home.
had my 2nd beer in 2 weeks since that day cos i didn't know what else to do.

and the sun will rise tomorrow morning, and life will go on.

原来只是一场梦

2011-10-21T14:53:00.001+08:00

wedding invitations

2011-10-20T10:00:00.000+08:00

it's just so much work.

having to work through the list, sms-ing them 1 by 1.

there are people i am almost ashamed to invite cos i haven't seen them for ages, but would REALLY like to see them there. and i am so happy when most of them agreed to come =)

then people i thought would be excited to come, but for various reasons can't be there.
quite a bummer, those.

suddenly realise that october is coming to an end.
means i am getting married in 2 mths time.
so scary.

best part is i have friends/colleagues coming to me and telling me they have already bought new dresses/tops to be worn during my wedding, and i have to tell them the bride hasn't even chosen what she is going to wear on that day, yet.

and rings, we need to buy rings.

the 1 ring to rule them all.

asterix the lemonade maker

2011-10-19T09:44:00.000+08:00

a line this guy repeated from "Fringe" got stuck in my head, "Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go"
it was harder than i thought, telling a friend what i am going through. but it was something i had to do eventually. previously i hid behind smses, emails, or ignored the issue completely.
if i don't tell people, i don't have to think about it. if i don't have to think about it, maybe it isn't real.

last night, out of the blue, i remembered how tuesday nights used to be like.
now it seems like a lifetime ago.

she was right, however hard i think it is for me, someone else is having it a lot worse. not that i should take comfort in another person's suffering, but just that i should learn to appreciate what i have.

and also understand life is all about either dodging lemons or making lemonade.

to succeed in life, you either be damned good at one or the other.

sex education in china

2011-10-18T11:10:00.003+08:00

=) wholesome education for primary school students in China

good? bad?

2011-10-18T08:53:00.001+08:00

a few days ago, a friend was sharing with me something she read over the internet, that in life, maybe we should stop looking at things from a "is it good? or is it bad?" perspective. rationale behind it is that there are a lot of things we don't have control over in life, and what good can come out of determining if it's good or bad?

let's say a bird shit fell right on my head.
so what if immediately i determine as bad? i'll feel cursed and suay for the rest of the day/week/month/year? how would that help things? how would that help decide your subsequent actions?

instead of focusing our attention and energy on the incident, the idea is that we just should look at it and decide how best to move on from there, e.g. go clean myself up in the nearest toilet, and maybe soak some rice in rat poison and leave it at the same spot tomorrow.

for the next few days, i kept thinking about it.
then for the second or third time, she sighed and told me "我以前有个很幸福的家".
and in my mind, i was screaming, SO WHAT? WHY DON'T YOU JUST DO WHAT YOU CAN NOW, INSTEAD OF LOOKING AT OLD PHOTOS, FOCUSING ON PAST AND WONDERING WHY IT HAPPENED?

in life, shit happens.
all we can do is to do what we can.
leave the rest to whatever higher powers we believe in.

good news friday

2011-10-14T10:15:00.002+08:00

juggling

2011-10-13T09:27:00.000+08:00

that is the biggest challenge in life. to achieve a balance.

not that i am a big fan of horoscopes, but it does make for interesting reading in the toilet now and then.. sorta like entertainment news, or pioneer magazines.

heard this on a show, that trick to juggling is not in catching, but in throwing.
throw, throw, throw, throw, throw.

if we focus on the catching, sooner rather than later, we'll realise that we only have 2 hands.
and there are only so many balls we can hold if 2 hands.

random skeletons in the closet

2011-10-12T09:02:00.001+08:00

sometimes, we try to convince ourselves that there is a perfect time to tell things to people. and so we are not so much as procrastinating, as we are waiting.

a friend got attached recently, and i am very very happy for her. =)
and something she said that struck me, was that she wasn't sure when was the right time to tell me. (sounds scandalous)

i'm always happy for friends when they get attached. and good, happy news are always welcome.

got my 1 and only birthday card this year, read it, and was very touched. someone commented before that i don't appreciate birthday cards, that's not quite true. it's just that the content matters to me more than the appearance does. (true of cards, at least)

it is always heart warming to know that someone believes in me. =)

meeting. bye.

Loud Festival

2011-10-11T09:35:00.002+08:00

i was quite close to falling asleep at the start of the loud festival. cos really not very loud. i mean soda green is decent, wen lan is hot, that random girl has really nice legs, and i dun even remember the act(s) inbetween, but fact is, everyone knows everyone is there to watch only 1 person!!!

the moment he came on, everyone went crazy and stood up immediately.

hands were swinging all over the place, it is almost impossible to get a decent shot.

then wenlan came on, and for the first time in gf and my life, we heard the live version of 屋顶 =)

sadly, his set was over too soon.

good bye jielun.. till we meet again =)

在屋顶唱着你的歌，在屋顶和我爱的人..

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

2011-10-06T10:07:00.002+08:00

couldn't believe the news i heard the moment i turned on the radio. and the first thing that came to mind was the commencement speech he gave, about following your dreams, finding what you love, and doing what you love.

"you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

"Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

thank you for all the difference you have made in this world.

link to transcript of entire speech

Mcdonald's Monopoly!

2011-10-05T12:29:00.000+08:00

so it's back this year.. and we~~(ok maybe just me)~~ went a little crazy and started eating mcdonalds at every opportunity..

and this is the result.

to save you the trouble knowing which are the "rare" or "winning" tickets, here's a summary:

1. Joo Chiat Road = $100 worth of movie tickets
2. Toa Payoh = $200 Denizen vouchers
3. Thomson Road = Flowride for 2 (author's note: huh..)
4. Tanjong Rhu = Macbook Air
5. Shenton Way = Trip for 2 to Prague
6. Scotts Road = Trip for 4 to Atlanta + $3000 cash
7. Orchard Road = Car
8. Sentosa Cove = $80,000 Cash

if you get any other property, you can just throw it away. we have tonnes of extras.

then there are the instant wins of cos.. we've won 2 x $30 denizen vouchers, $2 discount off 1 weekend movie ticket (duh), 1 for 1 flowriding (huh?) and misc. mcdonalds stuff like coffee, coke, etc.

looking forward to my 1st "Chance" card which means an instant $100 cash prize =)

but i honestly don't think i can take much more of it......

please let me win soon...

Fullerton Area

2011-10-05T08:04:00.000+08:00

ok, girlfriend tells me the 2nd girl got sharper nose etc. i say she geigao. all same 1 la.

anyway, other random photos taken in the same outing

i told her the flaw in that photo. obviously the angmoh was talking, how come she looking at the malay?

has it always been this obscene?

i also wan something like that! =) can keep, in case i forget when i got married, ~~or who i married~~

the fish damn fierce. i took out my camera and it charged at me, so i snapped.

stripes makes everything look thinner. reminds me of wally. he always looks so skinny.
you know wally?

you're supposed to find him.

缘分?

2011-10-04T09:36:00.000+08:00

do you remember this girl?

took that photo at istana on hari raya.

and over the weekend, we went to Fullerton and took this following photo

i think they are the same girl lo..

and if so, she really got a thing for face paint.

presents

2011-10-03T09:09:00.001+08:00

i love presents. i do.

for me, how much a present means to me has never really been all about the cost (unless it is something super expensive, like a car), but a present shows the thoughts that went behind it, knowing the person sat there having a headache about what to get for me, or even better, the person knowing exactly what to get for me, cos that item is just "so me"

idealistic?
i think so too. nowadays, most people don't even bother with presents, myself included. i do think someone's friendship and an opportunity to catch up can be a very precious gift in itself. that, and a free meal, of course. =)

though this has slowly become the norm, i have never quite gotten used to the idea of telling people exactly what to buy for me.
cos to me, that kills the fun behind a gift.
there is no surprise, and it shows no thought.

so, to solve this problem without offending or showing disrespect to very dear friends who wanted to buy me something, i have directed all of them to girlfriend! =)

she can go have headaches for all of them, thinking about what to buy for me.
and i'll just wait to be surprised!!

how perfect is that?
and as a reward, i told her this "act of service" will count as 1 of the numerous presents i would be expecting from her for my birthday this year. =)

kaboom

2011-09-29T08:16:00.000+08:00

this month's SAF magazine came with this cut out to make a tank. =)

so while shitting, i did.

end product? :)

FWOOM

BOOM

street photography, ask or no?

2011-09-22T13:37:00.002+08:00

takes some getting used to.. not being able to zoom..

anyway gf and me were engaged in this discussion, as to whether it is ok shooting random ppl on the streets..

personally, i enjoy street photography, capturing people when they are most natural..

and her view is that people might not like it and feel offended.. i should ask first before shooting.. then again, asking wouldn't make it natural anymore, right?

似模似样

oh well..

guess shooting objects are the safest.

motion blur sia.

i can go take F1 races already. tho they'll probably be going a bit faster than this taxi was.

family

2011-09-21T10:44:00.000+08:00

we don't choose our family. and i won't abandon mine.

After all that is said and heard, written and read, I have come to the conclusion that we are first and foremost a family. And we don't abandon our family, no matter what.

ohana means family. family means no one gets left behind. or forgotten. - Lilo

Inaugural CaNikon Half-Marathon (CNHM) 2011

2011-09-19T15:30:00.000+08:00

have never been to Haji Lane before yesterday, and so after reading/hearing about it quite extensively through my haji-crazed friends, decided to pay a visit to said lane with my new 50mm. =)

to make up for my missing the Canon Photo-Marathon, we decided to do a little event of our own called the CNHM 2011!

basically, someone would come up with a theme and all of us would walk together and shoot according to that theme and blog about it.

the (very un-original) theme is: Dreams

so here is/are my entry/ies =)

(no one really stated the rules, so i am going to put as many photos as i want)

my dream to be surrounded by 2 best things in the world - gold and icecream

the guy's dream of an alternate universe

the cat's dream of defeating the tiger

a girl's dream to follow in the footsteps of her sister

i really should have more photos of the lane itself =X
need more practice on the 50mm.t

Contagion

2011-09-15T15:08:00.002+08:00

yesterday after work i watched contagion with gf and friend.

i'll never let go Jack.. i'll never let go.

and after the movie, i was quite excitedly trying to explain a few things that happened in the movie.

for example, the idea of placebo drug.
defined by wikipedia as "a sham or simulated medical intervention"

i learnt this term from watching House M.D, when Thirteen (a character in the show) was diagnosed with Huntingon's (an incurable disease)
basically the term is commonly used during a medical trial, doctors would gather a number of patients and test a portion with the real drug they want to test, and then a smaller portion with fake drugs which does nothing in particular. the proportion could be 9 real vs 1 fake, for instance. so in a group of 100 patients to be tested with a new drug, 90 would be actually given the real drug, while 10 would be given the placebo (or fake) drug.

this is because doctors have found that sometimes, it is the thought of taking a new medicine that helps patients recover, when in actual fact, the medicine does nothing at all.
so by including placebo drugs into the test, the doctors can track to see if in general, the patients who are on the actual drug fare better than patients on the placebo drugs. and through that result, decide how effective the drug actually is.

interesting, isn't it?

i thought it was. =X

the 2nd idea i very enthusiastically tried to describe was the Stockholm Syndrome, also briefly shown in the movie.
defined by wikipedia as "a term used to describe a real paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them."

simply speaking, a victim who has been kidnapped might, over time, develop feelings for the kidnapper.
the most surprising fact about this is that research shows more than 1 in 4 kidnapped victims exhibit this syndrome.
(learnt about this from the show Criminal Minds)

so after i very generously tried to share my knowledge on the subjects with the 2 ladies, they just looked at me and told me to stop rambling on.

sigh. 好心没好报.

yes, these 2 ladies.

anyway, interesting video someone linked on facebook. they actually grew bacteria and fungi to make the movie poster! damn cool

name

2011-09-14T10:02:00.002+08:00

i read in a book sometime ago, that the best thing a father can leave his children is a good name.

it was about this son, who recalled how when he went to a provision shop to buy groceries and realised that he didn't have enough money. sheepishly, he asked the shop owner if he could put it on credit and his father would drop by after work to settle the bill.
the shop owner took a look at him, and said, "of course, your father is a good man. take whatever you need."

a few days ago, i was settling some issues with a colleague. and i noticed something quite unique. an empty container very creatively recycled for other purposes which shall not be mentioned.
so i asked him who thought of that, and he told me my father did.

then he went on about how much he respects my father, that among all the different bosses in the different companies he has worked in, my father is the best boss he has ever worked under.
he said that my father would jump into the container to help them unload, or to show people how to do what they say cannot be done, and most importantly, my father always takes care of the workers.

because of that, the colleague said that he is willing to do anything for my father and go far beyond his call of duty, to work late hours, come in during weekends, etc. to make sure the company is well taken care of.

and because i am my father's son, he is willing to support me in any way possible.

embarrassing, but at that moment i had to look away and change the subject lest he sees my eyes well up.

moon festival

2011-09-13T10:15:00.000+08:00

i've gotten so much flack in the past for my creative translations of the mid-lantern festival.

the list includes, lantern festival, mooncake festival.. hmm.. actually that's about it.. no one said it's a very long list.

anyway, the other day i turned on Starworld, and saw that they translated our 中秋节, into.... MOON FESTIVAL!!

according to wikipedia..

The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival or Zhongqiu Festival, is a popular lunar harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people

(wow, vietnamese? really?)

anyway, my point is that my creativity is being stifled by people constantly laughing at my creative interpretations of commonly used words. =)

i would have you know that i have taken not one, but TWO translation modules in NTU!!

=P last night, we were tasked to go buy ice-cream from the petrol kiosk. so we decided to take our lanterns there with us.

hers

mine

quite disappointed that the moon was not very forth-coming yesterday.
but as the saying goes,

"15th moon, 16th then bright"

be on a look out for the moon tonight!! =)

95 emails

2011-09-12T10:14:00.000+08:00

i opened my Outlook and saw 95 unread emails.

so i decided to blog.

reading blogs can be a very depressing thing.
you see people leading all the different lives that you could be living, that you wish you were living, and you wonder just how much better it should be for you.

think 知足 is really the lesson to be learnt here.

over the weekend, girlfriend was working, so i started coming up scenarios in my mind, on where i would have to drop my iphone before i won't bother picking it up.

1. in a pool of other people's urine. (i would pick it up if it dropped into my own urine)
2. in a pile of shit (anyone's)
3. inside a drain filled with vomit

ok it just hit 100. i better go.

a tweet i twitted over the weekend,
"if 休息是为了走更长远的路，then why do i always feel so tired on mondays?"

and friends reminded me that we don't really 休息 on weekends.

feels terrible that i cant stop yawning during the discussion with a colleague. zzzz.

our room

2011-09-08T09:09:00.000+08:00

it still feels weird to not refer to it as "my room".

oh well, that's the 恋爱的代价..

anyway, here's what it SHOULD look like about 2 months from now =)

sadly, cushions and flowers not included.

Istana

2011-09-07T10:55:00.001+08:00

crazy morning.. so flooding you with photos instead. =)

再阳光一点！

someone needs to cut his/her fringe

i really like this photo. =)

"what did i do wrong? 为什么你要这样对我"

the best is yet to be...

2011-09-01T10:12:00.004+08:00

but the worst has yet to come..
.............................................................................................................................................................

saw AR Bernard's tweet a while back

"Failure to prepare is preparation for failure. Prepare for the worst while expecting the best."

i conclude that life's a constant struggle. and it is a struggle not meant to be handled alone.

hari raya @ istana

(i never realised how hard it is to 自拍 with a dslr.)

Macritchie

2011-08-30T21:46:00.007+08:00

So our Macritichie expedition didn't quite turn out as expected. Most of our time there were spent under a shelter waiting for the rain to stop.

Random photos.

轻松

幸福

活力

羡慕

甜蜜

nua couple

2011-08-29T09:07:00.003+08:00

we had all these ideas to go all these places on Saturday..

and then it rained before we started on our journey to the treetop walk..

so we went home,

and we slept.

sometimes i wonder how come we not patoring as much as other couples.
then i realise, this is just how we are. =)

and this is just how we like it.

Excursion!

2011-08-27T00:51:00.000+08:00

planning an excursion with gf tomorrow.. to get some fresh air and exercise!

hence, packing up my gear!!

harmless looking bag

wah. so packed

my multi-purpose kit lens

my borrowed lens

the whole package

going to treetop walk in the afternoon followed by night festival at Arts Museum and laser show at MBS!

all we need now is good weather!! =)

Presidential Election 2011

2011-08-26T14:31:00.004+08:00

haven't really written about my thoughts on the whole Presidential Election.

i think i just write about the qualities i think a good president should have.

1. ability to carry himself like a president.

a. he should have the sense to realise that high 5s are for people below 60. (can you imagine our president high-fiving Obama? or Hu Jin Tao?)
b. ideally, he should also be able to speak in at least one language, (hopefully english) without sounding like a coffeeshop uncle.

2. Not give ridiculous ideas,
like spending $60billion of the money you are supposed to guard, before you are even chosen to guard it
or suggesting increasing the pay of NSMan to S$1,500 (who gives a shit about such things).

3. Have a semi-decent track record

4. Has actually done something good to benefit the people

e.g. free parking on Sundays =)

so vote wisely. =)

raining

2011-08-25T10:23:00.001+08:00

an old friend commented once that i am a person who will choose to dance in the rain.
i find that thought very heart-warming, that someone would think so goodly of me.

recalled sometime back, someone asked me how i can appear to be so confident.

i think i have a better reason for that now..

it is because i know i am loved, for being myself, by the people who matters.
and because of your love and concern, i know that i am never alone.

thank you.

if i can't see it

2011-08-22T20:34:00.001+08:00

then it is not there

i am not a person who likes to talk about my problems or anything i am unhappy with.
through the years, i have developed an ability to change topic subtly, such that it would be awkward for the person to bring the topic back. even though most of the time, i can see the person is dying to do just that.

i am a distraction from your problems. i am human beer.
i make light jokes out of serious topics to avoid talking about them.

because if i can't see it, maybe i can convince myself that it is not there.
if i don't talk about it, maybe i won't have to think about it.
if i don't think about it, maybe it is just not true.

afterall, no one will ever know if schrodinger's cat is alive or dead if we don't open the box.
so maybe it is best to leave the box unopened for as long as we can.

what if the cat is dead?

"i am not ready for this." - Marshall Eriksen
(How I Met Your Mother - Season 6 Episode 13)

i am scared.

On A Rainy Saturday

2011-08-20T17:53:00.005+08:00

I had planned to go on a walkabout with my 60D, until it rained before I was done with lunch.

So I ended up shooting in my room instead.

proving a point

2011-08-19T10:22:00.000+08:00

was having a conversation with friends on having drinks tonight when someone mentioned that i should pick him up on my way down from marsling, since hougang was on the way.

so i went google map, and pasted this in my email reply.

a thousand words

some things are best illustrated with images and not with words.

dreams

2011-08-18T22:30:00.002+08:00

when you imagine your life at 30..
what do you dream of?

did you know 蕭敬騰 cannot read and write because he is dsylexic? and look at how successful he is now.
i have this degree, that certificate, so how come it doesn't quite feel the same?

what dreams do you have?

questions, answers

2011-08-18T12:04:00.002+08:00

"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers."

came across the above quote, and i think it is really true..

for an answer only tells you what he knows.
but a question will show you how he thinks.

and we all know it much easier to teach a person new things,
than it is to teach him how to think.

strength

2011-08-18T10:34:00.000+08:00

"a sign of true strength is the ability to admit your weaknesses" - someone famous

pen is mightier than the sword

2011-08-17T22:14:00.000+08:00

the benchwarmer

2011-08-17T11:37:00.000+08:00

last sunday, while sitting on the sidelines watching my friends play a soccer match, i had an epiphany.
or maybe less dramatically, it was simply that at that moment i accepted the plain fact.

that i was simply not good enough.

the thing was that i've always had excuses,

1. i didn't put in my best effort
2. i got other commitments
3. i wasn't feeling well
4. i was nervous
5. my dog ate my cat's homework

and there and then, i thought back to all the other times i was left sitting on the bench.

1. Badminton
i always tell people i was in the badminton school team in secondary school, which is a fact. cos i got through the selection and was chosen to be in the badminton team.
but that was as far as i got.
after that, there were always better players, so i never got selected to play a single competitive match.

stayed around, told myself that when i got to secondary 2, the seniors would be playing in the 'B' boys category, so i would get my chance.
except when i got to secondary 2, new players came in to secondary 1, and i never got to play.

after that, i realised i was never going to be good enough, so i stopped showing up.

2. Hockey
in JC i joined the hockey team cos a few other friends were joining. it wasn't even that big a team, abt 20 people.

and the same thing happened.
i was good enough to make the team, but never good enough to start.
J1, i was on the bench for the whole season, until the last game, which was a dead rubber btw, the coach put me on for the last 5 minutes.

hung in there, told myself in J2, the seniors would have graduated, and i would get my chance.
eventually, i did play more than 5 minutes, but not by that much. cos school team players in secondary school came, and who was i to compete with them.

3. Hockey/Softball
in uni, i joined the inter-hall games. with my "experience" in hockey, i thought i would be a sure-starter. except i was in the hall with the strongest hockey team, lots of IVP, and ex school team players.
got involved in softball, turned up for every practice, assessed all the players and decided that i should just be good enough to make the team.
but nope. in the end, they chose some school players who never turned up for a single practice.

4. Soccer
i dun even know where to begin for this. fact is, i suck at soccer.
i love it, but i suck at it.

while sitting there, i looked at everyone on the pitch and i realised that i was just no good at this.
it wasn't even that i was not given a chance. but i didn't like the ball, the opponents were rough, etc etc.

all of which summarised in a tweet.
"It takes more courage than I imagined to stop finding excuses and finally admit the simple fact that I am just not good enough."