Hey all, so sorry...I haven't done exactly as promised. Was out the whole day. Went out with Galvyn to go Sim Lim. Xiwen had training I think, so couldn't come. The staff seemed ok, so I hope I can get my sexy bitch (lol) back as soon as possible, better than new. (When I first turned it on the speakers were hissy already). This means I have no sb to accompany me on my morning journey to work tomorrow. =[ I don't mind work, it's the daily commute to and fro in the morning and evenings that sucks more energy out of me. I stand for the most part, partly because there are too many people or because there are more deserving people who need a seat.


I was still quite tired after the Taiwan trip. XW says taiwan holiday people come home real tired, because she fell asleep on the train yesterday, and I fell asleep on the train today. overshot CP by one stop. Thank goodness Punggol was the end of the line. I rushed back and got my hair cut. Yes I know I'm getting one in April but my hair is getting quite long and harder to manage anyway. Lol.


Then went to YM house to pass the twins their cake, and watch the twins play Call of Duty 4 which was like omgwtfbbq NICE. The effects were damn realistic...I want thatgame! Dunno if the main com can support it...


Played some mahjong, and watched the holiday video. Wasn't really that great. But there were osme really funny moments that had the whole room of us laughing non-stop. Next time we go overseas, we should choose a place known for its scenecy. Then there shall be nice pictures and videos. Shoping is taiwan was not bad though, and so was the food. We all came back almost broke. The twins owe me NT$1000 lol.


Oh and I also bought an international travel adapter. Should be useful on future holidays. Both the vid cam and the PSP could fit the Taiwan power point, which was a 2 pins vertical plug. Reached home at about 12 AM, and I got work tomorrow. =\ Time to sleep!


PS: Oh yes and tak beat the guys at Wii boxing. Shows how violent she is. Bleh. =P


PPS: Oh and here's a really nice poem that Sarene introed me to that her friend introed her to.(lol)


‘The Quiet World’

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond, I know
she’s used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

– Jeffrey McDaniel

Hey all, I'm back!!! Taiwan was pretty fun and interesting. Took lots of photos and videos which I can't wait to upload. This trip has indeed been exciting, with delicious street food, fun, great photos, and ghosts in my room (seriously). However, I'm pretty tired right now because ben, XW, tak, and val came to meet me and then I went home with ben and tak to rest a while before we went to compass point. tak bought some stuff and ben went off with leer. I went to tak's home for dinner, and left after accompanying xing chye out for his walk. I think I'm going to take a look at the video before I go crash. Will upload pics tomorrow...Slept only 1 hr last night cos we were up playing, and slept a little on the plane. Hard to believe I was still in Taiwan this morning, 2400km away.

Dear all, I'm leaving on a jet plane...

And this is my sexy bitch. Heheh. ^^


My hands are itching to play it now, but I'll wait first, after I blog. And oh my gosh, it is such a severe itch...Anyway today I woke up early, went to tak's house, and then relised oh SHIT I didn't bring Ben's present which was the purpose of my vist, to drop it off there. i'll pass it on tomorrow. I went up, played with Xing chye, then we went out. I've packed all the stuff I wanna wear into my luggage already, so I was dressed quite slack when I went out today


Then when we went by the carpark, we saw this:

We were like omgwtfbbq the hot car that has always been at her carpark has had it's bumper torn off, even though the guy must be ok, he must be heartbroken. The license plate disappeared too so it's been replaced by a pathetic scrap of paper with the no. scrawled on it. I feel sorry for the poor guy...empathize with him. I like cars a lot...


We went to Bugis Street to go walk. Tak bought xmas present. I got mine too and I got to choose! =P I'm using it tomorrow I think. Ran out of shirts. Had lunch at Delifrance, then met Galvyn at Bugis. He taught us how to get to Sim Lim Sq. or rather, we learned. Lol. Quite cool. I think I've never been there before. Went to search all the possible shops.


The first shop had some retarded guy on lunch break or something. I asked him how much was the red PSP and he told me. Den I asked what was inside and he just pointed at the small pictures on the box high up on a shelf and continued eating. =.= Galvyn didn't see this and still asked him some stuff but he didn't reply. Tak also was going to until I told her that the guy was showing attitude. So we left. I'll take my money elsewhere if you don't want it, thank you very much.


Went to check a few other shops, saw one likely candidate but I decided to go through the whole mall. Some shops didn't sell PSP. Then on the 6th floor, Red PSP for 375. Memory Card with preloaded games: 75. Screen Protector: 10. Me: Happy. We resumed walking through the rest of the level and then went back to the shop. And I got it! ^^ And I read up on wiki last night, the Deep Red PSP was released in Japan only on Dec 13. I love commercialization and international trade.


So it's quite new. I remember seeing only 1 guy with it. And I used to be jealous of all the small kids with PSP. Now I can take mine out and laugh at them. Heheh. The guy gave me a piece of paper and told me to write down which games I wanted. I asked for a guide and he gave me a game mag with PSP game ratings. I wrote down a whole list, and collected it an hour later yay! Galvyn went home to sleep. Now I'm really afraid: I must take REALLY good care of it, and that shop totally rocks! I recommend it! 6th floor of SLS. I got my Bleach game which looks totally friggin' uber awesome!!! And I might be able to come online in taiwan!


Later we went to Galvyn's house to make ourselves look Wiitarded by playing boxing on his Wii. But it was fun. Had dinner there, and Galvyn and tak went off to watch Swan Lake and I went home. I have some random pics in my phone.

Work.


Needless to say this is not a picture of ANY of your presents. Someone else. A friend buying for a friend. But it's cute. Lol. I have just two words to say in my last post before leaving for TW...

BYE BYE!

Today was quite ok. I'm enjoying my work. Haha.It was quite ok. This guy had quite a few problems and called 5 times lol. I went for lunch with the new staff, Chuan Xin I think, from NYJC and the perm staff. Haha. Was quite fun. I'm gonna miss e xmas party on mon. =[ If thye ask what I want, I want a headset so I can call my friends for hours and talk in comfort. =P After work I went to CP to buy Ben's gift. Then went down to tak's house with Galvyn for supper, which was a brownie she made. Played with Xing Chye. After meeting tak I think I've become more receptive to animals. Haha. It just rubs off on you.


I don't really care so much now if I get licked or anything unless it's really bad, and I'm more willing to actually come into contact and play with animals then I used do, like in my most recent visits to YM's house I've been playing with his maltese and stroking her until she's there enjoying herself limp on the floor. Same with Xing Chye today, although it took him longer to lie down. It is indeed to shower care and concerm on an animal, ubt too bad my parent won't let me have a pet thanks to my sis who has a fear of anyhing that has fur, 4 legs, a tail, and meow or barks. =[

Stayed over at Ym's house ytd night w/ Shawn. 3 of us played Magic cards and talked till about 5 plus AM before sleeping. I woke up to a heavy storm and didn't really feel like going out anymore...called tak who was half dead. After much deliberation, we decided to have lunch together then. XW went to have lunch with her mom. Later in the noon tak called, so we met up and went down to Hg Mall.


Val and Eddie met us, and we had lunch and talked quite a bit. Val and Eddie went to the latter's house, and tak came over because she needed to photocopy some documents and all the shops were closed. Tried to find a shop selling PSP, but I think I'll continue my search on Sat. We watched the original Predator Movie on my Xbox, and I passed her the gifts that the rest of Mugalo will be getting cos I'll be in Taiwan on the 25th.


Anyway I really cannot take care of myself...hahaha. I've had this cough for a few weeks now and it's not going away. Furthermore, every meal I've eaten recently consists of chicken this, black pepper that, fried food, cold drinks, fizzy drinks, milo...


Anyway we were chatting just now and then we saw this girl in a MJ Supernatural shirt and we were wondering who it was. Then Eddie was trying to figure out where we were looking, and when we said 10 o'clock, he stretched out his whole arm straight and tried to find 10 o'clock. We were like omg wtf no that's so obvious! Hahaha. Hope that's not how the army does it.

"She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
-Macbeth, Act 5, Scene V. Dunsinane Castle.

What a wonderful quote...haha. Today at work was quite manageable seems like after the initial day of learning something new, the next day I get used to it le. I took 46 calls today. Hehs. Most were quite okay. Some transferred, some I let other handle, some involved just getting my colleagues to check permit status or to download permits.


Some people were royally pissed off, and highly impatient because they wanted to move their shipments before the holidays. Trade is indeed an interesting sector. I (indirectly) helped to trade dangerous chemicals in/out of Singapore. =X The day was fairly ok. Just answered calls. Kevin said he heard I was doing quite well, so I said no la, just ok. DEan said I was just being modest. Haha, I hope so. At least I'll get a good recommendation when I leave them.


Once I got into the swing of things I felt it was much tolerable for me, compared to being pushed into the pool yesterday. At first I was kinda afriad I'd forget to say Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening CrimsonLogic Call Centre!" I only mixed up by saying Good afternoon at 1215, and Good Evening at 5pm plus... Apparently many office workers treat 5plus at afternoon still. =\ I'm not too sure so I just went with them in the end. In the end, the words just roll off your tongue easily. CrimsonLogic Call Centre sounds really smooth. At first I had to look at the huge sign with the company name when I said it to make sure I was doing it right.


Sometimes I got a little jumpy when a phone rang. Lol. Had to check it was mine. A little bit superstitious also. If I got no voicemails for quite a while, I didn't dare to leave for a toilet break or anything else for fear that it'd break my streak. Invariably, returning from the toilet I'd find a few voicemails waiting for me. Lol. So I tried to watch the boxes at long as possible. For handling calls, if its more "peaceful", I try not to say so explicitly, in case it's also break it and end up with more "trouble" for me.


After work I went to dinner with Val at Pasir Ris. I met her best friend and boyfriend. Lol. After dinner just headed home to go online.

Drowning. I know NOTHING about drowning. Yesterday was okay. TODAY I was drowning. My job got amped up another notch today when I took a short briefing and then was pushed into the pool again, knowing the bare basics i.e. the user interface and the different sections. The first few calls, I was struggling to stay afloat. They asked about stuff I had absolutely no idea about, then I had to grab one of the perm staff and ask them about this for a while, and then they'd ask me to transfer the calls to them. I already remember my OH-SHIT-SOS helpline as transferring my calls to 6688, 6686, and 6615.


There was one call in which the woman got kinda pissed off and so did I because of her remarks. Nevertheless because I was at work (DUH) I just held my tongue and pased her on and admitted defeat. =.= Out of my depth. However, there were two calls I managed to solve by myself, or mostly by myself, and they give me a sense of satisfaction, and not because one man gratefully said "Thank you boss, thank you boss!" at the end of the call. Lol. I helped a girl find the United Kingdom as a country of origin as it was listed under GB, and helped to increase...imports. I wonder what I helped to import from the UK though. Seems cool . Besides, Singapore's trade to GDP ratio is 300:1 so I think some more imports won't hurt the AD curve too much. Seems my econs is put to some use now. And I'm indirectly helping net exports! Yay me Singapore!


The highlight of today was when I was taking a call. I was enquiring about the user details halfway when I stretched my legs and accidentally nudged the power box of the wonky LCD monitor I was using. The thing blacked out. Internally, "oh...SHIT." Externally, "excuse me could you repeat the number again?" While she repeated it, one part of my brain tried to memeorise a bit, one part tried plan A, which was to open new windows of Excel, and the third part began cooking up plans B and C.


Excel opened in the dead screen. "So that number is..." Plan B, opened another excel document, in the dead screen. "Ah i see..." Plan C, notepad? Too far inside the menu. Plan D, Paint! Open and typed out everything. Ah. Done. Hung up, pressed "Aftercall" for post-call admin work, and dove under the table to poke at the box. I could hear bolts of electricity crackling between the contact points as I tried to make them connect. Zzt! Screen on. Yay! Stay tuned for another episode of Desk Warrior, same time, same blog, tomorrow. I'm feeling apprehensive already...

Slept at 12 but spent 1.5 hrs coughing my lungs out. So bad I couldn't sleep. Plus I was thinking too much about stuff which made things worse. Work today was ok, though more challenging. Unexpectedly I was thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. I choked a bit at the beginning, but got the hang of it in the later. Well basically I was told to handle callbacks for the people who left voicemail, so I was supposed to return their call and get all the details of the problem from them, and other relevant info and pass it along to someone who will follow up. The only problem, I have absolutely no idea how the system works and only a rough idea of how it function. The helplines were for the company's applications which are used for trade, export/import, and also law firms.


I got bombarded with legalese, property issues, and refunds and permits for trade. Thankfully because my English isn't half bad, I could deduce what was going on, stuff such at litigation, bankruptcy, tenacy, permits, etc. I was kinda nervous at first because it was like BAM you're supposed to call these people for info, with no briefing at all or any knowledge on how they systems work. But I got the hang of it, and well, you gotta learn to expect such such when you work next time, at least you get experience. In the end it was quite manageble, but I hope I can get to Singpass soon, it's probably easier than dealing with people who think I've come to rescue them when the knowledge I possess of the intricacies of the applications could fit on a postage stamp. So, I end up telling them I'll pass it along to the relevant depts., and that I can't really help.


After that, Galvyn rushed off to go meet his friends and I had dinner at Clementi alone before going home. There was an issue over lunch because Galvyn insisted on having lunch break with me and we had to reshuffle the timing between some other because he argued that we can't let them slot us anyway we like. Sigh. I dunno. It's going to be a pain in the ass if we have to do that everyday.


Anyways, I just remember something that tak said, that day at the job agency. Something about seeing your friends in corporate attire, and you realise they actually look good, and that that's what you are going to do from now on. It's like the last vestiges of youth have been pulled away, and you stand on the cusp of adulthood and finally see what awaits you on the other side. The maturity kicks is NOW, and playtime is over. And when you dress for work, it calls to mind images of little children playing dress up, clomping around in dad's loafers, or playing wtih that tie, except that now, it's for real. You're entering the land of the adults, and there's no going back.


Sorry for typos, I'm rushing for time so I can wrap some gifts and go to bed...

"A bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned. SHALL. NOT. BE. MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official."
-GLaDOS, Portal

I went out to shop for X'mas presents today. Someone owes me more money now, and I also lack money. I got a new wallet since the old one had a hole in the coin pouch. I like it. It's nice and black. Mature. Nice. I like it that way. I've been thinking too much lately and I probably will be that way for a while so I'm not really in a fantastic mood (Read: I have been cranky recently and for the short run. At least I don't throw tantrums like the shop in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Lol.).
Orlyksum1else.


Yes, I have work tomorrow but that's not the problem. Rather, I'm looking forward to it. And I am in a mood to drink some flavoured ethanol. Except I don't have the money. Maybe I should go loot a city like in Warlords. It's a very bloody and violent guy show, so don't need to consider if you're going out with girls. Not sexist, but they're most probably not that interested. Lol. Oh but I'm in a mood for a movie like Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. =] Looks to be the only movie left worth watching. I'm in a movie mood...


Sigh.

Went to watch Wonder Emporium with tak, ben, gal and diana was quite nice. Watched ben play TC4, then went to Best Denki I think, then back home.

Fuck this. I've had enough. I'm tired of it already. Sick and tired. Why why why why why? This is screwed up. Sigh. No more. I have start taking action now. Enough is enough and it's pissing me off real bad. I can't stand it. Ridiculous. I thought I made a resolution already and it's in pieces within a week. I have to be more focused on it. You cause it and now I guess I'm going to have to start the ball rolling. What's inside and outside you is SO different. =.= If you don't do it, I WILL. This is royally messed up. I'm gonna go cut myself or something. Ciao. Hahs. I don't even know what to think right now except that I feel f-ed up.
---
I just took a double dose of cough medicine and I'm going to bed. Hopefully I'll feel better when I wake up. I heard its addictive. How can it be? Anyway it's only 20ml. Won't kill me.

Yesterday was my 2nd day of work. It was quite ok. Galvyn volunteered to do the Singpass calls, and spent the morning reading up on the manuals. I cleared voicemails again. Traffic trickled down after lunch, presumably because it was Friday. Even the intimidating all-important mailbox 3008 and 3009 only gave me two messages. Those need to be processed quickly to fulfil the contract with the govt, I think.


Then later on I helped cut little slips of paper used to jot down the details of those calling in while are to be passed to the callback section. I'm learning the calls section next Tues onward. Galvyn started picking up calls by himself in the late afternoon. And spamming my tagboard. Please Galvyn:
1.No albino jokes
2.No Spamming
3.No anti-govt jokes (though the ones about you hiding in the jungles of bt. timah hill are ok)
4.No-I'll come up with it when you do something funny again.
You're a great person and all, but spamming...well frankly it's annoying. Don't. Thanks. My tagboard is not a place for you to express the whimsicalness of your freedom (or lack thereof) freely.


After that I went to meet up with the twins and YM at cine for dinner and to watch warlords. We stayed up till 5 playing the Munchkin card game at his house. It was amazingly fun. I took the second round with a sneaky combo that noone expected. See, in the game you start as a lvl 1 Munchkin. To win, you must reach level 10. From lvl 9 to 10, you MUST kill one monster & lvl up. Only way to advance 99% of the time. (The 1% will only make me have to type more so I won't explain.) Anyway, I waited until Sixu and YM hit 9 and they were both trying to kill a monster and everyone did all they could to stop that person from winning. Its a game of fun and backstabbing.


At first we thought YM won, then he realised I could use "plot device" to make him lose to a monster. Then came my turn when I realised I could use the combo. So from level 8, BAM! "Go up a level." level 9, I fight a level 1 monster. By then everyone had used up all their cards on the other lvl 9s and I took the win. =D They called it gay. In the next round I used 2 "Go up a level", hitting level 8 from 6, and then used duplo-ray on a level 2 pitbull forming 2 monsters, which WOULD have let me win and ensured another gay combo but they still had cards to beat me down to level 4. =[ I shoulda waited till they spent everything. Oh well, it was fun. I nearly gained 4 levels in a single turn. LOL.


We went up to the room to watch 1 ep of Mythbusters, then slept from 6 or so to 10. Left in the morning. Going out to watch movie again later I think. Oh did I mention that by working in the science park, I have to eat at cafeterias in other buildings? The good thing is that the food there is cheaper that outside, because its for the employees. That way, even though I may spend more on transport, I save on food which evens it out. A plate of mix 'n' match rice (lol) cost only 2.90 with 3 items. =] Drinks are $1.


Mel would be so proud to see a shop named after her. Or maybe she was named after the shop.

Xmas tree at Taka.

Galvyn's favourite pose. This guy reminds me strongly of him (Galvyn) because of the pose and of the fact that he is doing this outside court while being convicted for trying to smuggle airguns into Singapore.

The Army's new Destructo-Truck. It can be driven into an enemy area and triggered, causing a a white-hot ball of pure destructive energy to be unleashed from the white dome killing everything in a 500m radius. The turck and driver will not be affected. My friend says its just radar.


My Computer. Don't expect a lot of these at-work pictures. It's a one time thing. I don't think it's allowed. (duh) =D

Quote Galvyn: "Epic Clusterf**k" at City Hall MRT...was insanely bad


YM's female Maltese.

"This was a triumph!
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS."
-GLaDOS, Portal Ending Song

I am employed now! Yay!From the beginning...


Yesterday I woke up to a call from Shawn regarding an interview for a job. Settled the essential papers and rushed to my 11:15 meeting at Pasir Panjang from 10:30AM...managed to book a cab (was desperate), and rushed down. It cost $20. But I got the interviewd own and they even thanked me for coming down on such short notice.


Later went home for a while then was informed I've been hired and to come down to the agency to sign my contract. After I signed it and left, I had to stop myself grinning when I saw the line of young people outside the agency's other branch. I went down to find taky, and she went up for her interview. Galvyn met us after his interview at CrimsonLogic. (that's my employer...I like the name =])


Later waited for Shawn and the 4 of us went to have pasta. Oh ya, saw Yvonne from bowling there also...lol. Same workplace as Shawn. I'll be employed from today till 31 March excluding my Taiwan trip. I got a nice impression of the place, the people there are very friendly...nicer than I expected. =]


---


Anyway today was my 1st day of work. Had so sing some papers. Anyway the company is govt-linked (gasp) and Galvyn is also working with me. (double gasp) So I had to sign some papers stating I have to keep stuff confidential so I can't go into too much detail. Galvyn managed to hold his tongue today. One of the trainers gave us the induction tour and had lunch with us. Then, we entered the call centre and waited. Then we were assigned to clear voicemail. Took some getting used to but after the first few messages, it goes a lot easier and I got familiarised with the system. And it was almost fun. I worked well with it. Lol.


All in all, I quite enjoyed today. Have to see what I do tomorrow though. It's casual friday! T-shirt, Jeans and Track shoes. Haha. Oh and tak may be joining us also. I sure hope she can get it.

"You truly realise how low you are willing to go for money if you agree to clean toilets when the need arises."

But I still agreed. Because I was willing to do virtually anything for a job. The education system and society have stripped me of whatever dignity or shame I had already, leaving me for the world to rip apart. See, what I've learned from Singaporean society and our education is that money is king. This is simple. There is no pride or shame or dignity. Pride comes after you MAKE the money.

You just drop everything and throw yourself into work for our economy and you work yourself into the ground or die trying. This is the correct way to start your life as a young adult. Don't care about anything else. Just work and get as much money as possible. That is the goal. Yes I know I am twisted. Don't bother, I am a hopeless cause. I have lost my soul many years ago. It was torn from my grasp by the education system. Soon they will sell it to the Army.


Sigh. Seriously now, I am willing to work 7 days a week, long hours, overnight or night shifts i.e. go home at 4AM, during public holidays also. I can commit immediately. I don't care. My only requirement it that I get at least $6 an hour and OT pay is provided. I am willing to do that. The reason? Sometimes when I get annoyed...the masochistic streak in me come out. I am willing to do anything at all, even if it hurts me, or puts me under strain. I do it all willingly. I'm just like that. I relish it. I have yet to figure out if It's a good thing. But I am seriously willing to do the above stated. Nevermind, on with today.


Met up with Tak at T3. Wanted to try for jobs at Minitoons, but didn't go for the T3 one cos it was quite deserted. We went to T2, and inquired but no jobs. She got a possible hit at Minibits but I had nothing. Went to Tamp Mall and asked a lot of shops. Minitoons, Minibits, GV, Giordano, OP, Lovely Land, Aries, Yellow, Kiddy Palace, and a LOT more. We asked basically any likely candidate. The routine was almost the same each time.


"Excuse are you hiring staff?"
"No."
"Okay, thank you."


"Excuse are you hiring staff?"
"Full time or part time?"
"Part time."
"Sorry, no thanks."
"Okay, thank you."


Over and over again. At GV the woman said, it's not very glamorous, you'll have to do basic tasks, cleaning, wiping, tidying up the theatre after everyone leaves, and if we lack manpower, you'll have to clean the toilets. We agreed to all of that. She said she'll call us. She also said you'll most probably get scolded everyday also. And the pay was $4 and we prolly could find better jobs elsewhere. I rejected her a few mins ago, saying I'd found another job.


TM, century square, nothing. Anyway after speaking with Jocelyn on MSN, I've decided to start finding work in Jan after my hol cos 5 days leave it ridiculous and most employers want people to commit immediately. So that's my plan. i've saved up 2 resumes online, and in Jan the JC wannabes and some sec sch people and the J1s will be back in sch again. Damn search employment sucks. Anyway, the funniest encounter came at century square cinema. We decided to stop searching and since tak hadn't watched enchanted yet we decided to go for it and go Simei in the meantime.


Me:"Excuse me are you hiring?"
Staff:"No, sorry."
Me:" Uh ok, can I have two tickets to 'Enchanted' please?"


Retarded and quite funny when we realised what we'd done. Lol. We remugged Still Alive into a song about unemployment. =[ Simei yielded no results. Went back to CS food court where Tak went back to her DS addiction and I read From the Corner of His Eye.



Uncropped, full 8MP pic.




Cute airplane costume.

Experimenting with shutter speed.

Galvyn's exploded rose...
Prom photos here!


Today I visited the armpit of Singapore.


"You have to visit the old part of Singapore! You cannot just stay at home there at home and look at all the modern things. Don't always go Orchard Road..." So said my father. He wanted to bring us to Tekka mall/market. (can't rmb)


"Eee..." My sister protested at the thought, upon finding out it was at Little India which meant squeezing among loads of people and ulu narrow places like Chinatown. But when my mum found out you couldn't get to the street where they sold lights from there, we thought the idea was dead. We went to have lunch, and took 147 all the way to Jln Besar to get new lights for our home. Chose a few at the first store. Because my mum made us get off one stop later...we had to walk quite a distance back from where we alighted. And it was raining intermittently, heavy and light. So we walked on the side of the road against oncoming traffic. I half expected to hear the cool fading horn noise when you drive into and pass oncoming traffic in Burnout.


So we walked and walked past row of old dilapidated shophouses, selling all sorts of random stuff, bits and parts, rims to pimp your car, little lights, electronic parts, and we saw nothing nice in any of the light shops we visited. So, we turned back. And went back, placed the order and tried to leave. That was when civilisation ended. My dad led us deeper and deeper into the shophouses, passed by an old housing estate, and kept on going into weirder places. Alleys, old dirty shophouses, cramped, dark, messy entrances, the shops filled with assorted things I didn't know did what, and neither did I care to know what they did.


Passed by shops filled to the brim and overflowing with 2nd hand TVs, electrical appliances, the whole area had an air of disrepair, neglect and general disorder to it. As we walked by, the few people outside their shops looked as us as we passed, a small family of four, two to an umbrella, huddled up and walking carefully down the middle of nowhere. There was a shop selling exit signs. Yes. Exit signs. Wanna know where your local gas station, school, church, shopping center, office building and hospital gets their exit signs? Here you go. Next shop? Go down to your kopitiam, look at the drink stall.Or go to MJ's drink stall. See the two transparent acrylic containers with green rims that hold juice? Lime juice or whatever? Or more often bamboo juice? They buy those from there too. Now from that Kopitiam, go to your nearest supermarket or wet market. Look at the flatbed trolley or supermarket trolley. Where do the wheels come from? There. Voila.


So my trip to old Singapore taught me where to find exit sign retailers, where to purchase huge drink stall items, and where to replace the wheels on my shopping trolley should I ever need one. Oh and where to buy lights for my house. Nearly forgot that one. After some time wandering in the armpit of Singapore, we resurfaced at a small shopping center next to...Little India. Thankfully it wasn't crowded. Headed to CP for dinner, ran into Calesta, and went home.




Microsoft Vista Bread Premium and Vista Bread Standard. The premium one has Aero enabled so you can see through the bread to the wall.

---


Hmm lessee, ytd I was very pissed at myself because my body dropped into automatic alrm silencing mode and deactivated my phone's alarm at 745 nicely and I woke up at 905, when I shoulda met them at 9AM! I rushed out with all my stuff to get to Changi Airport. Luckily XW wasn't leaving so soon. What's worse, it was raining...at the bus stop outside school, I was on the phone with Gal when 53 came. With one hand carrying my laptop bag, I quickly hung up and flagged the bus kinda late.


The guy stopped and I boarded. He told me: " Next time you flag the bus with your hand, not with your phone." Running late and furious with myself already, I dearly wished I could sock him in the head at that moment. However, not only would I not get to the airport at all, I would be asked to assume the party escort submission position and then cake, would be served by the boys in blue. I still wish I could sock the wiseass for ticking me off on a bad day.


When I reached, I thought I would have to run across the airport like in one of those dramatic Ch 8 serials because I went to the wrong end of the airport and had to go back. Luckily they came out to meet me. We took some pics, and sent XW off. Then Ben, Gal and I went off to T3 and we realised that T3 is like a Windows Vista building with 9TB memory and runs on 2GB of RAM. T2 is Win XP, T1 is Win 2000, and the budget terminal is Windows 3.1. There were ALOT of people at T2 also...looked like they were going on a pilgrimage? lol.


Explored more of T3, made Portal and Vista jokes, Ben helped me fix my Firefox. Luckily it saves bookmarks. They were all erased when I killed the power to my com once. Then we left. Went to Hg mall meet my parents, and got the new camera. Old one sucks. 1.3 megapixel digicam. Like taking a webcam on holiday. Anyway, I couldn't get it to work till this morn when I read the 2nd book and found that it repeated the same thing except that it had one more step which the 1st book didn't have. And that solved it. =.=


Pics taken with the new camera...the tortoise and the slanted one of my phone are full size...





Cube's about 2.9cm long on each side...

Went out to meet YM and Siwei. Walked around Vivocity, Orchard, Paragon, Taka, Wisma, Raffles City. Legs tired. Lol. Had dinner w/ Shawn and YM. Got quite pissed cos Shawn said that if I didn't receive a call in one hour, there probably wasn't going to be an opening for me. So if I didn't know I be waiting stupidly for damn long. =.= Anyway this means I'm UMEMPLOYED. SHIT.


Unemployment refers to [rifles through notes in cupboard] the people who are in the working age population who sare available for work and actively looking for a job but cannot find a job. Wow econs actually came in handy for once. Now I'm an unemployed loser, I will probably end up being a drunken bum in the streets begging for money to buy cheap wine. Oh I love harsh cruel Singapore.


Today I saw buskers in the streets, and remarked that if I can't find a job you'll probably see me playing the carols at Orchard underpass. Den I nearly argued with my friend over dinner also which ruined my mood further. Lucky its over...anyway I saw this jerk being an assholes to the LRT officer when I was going home. The guy asked him which stop he was alighting cos the control wanted to know if they could skip any stations and the guy asked why was he being questioned, and demanded his name and thought he could lord it all over the LRT officer.


With all due respect sir, FUCK YOU. I hate pompous arrogant asses that think they are mightier that everyone else with their perfect English and their what do you think you are doing mister attitude. He's just a plain old cheap asshole. Bloody fucktard that thinks he can throw his weight around because he's a commuter. I HATE people like that. Absolutely despise them. I hope that arrogant fuck gets run down by a car. He was downright offensive to the LRT officer who was fumbling with his English just because of a simple question. If you handed me a gun and a license to kill, that asshole would be first to go. Partially I'm so pissed is because I'm not in a really good mood and this asshole has to go and screw someone over in front of me, him being all high and mighty and all. Asshole.

Now, where do I begin? Hmm. Yesterday was PROM! Quite fun. Since I skipped my secondary school's half-assed excuse for one, I definitely was going for this. And it was pretty fun. Hmm...I went to Changi in the afternoon to welcome tak back to Singapore, along with galvyn and ben. I printed out the "Shangri-La welcomes..." sign ben made and galvyn held it. =D I left at 4, rushed to Shawn's house and then waited for 2 others to arrive. They took damn long!!! We arrived at close to 7PM and went up.


Took pictures with Val and XW, and then went to the Photog booth next to the doors, and took more pictures, and went in. Food was ok I guess. Performances, and lucky draws. I didn't win a single thing. The irony was that the top few prizes, PSP SLIM, NINTENDO WII, and DIGITAL CAMERA, were all at the TOP of my WISHLIST. And I was quite irritated when I couldn't even get anything. It's like it was some divine joke to spite me. HAHA! Puny human, look! Here are ALL the EXACT things you want MOST and YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM. HA! =.= Thanks a lot. EVERYTHING I wanted was there to taunt me. Sigh. It was quite horrible and heart-wrenching to see the things you was most be taken by others...some are probably rich enough to buy those prizes themselves.



"... Maybe you should marry that thing since you love it so much. Do you want to marry it? WELL I WON'T LET YOU! How does that feel?"
-GLaDOS, Portal


But my family has not had much luck in games of chance. Which is why I'll never buy 4D in my life. My dad and diligently done so for...decades, and we've only won once, 3rd prize. Some people like my mom's friend or my friend's uncle wins like every other weeks, or a few times a month. It's uncanny. I believe that in this matter, we are not fated to ever get any lucky breaks. So there's no chance of me ever getting what I want just like that.


But on a lighter note, I did have fun the rest of the night with XW and Val and tak who came to meet us and Galvyn. XW and I had to retake our pictures at the booth because they lost the previous individual shots...=[ Had to queue again. I'm in the process of collecting all the photos and I'll post them on a later date. Should be interesting.


We walked all the way down to Esplanade, then to the waterfront. At the reflecting pool in front of the esplanade they danced some of the mass dances and we sang along to the portal song. It was quite nice. Noone there but us and the beautiful bobbing blue lights on the water. In tak's words, "Xiwen look very pretty!!! x 1.00^3"She reminded me of Enchanted with one princess strolling down the boulevards of Orchard at 12AM. Lol. Oh yeah, finally watched that show in Genting.


Then XW left and we went to the water front and attempted to get to cineleisure. We walked to North bridge road and a scary ulu part of Bugis. =X We wanted to keep walking until Galvyn delivered an ultimatum: "Cab or Hotel 81, choose." We looked at each other: "Cab!" Lol. Turned out to be pretty damn far from where we were and we'd walked in a BIG circle around the CBD...went to cine and took the lift up to...8th floor. Door opened and we saw two women and a man. The woman was arguing loudly in Chinese, shouting at him. We were like "um...cinema what floor ar? er try 7 quick, quick, press the button..." As the doors closed the man started shouting back. I was like "wow...they have the energy to argue to fiercely at...[check phone]...330AM..."


In retrospect it was indeed hilarious. Like in a movie when the protagonist's lift doors open for him to face a dinosaur/murderer/ghost/[insert specific main deadly enemy of the movie], and they quickly and quietly close the door. Ding! door open 3 people arguing over something that sounded very serious. Close the door quick!


But there were no shows to watch so we went out, walked a bit and then I saw light. We were unsure about whether it was a place we could enter and as we got closer, SWENSEN! YAY! I was pretty damn tired from the prom already and we all wanted to rest, what with the conga line and the dancing and the walking and all. Lol. So e sat down, Galyn treated us to a veyr early breakfast, and we sat till about 6. We put together the fake Chinese lego sets tak bought for me in HK. THanks! Haha. It was amusing...reach home at 7, slept till 1030, woke up to return some clothes to Shawn,
and then went home for breakfast, read a bit, and went back to sleep again.
Some pics from my phone and from M.A.G.E. 1st: (I seriously think I look weird though... =[)










Here's just some random old shots:

Supercool dual sword wielding wire ninja robot I got in Genting.

Amusing sign on the beach.


Apache helicopter manouvreing near my house. usually I see the twin rotored Chinook, but this is the 2nd time I've seen the apache. It looks quite cool.

[NEWEST UPDATE]
I have a cough! RAH. I hope it doesn't affect me tomorrow but it seems to have come on quite quickly just recently. =.= Damn.
[NEWEST UPDATE]
I have a rather interesting video for everyone today, which seemed kinda disgusting at first, but turned out to be pretty amusing in the end. Got it thanks to www.irregularwebcomic.com which is a pretty interesting site I often visit.


Today was...well nothing special. Stayed and home and finished The Green Mile after watching the movie on cable yesterday. Originally wanted to have dinner with Val and Galvyn but cancelled due to the heavy rain the entire day. Oh well, at least we're welcoming tak back tomorrow.Maybe another time then.


And prom night is tomorrow already! That was fast. Lol. Wonder how it'll turn out. I didn't go to to my secondary school prom because it was bloody lousy half-cocked affair held together by spit and prayers and running on a pipe dream that crashed and burned but was reanimated by a level 1 necromancer with shit for brains. =] There. I said it. In a nutshell I didn't go because it was crap. So this will be my first prom.


See, originally we HAD a prom but my principal had to get into that incident (principal hit student thingy, anyone remember?) and so we had a new principal come in. He canceled the damn thing. Well obviously everyone was pissed off. Then after much persuasion we held the prom. I didn't go to spite them, and a lot of others did the same also. In the end they were quite desperate for participants. And luckily I didn't. The thing cost about $30 (actual figure may vary, comes from my friend's recollection) and it was held in the HALL. And you know what? The food came from the CANTEEN. My friend said he saw one of the stall operators bringing up the food. Where did the money go? For canteen food and the lights and air conditioning bills I suppose. But those in attendants were treated to a fine show of Poh Boon doing a marvelously idiotic robot dance. I would have paid to see that. But not thirty dollars. =P


[UPDATE]
GOOD NEWS! I have GOOD NEWS! I managed to get ahold of a blogskin with pictures as buttons and reworked the code, well, mainly by just pasting my important code over the same places, and not getting into the technicals, it works now! My blog code finally works, and my blogskin is finally 100% finished. It was crapped out thanks to some funny code that prevented the viewing of different sections of my blog, but i've fixed it, and now it's also viewable in IE when once it appeared horrible. It's fixed! And with some help from my sis whom I see has learn quite a bit about coding herself. I owe her one this time lol. YAY!

Yesterday, went to Tamp with Galvyn to sign up at a job agency. The girl called me when I was still sleeping I was probably half awake when I answered the call. Plus reception at my house was quite bad, so I had to ask her to repeat stuff many times. =X Went out to pay ym the $ for the taiwan trip and went home to call galvyn and arrange everything. Filled in our particulars and left. Hopefulyy can find a job soon. The girl is Diana's friend so she was quite nice to us.


After that didn't feel likegoing home so we called up people. Sunny was napping, Danson sore throat. XW was working, Ben didn't wanna come out, so that left Val. I wen to Gal's house to play with his wii for a while omg omg omg so funnnnn I want and tried wii sports. Boxing was quite tiring, seriously. =X You have to keep jabbing. Lol. Also, you do look like a complete prat flailing a white rod around, or jabbing forward with two white sticks. Nevertheless it was fun. Played until 8 plus, ( Val made us wait =[) then we met up at Kembangan and went to ECP.


Was so thristy when we got there I skipped the alcohol (R-OH) and just went for a nice cold bottle of Pepsi. Lol. Galvyn bought some delicious beef jerky. (but expensive. =[) Galvyn kept spoiling the mood with his talk of philosophy. Well, you can talk about philosophy under the stars and you can just not talk about it also and enjoy it just the same. Oh and he kept getting off to dust himself off and complained of sand in his pants...hahaha.


Then Ben called us to talk. And we lay down on the cool sand and just stared at the star. Then val saw a shooting star. And so did I. It was pretty cool. I was glancing over her shoulder when I saw a bright flash of light that streaked across the dark sky. Brighter and thicker that the other stars, I thought it must've been my imagination until I was positive I did see it.

Got back to the computer. Not much to do right now. Borrowed coupla books to read though...hmm.

27-29 Dec
Chalet was interesting. At the bottom of a hill in the shadow of Old Changi Hospital. First day...went to Changi V for dinner. Stingray was not bad. Went back, played 3 player mahjong till 4am. =X lol. Munched on cereal at 4AM then went to sleep for a while. Stoned about the home awhile the next day. Then at 1 Galvyn and I went to airport to send tak off. On they way there they told us we had to pay for the food there. Galvyn was quite pissed that he had to pay (He was the one with the most money then) and also complained that there was no delivery and we had to go all the way down to pick up the food ourselves.


I borrowed 20 bucks from Ben for cab fare and we left the airport to make our way to Kembangan...Galvyn almost left for home because he was quite annoyed at this. But I convinced him to stay. So the two of us went to Bedok, got a cab, went all the way down to Kmb, dashed into the store in the rain, paid and got the stuff, and left, 2 people carrying $100 worth of BBQ food. Charcoal, 24 packets of drinks, chicken wings, otah, etc. Filled up the trunk of the cab and made our way back. Frankly, I was quite annoyed also because they sent 2 people to get all that stuff, and all the stuff we carried was almost too much already. Plus, they called only when we were on the train to say that we'd have to pay for it ourselves first, instead of sending us off with the money.


On the last night, watched Resident Evil with Chris and Sunny and Geri and played bridge till late. Oh ya, at the airport Val bought all of us tiny little voodoo dolls and Galvyn thought he lost his. Ben and I got a mean shirt. I shall find something equally nice. =D


30Nov-2Dec
Genting was quite fun. No really nice photos to show though. I didn't expect it to take 7 hours all the way up into the mountains. Luckily I borrowed a book and brought my MP3. I got through half the book and we still weren't near yet. I stopped out of fear that I wouldn't have anything to read on the way back. Fog was amazingly. Visibility was crap. I was admiring the bus drivers for their guts in climbing up the slope in such heavy fog. I think our bus stalled a coupla times, and we had to inch up the mountain. Spent the rest of the day wandering about looking at stuff.


The next day, bought the full day indoor pass. Rode on the boring tame rides inside, Ferris Wheel, Reindeer thingy, all that. Later went outdoors, which was ALOT more fun. Luckily the last two days were relatively clear, and we could enjoy the outside rides. Flying dragon was..ok but not really that thrilling. Ah, but the Flying coaster was FUN. I enjoyed that the most. Except during the drops...I have something about falling. I wanted to scream but my throat locked so I just held on for my life until we hit the turns. Then I screamed. That was fun. The turns are fun, being yanked about, but the falling freaks me a little. =\ But the ride was exhilarating.


Tried archery. It's harder than it seems. =.= Lol. I can't remember if I did go on more rides. Went back in later for the 4D motion master, which was CRAP. It looked like something the makers of similar attractions in Australia and other places did in their spare times. Lucy we didn't pay to go in. Sorta. Not worth it. I've been on better. Oh but then I went on the BUMPER CARS, which was totally OMGWTFBBQ awesome. =D I haven't been in one since I was a kid, so this time was especially fun. I could have ridden it all day. I just drove off and started ramming as many people I could. But basically my batch which entered the ride was most made of kids so I just continued ramming everyone and grinning all the way. Everyone I hit also was having fun. I call it happy violence. I wish I could do again. =[


Last day, took another long ride home. The jerk behind me put his feet up on my seat when I was gone. Hope he gets foot cancer of something. More than anything I wanted to pack 500g of cocaine into his shoes and make him walk into Singapore. =.= Asshole. Dropped off the bus into hell. Hell was Beach road near midnight and no cabs wanted to pick us up. Then my parents started arguing. My dad called the taxi company and didn't catch the cab no and hung up. And he said Golden Mile Complex opposite the HDB blocks and we were opposite the complex already. =.= He also ignored us when we corrected him. So while I was trying to call the service to confirm the cab no. the driver tried to call us and when I called back he never picked up. =.=


I called another company, was put on hold listening to some song about "ease my troubles..blah blah blah" I smiled at the irony. Next track was "I believe I can fly" Then I got thru. Told her my location, and she put out the call twice before a cab turned in a few seconds to pick us up. Just lurking around for the booking charge. =.= Gotta run. Have to go to a job agency at 3 later at Tamp. Money money money money. =D Can't check for spelling errors.

I just came back from Genting. Bought some interesting stuff. I think I'll blog more tomorrow..lol. I'll facebook then sleep...need to go out early tomorrow morning...