Bakuman – Worthed Reading From the creators of Death Note:  “Bakuman” The only similarity between Death Note and Bakuman is the “New” ingredient in both manga. Unlike most mangas, Bakuman has a refreshing theme. The series follows talented artist Moritaka Mashiro and aspiring writer Akito Takagi, two ninth grade boys who team up to become manga artist. Read online that its anime is coming up in fall 2010. Looking forward to that! The JetStar Challenge Must be quick! Super quick! It’s only a difference and minutes and the tickets are gone! Fortunately, tickets to phuket booked, but sadly on different flights. Darker than Black Season 2 One of my favourite anime Darker than Black is back! Season 2 is out. After watching 3 episodes, I was quite disappointed. Season 2 seems to drift away from the main character Li. There are a lot more new characters there instead which confuses me. Maybe I’m not being fair since I’ve only watched 3 episodes. Of course, I will continue to watch this anime, it’s the only anime I’m following now… Fighting with the cockroach We had our first encounter with the cockracher at our house last night! It was horrible! It escaped under our bed, but we were persistent. Dear dear “jumped” on the bed, knocking here and there, spraying almost half a can of insecticide under the bed. Finally it crawled out! But we were too late again, we did not get the newspapers in time to smack it. It crawled back in. Another 5-10 mins of spraying and jumping on the bed. Probably the cockroach has crawled out and hiding at a corner of the room… so we divert our attention to the curtains. Sure enough it was hiding there. This time, dear dear smacked it with newspapers, with just enough strength so as not to dirty our floor. Finally… we can have a peaceful sleep. Our wedding! Brothers and sisters: Thank you soooo much for helping us. I had a lot of fun that day! Friends: Thanks for coming to the banquet and celebrating this special day with us. Links to the photo montage as well as the wedding highlights can be found Leslie’s blog. 1 more week We have been really busy with the house and the wedding, especially the house. From spring cleaning, to end work ceremony, to move in ceremony. There are just too many things to do! Then not long after, we had the Guo Da Li. And it all took place last week! Furnishing/cleaning the house is a never ending task. Hence, we have decided that our focus next week is our wedding. I can see the weariness in me when I looked at myself in the mirror. I need to replenish my sleep! Finally, I can say that almost everything has been settled… I really appreciate the fact that dear dear will be on leave next week to handle the rest of the preparations. Thanks dear! Btw: Invitation cards have been sent out! Please RSVP. Latest Status The latest status showed that “Due to no one at home, the goods is kept”. Alamak, of course no one at home lah. I’m here!!! Wow! The goods are on their way! I bought some clothes from a online store in Japan and they gave me the DHL airway bill. It’s the first time I made use of such service and I’m really impressed by how detailed they track the goods. It’s on the way! Spending and Spending BIG BIG hole in our pockets now… Lights – We belong to the practical type. Only requirement for lights is brightness! No spot lights, unless required. And yet, we spent more than $1000 on lights… Toilet accessories – The basin, the taps, the stopper are all sold separately! A toilet bowl can be as expensive as >$1000. How long do you think you will seat on a toilet bowl?! Anyway, they add up to more than $2500 (inclu heater). So friend, if you intend to get a resale flat like us, you will need at least $45k for the renovation works and carpentry for kitchen and some shelves. Furnitures and electrical appliances not included hor. Renovation 3rd day Today is a special day. Happy Birthday my dear friend! I’m sure everyone knows there are many things to take care of when it comes to renovation of the house. Besides the interior design and budgeting, you may want to consider the feng shui. I’m never a fan of feng shui but I believe in cleansing the house before moving in. I know that everything is in the mind but I really feel good about the house after we perform the cleansing ceremony of our new house. Somehow, I felt at home after the ceremony… I’m eager to see the outcome of the renovation! The renovation work started 2 days ago. Just 2 days and the whole house has almost everything tore down. And I meant it. We hacked everything except the kitchen wall tiles. Today is the 3rd day of renovation and they are already laying the living room floor tiles. Finally in production! After more than 16 months of working on this project… the system is finally in production! Woohoo!!! Voice Haven watch such a touching and meaningful drama for some time… You will need tissue every time you watch. Unlike typical TVB series this drama features a different aspects of the role of a coroner – conveying the voices of the dead to their loved ones. Learning English Recently, my mum took up an Advance English course offered by some Learning Hub . It is a 3 months course which costs $1,357, with $1300 sponsored by the government. At this difficult times, I’m really grateful to our government for sponsoring a lot of skills upgrading courses. My mum was very excited about learning proper English and has high expectations. I even bought her a MP3 recorder to record the lectures, in case she can’t understand the teacher’s english since we are are so used to Singlish. It turned out that the recorder has no use at all. She understood the lecture without any difficulty… since the teacher speaks Singlish as well. From my Mum’s feedback, she is more Singaporean than my mum. All sentences end with “leh”, “lor”, “lah” and start with “Eh”, “Ah”. Here’s a passage which my Mum copied in class. It is supposed to illustrate the use of adverbs. ” I can’t stand doing nothing. I really hate holidays where people lie on the beach all day. I can’t understand it. I absolutely love doing exercise so I get up early everyday and run for ten kilometers before breakfast. I’m not very keen on team sports like football. When I go on holiday, I do water-sports like surfing and sailing. I quite like walking and cycling too.” No wonder my Mum is disappointed. I’m really sorry my friend… I was all ready to go to your wedding tonight when I read the invitation card again and realized that it was a wedding lunch and not dinner!!!! Please forgive me, my dear friend. Congratulations and wishing you both a lifetime of ever lasting love and happiness. Music is incredible! It’s never too late to learn music. I started to teach my Mum to play the organ a few days ago. She has many excuses for not learning in the past. She said she’s old and her fingers are not as nimble anymore. But the fact is she can TYPE faster than me. Partly encouraged by me, who recently started violin classes, and my Dad who diligently practises his flute everyday, my Mum finally started lesson 1. So I took out the course book Step 1 and taught her the first song “嗡嗡嗡 小蜜蜂…“（Song about a little bee) As my Mum practises, my Dad walks around and gave her a few tips here and there, sometimes laughs at her mistakes. Dad made a casual comment last night. “哇。我们家里有很多蜜蜂。” (There are many bees in our house). I think music has brought the family closer, especially between my parents. I thought it’s very cute of my Dad to teach my Mum how to play the song according to the rhythm. Karaoke Everyone knows karaoke is a word which came from Japanese. But it is only not long ago when I learnt the meaning of this word. Kara = means empty in Japanese Oke = is the short form of Orchestra. KaraOke = singing without orchestra! Relieved and great sense of achievement It was a disruption from my normal routine of work… it was something which I’ve been wanting to do but did not get a second chance. More than 1 year ago, I was given the opportunity to conduct a short presentation to the users, but I did not dare to since I was totally not prepared. Luckily, I was given a second chance, this time with more than 1 week of preparation time. Last week, I conducted a 3 days training to a group of users. It was not a big group, but they had high expectation of the course since we are expensive… I’m glad I pulled it through somehow. Successfully conducted the training and received good feedback from them. I was really relieved. This is a stepping stone. My boss had plans to let me conduct more trainings to the users but did not want to confirm yet. I guess he is waiting to see my performance before he made any commitment. Anyway, I was really relieved and had a great sense of achievement now. Of course, I still have to face my large stack of backlog tomorrow. But, for once, I think it’s great to do documentation. (As compared to conduct training…) 3rd week of 2009 Yeah! It is the 3rd week of 2009 and I have fulfilled one of my new year resolution! I enrolled myself into beginners violin course at Yamaha, even bought myself the cheapest violin I can find there. I’m really excited about the first lesson, but that will take place only in Feb. Meanwhile, I need to work more overtime to clear my backlog before Chinese New Year… Will you employ contented people? I read an article which made me a bit worried.  The writer wrote that her boss will never employ contented people because to him, they lacked drive and ambition. Hmm… Although we all like higher salary, faster promotion and lesser work, but I’m quite contented with my current job. At least I don’t foresee myself looking for a new job 1-2 years time. I wonder if my boss thinks that I lacked drive and ambition. Btw, my Mum thinks that I should not be too easily contented as well. Luckily, there is another side of the coin. Quoting the writer, “the same dissatisfaction that was supposed to drive someone to work harder also drove him to keep politicking, temper tantrums when a colleague was promoted above him and incessant grumbles at the water cooler. “ That reminds me of a comment given by my boss during performance evalution. He thought I’m rather happy working in the company and enjoys coding, at least on the appearance. He’s 80% percent. I’m happy working in the company, but there’s 1 colleague which irritates me now and then. I enjoy coding but if my job is all about coding I will leave really soon. I enjoy communicating to the users and doing some design work as well. Because my current job does include all these, I’m happy. No matter how we portray ourselves, I think being positive is important. A positive person will bring positiveness to his surroundings. New Year 2009 New Year resolution can be bad for me… according to some research, but I still want to set a few goals. In 2008 The greatest achievement is of course, I’m married to my dearest husband on the 7th Sept! It was a year filled with challenges and opportunities. My company has expanded from 6 of us to the current 17 employees, and 19 next month. I was lucky to be given the opportunity to take on the role as a team lead. They did not have much choice since out of the 6 of us, only 2 of us are developers. That made us the most experienced developers among the other new hired developers. Ha ha. There was not too much technical challenges but more of gaining trust and respect from my users. According to my boss, right from the beginning, my users has raised their concern that I’m too young and inexperienced. Initially, I was more like a secretary to my boss. In meetings, I simply took notes and did not give any opinions or asked any questions. After the first phase delivery, I got to interact more with the users and began to gain their trust. My biggest achievement is to gain the respect of the manager, who never talk or even look at me in meetings until the first phase delivery. Last but not least, I finally completed my master. It was a dreadful 2 years… never going back to NUS again. Notice I said NUS, because I do not rule out the possibilities of taking courses in SMU, SMA etc. Ha ha. So what about 2009? 1. Learn to take care of my loved ones. 2. To initiate more outings with friends, find back my long lost friends! 3. To take on the role as a system architect role, learn to handle users and talk with confidence. I must learn to pause and think before I speak. 4. To renovate my new house, within budget, without conflicts with hubby or family. 5. To carry out the traditional wedding smoothly… more importantly no conflict with hubby or family. (I’ve heard of too many stories… wedding preparation can sometimes lead to heaty quarrels with Mummy or hubby) 6. To take up violin lesson 7. To slim down a little to prepare for wedding photo taking. 8. To read more widely. Before 2009 It feels really good to catch up with “long lost” friends. I met up with one of my secondary school friend tonight and we chatted for a few hours. In the recent christmas gathering, we both felt the need to meet up again, just the 2 of us, to build up our friendship again. One of my new year’s resolution is to meet up with my “long lost” friends more frequently. On top of this, I’m thinking of learning violin… Hmm… Bloody Monday, one of the most exciting drama! Oh my god… every episode is exciting and filled with surprises. Filled with twists and actions. Must watch! Must watch! I just watched episode 3, didn’t expect the spy to be this person!!! Ah… can’t wait for the next episode. Stop wasting paper, DBS! I’ve been receiving credit card statements from DBS (a bank) for several months, although I’ve terminated the card. So I decided to read what it’s about. It wrote: ======== Your account has been cancelled. Please settle the outstanding balance, if any, immediately. Previous Balance                                                               0.01CR Total:               0.01CR Please settle this statement promptly. If minimum payment is not received by “Payment Due Date”, a late charge of S$45 per account will be levied. ========= ** CR = Credit => It’s the bank who owes me money. DBS out there, kindly settle this outstanding balance immediately, including the $45 late charge and STOP wasting paper! Bloody Monday I just watched the first episode of Bloody Monday and I must say it’s superb! Fantastic! Judging from the first episode, I think it’s as good as death note. The first episode is almost like a movie, although it’s a 11 episode drama. I just can’t wait for the subbed version! ROM photos Deng Deng. Here’s the photos for my ROM. I looked so different and so matured! From ROM Happy 1 week wedding anniversary! ROM It was a long day, for me as well as for all my dear friends who had helped us. Thanks brothers and sisters, for ensuring everything went smoothly. It’s only ROM and we were so tired after the lunch. I can’t imagine how tiring it will be on the actual day. A great sense of relief after the whole day. No hip cups. Great! It’s worse than running a project. A Surprise From My Colleagues My colleagues gave me a nice surprise today. 2 bears in Kimono! So cute!!! They even have birth certificate. Really grateful to all of them. So thoughtful of them. Thanks! My Semi-Big Day I’m sure all my friends know that I’m preparing for my semi-big day, ever since I bought a house, this must follow right. I called it my semi-big because strictly speaking, the big day is still more than 1 year from now. Dear friends, My ROM is set to be on the 7th Sept, 八月初八2008年。Sorry that I’m unable to invite you all since it’s just a small lunch reception with my relatives. But you will definitely be invited for the dinner next year. So start saving now! Kure-nai Kure-nai, a new anime which I came across accidentally. Only 12 episodes but quite interesting. It reminds me of darker than black and Aishiteru baby. It seems like a combination of the two. Proposal Daisakusen SP Oh… really sweet…. If you had watched the japanesse drama Proposal Daisakusen, also known as Operation Love, be sure not to miss the special episode. It really rounds up the drama well!