Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13 Rice I really should stop listening to Damien Rice. Shouldn’t I? Lecture Hall Hello, here I am blogging from the comfort of the back of my lecture hall. Thank goodness I brought my laptop today, the guest lecturer from Japan is soooooooo boring. 2 more weeks to my exam and I’m not prepared at all. GLHF. On a side note, 24 more days before I’m home! Protected: elephant This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: trade offs This semester has been my happiest semester in Perth so far. I’ve done some crazy things that I would never do in Singapore, met a new friend and got hooked on the PS3. But it also has been my worst semester so far in terms of results. Seems like my poor time management skills are back to haunt me again. This is bad, I didn’t pay obscene amounts of money to come here to have fun. The fun can come during the school holidays and when I earn obscene amounts of money when I start working. Time to switch to mugging mode. Enough of the fun and games. Protected: rationality not! This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: Epic conversation I had the funniest conversation with Prime last week Me: Eh Prime, where do you stay in Singapore? Prime: Serangoon Me: Oh same here, which part of Serangoon? Prime: Lorong Liew Lian Me: That’s near, I’m staying at Lorong Ong Lye. Which part of Lorong Liew Lian are you staying in? Prime: Cherry Gardens Me: That’s next to my house, I’m staying at Rosalia Park Prime: Wah, I can see my swimming pool from my bedroom Me: Really? Oh ya, there’s an SIA air stewardess staying at your condo at the first floor Prime: ……………………. That’s my sister Me: HAHAHAHHAHAA On a side note, after weeks of gossiping about other people, I’m getting stuck in a sticky situation on my own. Finally, there is something interesting in my life. Protected: Clash of the? This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: Simi Lanjiao My heart is weak. It can’t take news like this. But seriously WTF!? My spider sense tells me something bad is brewing. No Sunlight When I was young Lying in the grass I felt so safe In the warming bath With every year That came to pass More clouds appeared ‘Til the sky went black, and there wasno sunlight And it disappeared at the same speed As the idealistic things I believed The optimist died inside of me The bitter truth about growing up. I feel that I’ve become so practical now, it scares me when I think of it. But deep inside, there’s a little part of me that still dreams like a kid. P.S I should take up a full time job as a secret keeper. People love confiding in me, this shows how trustworthy I am. HAHA. Aftermath Its been 3 days since the super massive hailstorm hit us here in Perth. I’m still alive and kicking and in one piece. The city is back to normal except for the fallen leaves and branches. It was a pretty epic day for me, this isn’t my first time experiencing hail, but its definitely my first time experiencing hail the size of golf balls. Hur hur. It was pretty hot in the early afternoon but at around 4pm it started raining. I was in the midst of cooking my lunch and I heard some weird noises, like rocks being pelted on our tin roof, so I went out to check. And it was hailing! The hail was pretty light initially, so we whipped out our cameras and started taking pictures. But after a while, the hail showed no signs of stopping. The hail stones got bigger instead, and I was like fuck! My car is parked outside, not in the carport. I risked getting my head busted by the hail and ran out to shift my car into the carport. As our roof was made of tin, the sound of the hail hitting our roof was deafening. We had to shout to each other in order to communicate. It continued hailing for another 15 minutes or so, I got a bit bored and went back to my room. And guess what? My window was totally shattered by the hail, even my insect net was busted. A couple of pieces of hail was lying in my room. The hail even came down from the fire place in my room. I didn’t really give a shit about it initially as the hail had already subsided, so I went out of the house with my housemates to camwhore in the hail. The scene outside our house was scary, the entire road was covered with fallen leaves and branches, the entire place looked like a scene straight from a disaster movie. Pretty epic shit. We went over to check out our friend’s place next door. They lost a window too. But reality set in when they told me that there might be a second wave coming. Oh noes, my windows are busted, my room will be a goner if I don’t do something about the windows. The FML part of the day kicked in. I spent a good hour sweeping and vacuuming the pieces of glasses, cutting my leg in the process. After I finished vacuuming the fireplace, I turned the vacuum cleaner off and some black gooey liquid flowed out of the vacuum cleaner. Urgh. After I finished cleaning up the gooey stuff, I sat on the plastic box to take a break, but I ended up breaking the lid instead. The following day, I drove to the car workshop with Brenda to get her windscreen fixed. Her poor CRV’s windscreen cracked. The entire left rear window and her rear lights was totally broken and her entire car was covered so badly with dents, it looked like a golf ball. On the way to the workshop, everyone was laughing and commenting on her car. And we travelled at 60km/h on the 100km/h freeway. I was checking my rear mirror every 10 seconds or so to make sure that her windscreen didn’t shatter while driving. Lol. When we got to the workshop, her cousin/the mechanic was stunned by the amount of damage her car took and said immediately, “Your car is a write off.” I was pretty shocked by the news, I didn’t expect it to be a write off. Even I felt the heartache, can’t imagine how she would feel. Prime’s brand new Lancer is probably a write off too as his car was as badly damaged as Brenda’s. But looking back now, I secretly wished that my car was damaged and written off too. Because if its written off, I’ll get $8000 back, the same amount that I paid for my car and I can use it to buy a new car. If I sell my car now, I would probably fetch around $4000-$5000. The Prodigal Son 3 days of school, 3 days of work, one off day. Shouldn’t be much of a problem since I don’t work long hours, but I think I’ve fucking bad time management and I’ve wasted countless hours away when I’m supposed to be working on my schoolwork. I don’t want to learn the hard way with my grades dipping this semester. I’ve worked hard for school for the past one year and I don’t want all that effort to go down the drain this semester. I should start waking up my idea and get back on track with school. And why am I working? I running out of money here soon and I don’t want to ask for more from my parents. I already feel bad enough for spending such big money just for a degree when I’m already almost quarter of a century old. My brother is just 2 years older and his earning big money even without a degree. I really feel like the Prodigal Son from the Bible right now. of wasted money and awesome dreams Yesterday, I wasted $2 and one minute of my life at the peepshow watching the ugliest stripper known to mankind. There was absolutely no way that she could make my blood rush down south. To make things worse, the show was in a private cubicle which provided tissue papers for obvious reasons. The floor felt sticky. (Maybe its just my mind playing tricks on me) I walked out of the place feeling so disgusted. First and last time there. Oh well, at least its something that I won’t get to see back in Singapore. On a side note, 3 days ago I had the most awesome dream ever. I dreamt that I was chatting with Takagaki Tomoko or 高垣朋子 of the now defunct Sunday Girls. I was doing so well hitting on her and was on the verge of getting her phone number. Just as she was about to give me her number, my alarm rang. Time for work. FML. The funniest part is that the last time that I saw her on TV was when I was 15. I have no idea how her image randomly popped into my mind during my dreams. Couldn’t really find a picture online that could do her justice. Here’s the best that I can find. Its her at 0:26 of the video. Week 4 Week 4 of school has already started. I can’t believe that my mid semester exams are just 3 weeks away. Surprisingly, I don’t miss home that much time except for the occasional cravings for orh luak and hokkien mee which I can’t seem to find here in Perth. I’ve settled down in my comfy little room. Small it might be, but at least I get my own bathroom. There are 6 students staying at my house now. 5 Singaporeans and 1 Malaysian. 2 of them are my really good friends here and another one of my housemates is an ex-Montfortian too. What a small world. Unfortunately, he’s a 30 year old guy doing his Masters, so its almost impossible for us to have common Montfort friends. As for the other 2 housemates, I shall not comment about them. But I worry about the EQ of our future doctors though. I have a new found fascination for Damien Rice too. There is something really dark about his songs. Can’t really put it to words. I’m starting to prefer Norah Jones over Michael Buble for my bedtime songs now. It feels so good to put an entire playlist of Norah Jones songs on your playlist and go to sleep with her songs at the background. I never had a chance to play music to sleep as this is the very first time that I have my own room for the 23 years of my life. park bench theories “You can’t come by like an angel into my life and then fly away” Stalker proof My blog should be stalker proof now. Stop googling my full name you stalker. And please own up. SNAGs vs MCPs Sensitive New Age Guy - “Instead, we view a SNAG as a guy who, while maintaining his boyishness, still stays in touch with his sensitive side and is not ashamed to show it. He believes in equality of the sexes, treats us girls nicely and shows us the respect we deserve.” Source Male Chauvinist Pig - “A male who acts superior to and aggressively toward women.” Source During my summer break, Jon and I had been debating over this issue. SNAGs vs MCPs. Which type of guy will score the most chicks? Or at least attract the most chicks. After countless cups of teh and prata, we finally came to the conclusion that at the end of the day, primal instincts will kick in. If the guy is not dominant in a relationship, chances are that The girl will cheat on him The girl will leave him The girl is a settler (Read this article for more information about “reachers” and “settlers” in relationships) I was a bit skeptical about this initially. After all, there has been so much propaganda about SNAGs being the chick magnet in magazines like Men’s Health. But after reviewing all the couples/ex-couples that I know of, I realised that the SNAG theory was bullshit. Girls cling on to their MCP boyfriends like there’s no tomorrow while those SNAG boyfriends that I know of eventually get owned and dumped by their girlfriends. Its time to release the MCP in me. WE HAVE ALL BEEN CONNED. TO HELL WITH THE MCP THEORY. beerisgood Beer is my best friend in this summer heat. Now I know why the Aussies can’t live without their beer. Back to Perth Greetings from Perth. The weather is suprisingly cool today, but I can prepare to melt when it hits the high 30s next week. Please don’t let me experience any 40+ degrees weather. Once is enough. But I was heartbroken when I saw my car this afternoon. Covered in one thick layer of sand, it look like it just completed the Dakar Rally. And to make things worse, my uncle left a gap at the window to allow the hot air to escape. But all the dust went in and the interior of my car is covered in dust too. Hur hur. The air con smells funny, my clutch seems harder (That’s what she said) and I can’t pump a full tank of petrol now. The petrol nozzle’s trigger automatically goes off even though my tank is only half full. My tires were also severely under-inflated, thank God my uncle reminded me to check my tires at the petrol kiosk. My radio also refuses to work now. The only plus point is that both my front sprinklers are working now. Only one side was working when I left, but by some miracle both sides are working now. BUT, my rear sprinkler isn’t working. FML. With a broken heart and only 2 hours+ of sleep last night and only 1 hour of eye shut on the plane I dragged myself to my new home to spring clean. I think I did a pretty good job. HAHA. I’m kinda excited to head to ikea on monday and get my own furniture. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day too. I have to pick 3 friends from the airport tomorrow with the first one arriving at 6am. O_o Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:28:39 +0000 In less than 6 hours, I’ll be leaving on a jetplane. I can’t believe that its been 3 months since my summer break started. School commences on monday for me and I’ve to admit that I’m far from ready. All that bumming has once again made me lazy and fat like how I used to be. I also need to get my body clock back to normal before the 2nd week of school. I’m having the pre-flight jitters but somehow, this feels different from my jitters 1 year ago. Circumstances have changed, people have changed. That includes me. I have no idea whether things have changed for the better or gotten worse. Wear Sunscreen Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you. Sing. Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen. post exams Exams are long over and I’ve nothing to do for the next 14 days before I head back to Singapore. My friends have all went back and its kind of lonely without them around. I would be lying if I said that I don’t have time to blog, cause I have plenty of time now. But somehow, my creative juices have run dry and I can’t seem to find any inspiration to blog anymore. I’ve already runned out of words to type at this point of time. Till the next time my creative juices start flowing again. Category: HDB News Resale HDB prices increased by 38 percent; 40 percent of buyers PR Prices of resale HDB flats have shot up 38% over the past three-and-a-half years according to Eugene Lim, associate director, ERA Asia-Pacific. But what’s shocking is that 40% of buyers are made up of Permanent Residents according to recent ERA’s resale transactions. “The government’s target population of 6.5 million is steadily increasing the pool of PRs; and they have to buy their HDB homes from the resale market as they do not qualify to buy new flats directly from HDB. ERA’s resale transactions show that PR buyers make up some 40 per cent compared to 20 per cent three years ago.” - Eugene Lim, assosiate director, ERA Asia-Pacific. It is widely known that prices have risen over the past few years and that we had a large influx of new residents. But when you see these such statistics side by side, it begs to question why weren’t countermeasures put into place earlier considering this happened over a sustained period of three-and-a-half years? Another statistic we found interesting in the report was how 86% of ERA’s HDB recent resale transactions were concluded with Cash-Over-Valuation (COV). This number seems to come into conflict with what Mr Mah Bow Tan said recently about a third of HDB resale transactions done at or below valuation. We would appreciate your comments here. The report by Eugene Lim, associate director, ERA Asia-Pacific can be found here via The Business Times. Link Another incentive for me to not go back. New sem, New life What a way to start the semester. 4 modules, let’s call them module A, B, C and D. Module A - Legislation, constitution, law of tort, simi lan!? Module B - Lecturer is as monotone as me, and suprise suprise, she is my tutor too! Module C - Lecturer speaks Singlish. Yes Singlish as bad as mine. And the tutor’s accent is as thick as his moustache, so thick that everyone just gives him a blank look as he asks questions. No point asking him to repeat, the accent gets thicker as he replay. *What happened today in module C’s tutorial* Tutor: Vhaat ish the annseeer fuur questiun 8? Me: It can be direct or indirect, depending on whether the cost object is the department or the output of the department. Tutor: Noooo, tat’s noo riight. Dit acheerrly deepends ivf tee coss objekt is dee outpoot of dee deepartment or dee departmient itself. Me: Wtf, isn’t that what I just said? Module D - A direct translation for the lecturer’s name from Han Yu Pin Yin would be goldfish. Yes, goldfish. So you can figure out what her name is. The tiongs are invading the world. Help. On the brighter side, my tutor for this module is younger than me and is absolute eye candy. Looks like Miss Christine Lai is facing competition in my Hall of Hottest Teachers. And I tested Jin’s Skyline today. 3 words to describe it. Sex on wheels! Think my parents will slaughter me if I change to that car. michael jackson > swine flu For the first time in my life, I’m praying hard that I DON’T get the job. Seriously. And it seems like Michael Jackson’s death is more important than the swine flu epidemic. It is this hard to find information on the swine flu epidemic on the news here. Suddenly, I feel that Khaw Boon Wan is fucking efficient. Hur hur hur. don’t complain ok? With his trademark grin, he added: ‘When you ask Singaporean residents for feedback, they will complain that they have to wait more than 15 minutes for the bus. But when you ask new immigrants, they are happy that the bus comes in under 30 minutes.’ Straits Times Don’t complain ok? I wait 1 hour for a bus here also never complain. exam fever Sorry for the long hiatus. I’ve finally settled down in our own pretty little apartment located in an ancient building with ancient facilities. And I have no choice but to use the very sexpensive wireless broadband as there is no phone line at my place. What can I do with 6gb worth of bandwidth per month? I’m in the midst of my exams now. 2 papers down, 2 more to go. The first 2 papers were fine, but the last 2 are going to be tough as I have a bloody lazy lecturer and tutor who doesn’t bother to upload my tutorial and assignment marks online, gives half fucked lectures and telling us to “You can just read through this part on your own” for like 40% of the notes. So tell me, how am I supposed to study. And while all my friends are happily going back to Singapore and eating all the Hokkien Mee and Chicken Rice, I’ll be stuck here working my ass off to earn extra income. Hurray! absentee I would like to apologise for my lack of updates. The past 3 weeks have been really busy for me. Rushing my assignments, being a tour guide and finally being able to meet my love and spend quality time with her. Final exams are looming around the corner, with just 2 weeks to go, I’m not exactly confident after being so busy for the past few weeks. Negative things aside, I’ve finally found an apartment to rent. But the crappy part is that I’ll shift in 4 days before my exams and on my girlfriend’s birthday. Anyway, I’ve finally learnt how to change a flat tyre. Well, my driving instructor did teach me how change one, but he taught me everything within 1 minute, so ya. You get the point. I know that there is a spare tyre in my car boot, but I swear that I didn’t know about all the tools for changing tyres hidden in secret compartments of my boot. Thank God that I found out about my flat tyre as soon as I drove out of the garage and I had a hero who taught me how to change the tyres. Ok, he did 80% of the work, I only did the finishing part. But after changing to the spare tyre, there was something very wrong with my car. My steering wheel would wobble left and right whenever I was travelling on a straight road. I thought that the spare tyre was under inflated so I headed to the petrol kiosk to inflate my tyres but some weird error message pops up whenever I try to inflate it. Stuck with a wobbly steering wheel on a Saturday evening with no tyre shops opened, I drove like a tortise for the next one and a half days and avoided the freeways like the plague. Monday finally arrived and I sent my punctured tyre to the tyre shop for them to mend up it the hole. After the mending was done, I requested the mechanic to replace the spare tyre with the original tyre and I told him about the wobbly steering wheel problem. After 5 minutes, he brought me to my vehicle and said: “Mate, you fitted your nut in the wrong waay. It should be screwed in from the opposite side, that’s why your steering wheel is so wobbly. The tyre might just fly out anytime.” I was like WTFBBQ. Damn embarassing lah! Not my fault ok its my first time changing a tyre. P.S it was a bloody nail that caused my flat tyre you are not warren buffett You are not Warren Buffett. Smart can already, don’t act smart. Leave the trading to the pros. kthxbye the best things in life the best things in life aren’t things 2 more days =)