Graduated! Pictures from my Graduation. Gong Gong’s Birthday Work’s been depleting all my time and energy that I have got nothing left to blog. My tumblelog has all my latest updates, so keep a lookout on that RSS feed on the right. Here’s a really overdue video… Parents’ 21st Anniversary To celebrate my parents’ 21st Anniversary, we went to Waraku Central before watching the Arts Festival Opening at Boat Quay. Pattaya 2008 Part 2 LaSalle Mini Exploration After dinner at Hip Diners with Jin, we proceeded to meet Kai at the Cineleisure carpark which cost him a bomb for maybe 15 minutes of parking… We headed to Plaza Singapura where I collected our movie tickets and headed to Yoshinoya where Gela and Kai had their dinner before our movie, Iron man. It was boring in the beginning but started to slowly pick up but I thought there weren’t enough action… After movie, we went to have Selegie Tau Huay. After Tau Huay, I didn’t want to go home yet so I suggested to have a little walk around LaSalle which is just down the road… Pattaya 2008 Part 1 This is really late. 1 1/2 months since my trip to Pattaya in March. There’s so many pictures I have to do this in parts… The morning of my departure on 11 March, my laptop broke… Trip spoiler! “Locked out” of my laptop, I decided to see what my brother’s doing while Mom was getting ready… As usual, engrossed in his CARS… We were flying to Bangkok on an early evening flight so we had early dinner at Earle in T3 before going to T2 on the Sky Train where we take the shuttle bus to the Budget Terminal. And so we flew to Bangkok and met Dad at the Airport. We checked into Grand Diamond Hotel for the night and set off to Pattaya the next morning. Tong Shui Cafe Recovering from my little flu, I went to meet Li Ting and Edward at Meridien Hotel 3 Saturdays ago. That Edward had me alight at Heeren and then board another bus to meet them at Meridien because he didn’t receive my SMSes in time… I withdrew some money before heading to the basement Food Court. They first had ice kachang then fries… Edward’s got an ugly expression… =/ We started to contact Allan, Joe Wei and Mei Yi out. It was at first planned that we will meet Allan and Joe Wei at Dover MRT Station for dinner because Allan has a camp in SP. Later when we were already on the MRT platform, Allan told us he won’t be able to make it. Since we were already on the platform, we went to City Hall for a walk… We went to CitiLink and Raffles City. Li Ting and I made a GREAT DISCOVERY about the escalators leading up to Raffles City from City Hall MRT Station… We realised that when there’re less people on the escalator going up, that escalator will go faster. When there’re more people on the escalator going down, it will go faster. Why is that so? GRAVITY! I am lazy to continue explaining the details but I trust you should be able to work out the details on your own… When we were browsing at Trints, Jin called. I didn’t expect Jin and Kai to be so early. We had planned earlier to have supper at Tong Shui Cafe in Bugis. I asked Li Ting and Edward along. We managed to get on to Kai’s van after a bit of miscommunication about the taxi stands and Starbucks in Raffles City… I am glad that Jin, Li Ting, Edward and Kai got along well. Somehow I just feel happy that my friends can meet my other friends and we can all become one big family! After supper, Kai sent Li Ting and Edward home before we got back to Bukit Panjang. I came home and drove out to fetch Kai and Jin at Kai’s place. I wanted to have some McD’s at King Albert Park and also explain some things to Kai… After our second supper, I sent the 2 home and finally got home after a long evening… Job Hunting Last Thursday I went on a blitz for a job. I went for 2 walk-in interviews at Vivocity’s Desigual and Holland Village’s Essential Brew. First off to Vivocity. I walked in and asked the lady at the counter if they’re hiring part time sales assistants. She had me fill up a form and asked more about my family and education backgrounds. As usual, she also asked why did I not find an office job because I was an Accountancy student… I explained and then she started to give me a lecture on how a retail store works and how important it is for me to be able to smile, serve customers and push sales… The ironic part is, she was giving me a very glum face while expecting me to smile to customers… I think she got this stereotype of accounting students as boring, not interactive and wooden blocks… In the past, I always thought Accountancy graduates are highly sought after in every industry. As we are in a professional field, the students would be of certain calibre and do well. I guess I was wrong. Accountancy graduates are not that welcome in certain industries like retail… Oh and until today, I received no call from this glum lady asking me to work… She certainly has serious doubts about my abilities to smile, serve and push sales… Not minding that glum lady, I went ahead to Holland Village and had an interview with the Manager. He briefed me about the job scope, pay and instantly got me 2 timeslots to work. The rest was history, I started work at Essential Brew 2 days ago. Yesterday, Michelle, Yuko and I served only 5 tables. It was a quiet night. There was time for me to think of ways to improve my service like making the setting up of utensils faster and more hygienic. According to what the customers had ordered, I would set the utensils up on top of the serviettes, fold up the serviettes with the utensils in it and bring over to the customers’ table. At the customers’ table, I would just need to lay each set of serviette and the utensils in front of each customer and do some slight adjustments. Fast and more hygienic! I think in F&B, and whatever Service industry, we need to ask how do we want to be served in order to serve others better. I’ll be working on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week. Push On It was my first night working at Essential Brew. I started work at 7PM and just ended at 2AM. I was nearly late because I misestimated the travelling time luckily I reached in time… For someone who had sat for several months and don’t do regular swimming and gymming, 7 hours was really tiring. Walking up and down the aisle, serving, cleaning up and taking the occasional order. I am totally unfamiliar with the Menu. Like you have to ask how raw the customers want their steak to be, if they want any ice cream with their apple crumble… I don’t even know what the customers are ordering as the dish/drink names are so new to me… I can’t serve well because I don’t know what am I serving up… Then setting the tables was terrifying… I know how a table should be set but I fumbled when I have to set it for others… I want to learn to do it neat, hygienic and quick. I washed the dishes with Wilson during closing and I swear I never washed so many plates, cups and utensils before in my life! I don’t even wash my dishes at home… I think sins should be built higher so taller people don’t get backaches after that… I guess this entry totally convinces everyone that I am a true blue “Young Master”. It also proves everyone right that such jobs isn’t for me. Don’t ask why I am not doing an office job… I answered it at least 10 times… However, I will push on since it’s my choice and I don’t want to quit just yet. I want to enjoy my job and treat it as a training though a grueling one. I want to do this as a preparation for National Service. Insomnia Nope. I am not quitting blogging. Actually the April’s Fool prank could have gone 2 ways. Either I really quit which I really did comtemplated or come back and say Happy April’s Fool. Since I am back quite late, there’s no longer a need to say, “Happy April’s Fool Day!”. There are several things I have in mind to blog about. I am not intending to backdate them to their original dates but simply whack and make it appear first… Hence the current blog entries will be going along side some entries which should have appeared months ago, don’t get confused… I am suffering from insomnia lately… I slept only at 4AM just now but couldn’t get back to bed after being awakened by the Google Calendar SMS reminding that I have to work tonight at 7PM. Somehow I just feel things are changing so fast, I can’t handle it… I’ll just flip and turn in bed thinking… Can someone tell 2008 that, I hate him? So much’s changed and will change in 2008. Everytime I think about my Graduation on 28th May, I cannot help but get emotional. Graduation marks the end of my school life in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Everybody would go back to their own separate lives and move on. I think I would camwhore excessively, hug everyone I see and cry my lungs out in my Graduation Rope on Graduation. And then there’s National Service! The life changing moment which I don’t know when yet but hope it won’t fall exactly on my birthday. How amazing to enlist on your birthday. Maybe 100 pushups as birthday present… And then there’s the very much unknown near future. As of now, only SMU asked me for an interview next Thursday. I’ve got no news from NUS and NTU. If I can’t enter this year, I’ll just keep applying during my National Service. However, what if I can’t enter even at the end of my National Service? What am I going to do? I seriously don’t know. Getting into a University now is the only direction I have. If that path is blocked, I don’t know… The only thing I know is, I want to get out of Accountancy before it sucks the rest of my dying soul… And then there’s going to be so much so much more things that will change… 20 seems to be the age when Life ends… I hate 2008. I’ll try to get back to sleep now because I am going to have a long night tonight… Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture I QUIT! I QUIT! Quit? Since my laptop died on me… I lost the list of topics I want to write, which is in my Rainlendar… Now I can’t remember what I want to write about… Then the Blog Stats isn’t improving even though I am updating… Maybe it’s a sign that I should quit blogging totally. The moment I want to revive my blog, I had to go away to Pattaya and my laptop died on me. Also there isn’t much for an unemployed person like me to write… Until my laptop comes home, please watch the tumblelog Feed on the right. I think that’s going to get updated more than Waffle… Laptop Update I sent the laptop to the service centre this afternoon. It seems like it’s pretty rescue-able and they won’t be giving me a brand new set. The serviceman told me that there might be a need to reformat my hard disk drive. Maybe even the entire hard disk drive including D Drive which stores all my pictures and music. There isn’t much of a choice right? Now I am going to lose all the photos I taken since 2005, my 8GB of music, my Photoshop CS2, my Rainlendar with people’s birthdays and other programs… Shit happens. I had wanted to buy an External Hard Disk Drive at ITShow 2008 but got a camera instead for my Pattaya trip. The very same day that I had to depart for Bangkok, the laptop died. I had so much confidence that it will be fine at least until end of the year but shit happens… I just hope that it isn’t a Hard Disk problem but a motherboard or RAM problem then my stuff will be safe… Off to Pattaya I will be flying off to Bangkok this evening and travelling to Pattaya tomorrow morning. I will be back on Saturday but will not be updating for an indefinite period. My laptop died on me…! I am actually blogging with my dad’s iPhone now… Regular posting will be back hopefully end of next week after I bring the laptop to the service centre and hopefully they will give me a brand new laptop like how they gave R3gular one… Beyond Waffle Today, I am going to introduce 2 websites that I use beyond Waffle. It sounds like I am going to forsake Waffle. Yes, I do have thoughts of moving Waffle to a private host but have no plans yet. Let’s get back to the today’s topic. Netvibes The first website that I will introduce is Waffle Universe, powered by Netvibes. I would call Netvibes a portal. A portal that consolidates all the information I want real-time. It tells me how many unread emails I have in my GMail and Hotmail accounts. It tells me what’s the weather in Singapore. It tells me if I have new Facebook friend requests. It tells me who had updated their blogs. I can make To-Do lists on it. I can leave notes to myself on it. I can read news on it. I can do all the above without visiting their respective websites and all those are possible through Widgets and Feeds. Recently, Netvibes gave Netvibes users a new way to share the information they have. Through Universes. At Waffle Universe, you will be able read the blogs that I read at “Feeds” tab and you will be able to surf the websites I frequent at “Online Haunts” tab. Now you know what I do during my long hours online. Netvibes sounds interesting, isn’t it? Maybe you should try it out! All you need is a FREE account then you can start customising your own Netvibes portal and creating your own Netvibes Universe to share with your family and friends! If you really do like Netvibes and intend to stay, do add me as your contact as well so I can visit your Universe and know what you’re reading too! Tumblr The second website I will introduce is Mr. D, powered by Tumblr. Tumblr is a tumblelog provider just like Wordpress is a blog provider. Tumblelog? Pronounced as tum-ble-log. To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks. You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create. For me, Tumblr is like Twitter and Blog’s love child. You share what you see, do, hear with the World Wide Web. Tumblr is Twitter with multimedia. It’s easy, powerful, mobile, free and YOU! You took a picture on your mobile, you can simply email it to your Tumblr account and now the WWW knows where you are and what you are doing. You found an interesting video on YouTube, you can share it on your Tumblr by simply copying the video’s URL (not embed code) and posting it. Personally, I like to keep my blog tidy. I like the idea of having an entry each day. I don’t want to flood my blog with random links, videos, pictures etc. I don’t want to think of a wall of text to complement what I want to share. Therefore Tumblr is somewhere where I can flood with all the random stuff I want to share but not on my blog. Sounds bad to flood but Tumblr is simply built for that. Blogs are great, but they can be a lot of work. And they’re really built to handle longer-form text posts. Tumblelogs, on the other hand, let you easily and quickly post and share anything you find or create. Sounds like Waffle’s missing out all the random stuff right? NOPE! Take a look at the sidebar and you will notice a new RSS feed on Waffle. Now nobody’s missing out on all the random stuff! Good Year Although I didn’t fulfil at least 80% of my 2007 Resolution. It was nevertheless a very good year. LEAD Class 3A “Graduation” International Business Study Mission 2007 Attachment I must say the best thing that ever happened this year is, I managed to find a group of very long lost friends. Long lost for almost 10 years, we found each other, hang out and totally love each other. They just mean so much to me that I don’t know how to use words to express. No matter how things became a little complicated, how tempers flared, I still love LEA. That does not mean I don’t love my other friends. I still love all of you! All of you have pieced part of my 2007, part of my life. JPS peeps. Kim Sen and company. Nickerson and company. Wei Kar and company. Zhi Kai and company. KSS peeps. Xhi Ween and company. IBSM peeps. NP peeps. The Cowboy Bar. Eat-Drink-Man-Woman. The year’s ending and a new one is beginning. May this keep the memories of 2007 and commence the new chapter with more goodness. In 2008, things will change. No matter how much I want them to stay, change is only constant. It would be nice if they change for the even better. Graduation National Service University Application Friendships Family Good bye to the 2007 me. Goodbye to the 2007 you. Goodbye 2007. My Own X’mas Present 13 Books I bought myself for Christmas. Tuesdays with Morrie Think and Grow Rich The Richest Man in Babylon The Undercover Economist Getting Things Done The Man’s Book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People The 4-Hour Work Week The Golden Compass The Subtle Knife The Amber Spyglass The Kite Runner The Memory Keeper’s Daughter A Cousins’ Outing More than 2 years ago, we went on an outing to East Coast Park. 2 years now, we finally got our second cousins’ outing with more people this time. We went to catch Alvin and the Chipmunks at The Cathay. 3.5 / 5. After the movie, we took a train to Vivocity where we had dinner at Terra Cafe. Chilled out, camwhored, bimbo-ed/ himbo-ed at the Sky Garden before we went SHAWPING. I got myself a little white umbrella at Daiso and they got some other stuff for $2 each. We didn’t get anything from the Post-Christmas sales going on everywhere though. The sales isn’t that amazing for me. Nothing caught my eye and I really have no idea what am I going to wear for Chinese New Year… My Christmas I didn’t had a bash for Christmas but it sure was tiring… Must have been the most tiring Christmas I ever had… I cannot even recall everything I do in proper detail… Too much happened so I will jot down what I did for my own future references… 23rd December Met up Allan at his place, fetched his Mom to Telok Blangah before meeting the Liting, Mei Yi and Theng Loon at Kallang MRT Station. Was raining heavily, went to Kallang Leisure Park for bowling, arcade. Packed KFC at Marina Square before going to Marina Bay. Took a wrong turn into ECP and all the way to East Coast Park. Dinner under the full moon, stars and aeroplanes. Made rounds in Changi Village where we peeked at transvestites. Home Sweet Home. 24th December “Lost” my mobile in the morning. Dad found my mobile in his car. Restless for half a day at work without my mobile. Went to Bukit Merah to collect my mobile from my Dad. Met Theng Loon and went to Orchard to meet Xin Le. Met Allan, Joe Wei and Liting at Marina Square. Caught National Treasure: The Book of Secrets. 3.5 / 5 Came home for dinner, change before heading out again. Went to fetch Liting from her friend’s Christmas House Party. Went to Geylang for Tau Huay before sending Liting home. Went to Joe Wei’s for Mahjong until Christmas Day was over… Melee - Built to Last What Do I Want? Sometimes I question myself on what I really want. Time and again, I change my directions. I don’t think I know exactly what I want. There are so many things that I pick up and choose to give up later on. It seems that there ain’t anything that I insist on having. Nothing in my life seems just that important to be insist on. It’s time to make conscious considerations and not rash or uninformed decisions. It’s time to gather what I value in Life and put them into my decisions. Be it my career choices, relationships, beliefs or daily standard operational procedures. I have grown to realise how much I don’t like the lifestyle of accountants and auditors. The extremely disproportionated work-life balance. The not-so-value-added services. I would like careers with more fun and challenging factors, better work-life balance, proportionate returns for hard work, more value creating activities. I am currently looking at Finance, Hospitality and Public Relations. That’s the direction I am going to put myself on when I apply for University. Relationship-wise, I am definitely not ready. Loneliness often bothers me but I ask myself, do I need someone by my side just to cover my loneliness? Isn’t that quite selfish and at the end of the day, it just won’t work out. I have been focusing on the wrong thing. I should work on the other more important things in my life than getting emotional over this… I am a very random person but my logical mind does not compromise. I have learnt that my strong beliefs does not permit exceptions. What should be done and what ought not to be. It’s no point trying to change or accept something. It won’t take too long for me to breakthrough back into reality and my senses. All my life, I don’t think there’s something that I want so much to work real hard for it. Not studies, not love, not whatever. There has to be a reason for this and that’s direction. I lack a self decided direction to work towards. The year’s ending in another week or so, next year I have to make a better resolution… A Wedding Melee - Built to Last Late Nights I had late nights last weekend. On Friday, I went to X’pect Studio after 2 months. I got my hair cut in preparation for a wedding next week. I certainly don’t want to look sloppy at the wedding… The year is ending, a new year is coming and everyone seems to be getting their hair done. Srico was having a very busy night and I had to wait until 8.20PM before he started on my hair. I was rushing for 9.10PM The Golden Compass at Plaza Singapura Golden Village so I had to hurry him a little nevertheless he gave me a simple and clean cut which I am enjoying the past few days. After getting my hair done, I ran down to MOS Burger to meet Liting who was waiting for me… I got her paper bag with her piano scores and we quickly got on the bus to Plaza Singapura. She went to exchange a pair of slipper while I rushed to collect our tickets and meet the others. Fortunately we were on time because there were plenty of advertisements before the movie actually started… After having a visual idea of The Golden Compass, I am now even more tempted to get myself Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy for Christmas… It seems like a simple fantasy story but actually held much hidden meanings… After the movie, Allan drove us to have Bah Kut Teh supper around Kim Tian/Tiong Bahru before heading for Mount Faber where we had our little sightseeing at Faber Point and Jewel Box… After our little adventure, Allan drove us home… I got home around 2.30AM and slept around 4AM. It’s really very convenient to be able to drive and have a car… However, petrol is so expensive nowadays and it totally drains teen drivers like us… On Saturday night, I drove Zhi Kai and Hui Jin for supper at Rail Mail. My father finally allowed me to drive out alone without him beside me! I also managed to horned someone the first time, I horned a bus and Jin thought it was quite a weak horn… We talked over noodles at EAT and coffee at The Coffee Bean before heading home. I reached home around 2.20AM and slept also around 4AM… Such late nights are taking its toll on me… I felt so tired at work yesterday that I dozed off constantly and thought I was going to faint… I shall go rest earlier today… Negligence I really feel that I have neglected my writing… Not many official blog entries… I have got plenty of ideas but no time and energy to start writing… Auditing really sucks away people’s souls… I feel like some working class robot now… I come home, I watch When Spring Comes or Heroes, I chat and I go to sleep… I am getting so tired of this bloody routine… I got into another job instead of the one I am supposed to go today… The senior gave me things I have never done before… I am trying to take it as a challenge but I don’t see a point in learning it… Learning it isn’t going to benefit me in any way. It kills my precious brain cells that could be used for better purposes… I am taking a miserable $600 to do what an Audit Assistant does. I think there’s a huge expectation gap between my senior and me… It seems like I have to do some OT this week… My hatred for audit grows through the days… I am eagerly waiting for my last day in 2 months’ time… My personal life is messed up… I rather use my precious brain cells to clear my own mess than help some audit team complete their work and the partner profit-share… Can somebody save me…? Individual’s GPS I was on the bus today and saw this girl holding onto a device that looks largely like a GPS device. I certainly do not understand why would someone taking a bus needs a GPS because she isn’t the one driving… Then an idea popped in my mind. Maybe there should be a GPS device for individuals… A GPS that tells you how to go to places not be driving but by public transportation. Especially useful for shy or egoistic people who don’t like asking others for directions. Locate the place you want to go and the GPS device would search for bus and train routes to reach your destination. Something like a portable StreetDirectory.com… Nifty, isn’t it? Senoko This Week New location added to my Auditing Trail. Senoko. The blue placemark in the North of Singapore. It’s much nearer than Loyang from my place. Yes, Johor Bahru is just opposite… This seems like the worst industrial area to audit among Tuas, Loyang and Senoko… Fortunately, my next job will be in Raffles Place! Back to civilisation! Congrats, JRW! Congrats to Miss Jung Ryu-won on winning the 28th Annual Blue Dragon Film Award (Best Female Newcomer), for her role in Two Faces of my Girlfriend. 隐形的翅膀