Welcome to the LoA

When you stay in Singapore for quite some time, you get to know something very interesting. To put it nicely, it’s called abbreviation. To put it crudely, it’s lazy shortcuts.

Let me just run thru some of them from the top of my head. PIE, AYE, MRT, TPE, CTE, ERP, SBS, UOB, DBS, POSB, KPE, ST, PUB, EDB, LTA, PSA, PSLE, PSC….. If you stay here, you’d definitely know what they mean.

This doesn’t just stop at road signs and government sector names. At my workplace, I’m addressed as MH. There’s CPZ, MNG, JCN, MLE, MLU, MCH, MCA…. who are my colleagues. You know that Singaporeans are obsessed with abbreviations when some of them even pronounced MRT as ‘mert’. It irks me quite a bit.

Maybe because it’s part of the culture. I mean, in mandarin, there’s a grammatically perfect way of doing this. Let me elucidate:

马来亚大学 = 马大

新加坡和柔佛 = 新柔

瓜拉雪兰莪 = 瓜雪

新加坡国立大学 = 国大

i’m illustrating them with mainly Malaysian place name because it happens in Malaysia too. you get your JLN, KPG, LRG, SG… my point is, it gets quite irritating sometimes when deciphering a certain message made up of these stuff.

Now that i’m working and i have to read comms typed in this kinda stuff: you get M for Monday or Mathematics depending on the context, T for Tuesday or Teacher depending on the context, S for Saturday or Science once again, depending on the context.

But these are just little things in life that if you don’t take notice of them, they just slip by you without you knowing it. I wonder if it happens to the rest of the world.

Am erste Tag.

Finally, I have ceased the days of waking up at 645 am to go to work. Instead i’m going to work at 10 only starting at 11. In fact i’m starting tomorrow at 12.

Of course larh repercussions are there. Coming home late and having late lunches would be some of them. But i really must say – the place looks neat. Really quite impressed at the classrooms especially the one that looks like you’re in star wars.

i guess first day of work is always the same – information overload. So from late morning til night me and the other newbie lady both sat there drilling info into our heads until you can see juices flowing out. Its just the nature of things.

Friday is a holiday. It felt kinda weird that i’m looking forward to public holidays now.

On we Go

Yeap. Finally finished up my last day at work. To be honest, it felt a little bit sad. Not that i missed doing all those things but the whole 1 month plus going up and down the mrt line, meeting funny people, talking whole day about cameras and laughing altogether – sure will be some memories left there.

Life moves on i guess. I’ve posted my last picture about the stuff that we do there in this post and no those things are not teh peng. Probably will never touch them again.

Die Another Day

It’s my 3rd last day at work today. So far everything i’ve dealt with is steel – stainless steel, carbon steel, steel for heat treatment, duplex steel, chromoly steel and more steel.

So when a titanium alloy came in today for microstructure, it was a refreshing change and wooo i went to polish it right away.

BAD CHOICE. Turns out, titanium only sounds good. cut myself while grinding it coz titanium is really #$%@# hard to polish. Plus i can’t cut and mount it on a sample holder because they have to examine the etched sample under low magnification.

Speaking about etching. Unlike steels which require nital (3% HNO3 with ethanol), titanium requires the chemical you see in the picture. Now if you have studied chemistry, you’d know that HF (in the pic) is quite ‘fun’.

"HF chemical burns can be treated with a water wash and 2.5% calcium gluconate gel or special rinsing solutions. However, because it is absorbed, medical treatment is necessary; rinsing is not enough. In some cases, amputation is required." (Wikipedia, 2010)

Maybe my chemistry teacher exaggerated quite a bit so when i was handling the etchant, i was wearing 3 pairs of gloves at the same time. It doesn’t help that the rest of the more senior colleagues just retreated to their desks. HAHA.

And then I over-etched the sample. Which means i’d have to do it again. Tomorrow. starting from polishing.

There’s a time for everything

It was a good one and half months working with a bunch of fun loving colleagues. Now it’s time to say bye bye again.

So, journey to the west is ending. Last episode this Thursday. 715 am. Looking back I quite enjoyed it actually – other than waking up early and getting home late.

btw those things u see up there are samples which we do our tests on. looks pretty cool but doing it 15452346 times and u know what i mean.

I am 孙悟空

Journey to the west. Everyday. Starting 715 am.

iPhone more?

i think that Thailand has got the best advertisements ever.

It’s a funny thing sometimes

You know when you first started out to look for a job, you’d get all your files – resume, certs, testimonials etc all in a folder. I was hoping to get rid of that folder maybe about 3 months into looking for a job. Getting rid of course, means hiding them somewhere not visible larh.

Turns out it takes about half a year or so. And I guess not many people will have a ‘Resignation’ file inside their folder so soon though. It just shows how complete my folder is – from cover letters, resume, certs, testimonials… all the way to resignation in a matter of six months.

There were times when i wonder why’d i go through all these things. There still are times like that and i guess there will be times like that in the future. But i really ponder at the wonderful timing that He set into place – from BTT to a friend’s wedding, all settled before i move on to another job. It truly does reminds me that my life is not my own, but it is His and He knows what He’s doing.

Granted, i might have been a bit overzealous while taking up this job, making myself having to apologise to some. But i’d say i’ve never regretted taking it up – knowing people, learning new things, feeling how it’s like to commute 3 hours a day to and fro. It’s something new and i truly appreciate it – honestly, i have not, and will not, for the rest of my time there, pull on a long face to work, not even one day.

I guess its a funny thing sometimes.

日本語が難しいね！

I wanted to learn Jap language for the longest time. In fact, before i went to uni, I had a set of CDs (which i have lost btw) i brought over to aussie while helping my sis with her wedding.. seems like a lifetime ago..

anw yes the CDs. It’s to learn Jap. But i never get to practice it. When i went to uni, instead of studying Jap (coz a lot of fakers inside if you know what i mean), i chose German, which turns out to be somewhat untamed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like German but staying over here at Singapore really restricts a lot of German interaction.

Unlike Jap. I found myself playing Jap games, Jap toys, watching Jap animes, Jap drama and having Jap books which i have no idea what they are talking about.

It irks me quite a bit when they mumble some stuff and you know what they meant by the nuances and the little phrases that you get through the Kanji pronunciation, but at the same time you don’t know what they are really saying.

SO. I’m starting over again. Found a super duper zai website in case you want to start learning Jap too. I figured that since i know Kanji characters i’d be better off learning it than some other languages (try Korean).

Hopefully this time round i can succeed. haha!

頑張っていくね！

Gaming

really doesn’t sound like something I should be posting on my first day at work. But i just suddenly have the urge to do so – after playing a heck lot of games recently.

And realising that perhaps I would never have the chance to sit down, fully committed, eyes fixed on the screen with every awaking minute to wipe out those annoying zergs.

In a way, gaming really is sort of like a commitment. There are people I know who thinks that people should just grow out of games. You know, like how children grow out of toys. But seriously, we don’t live with Pong or Pac-Man no more. Just to clear up any misunderstandings – gaming here refers to PS3, PC and XBOX360. And playing games on these machines is both an enjoyment and sometimes, a total waste of time. But i’d rather prefer the former.

Perhaps it’s just boys. I’ve noticed how that babies, especially boys, gets very excited about remote controlling stuff. Just a small little switch to turn on a fan or a light can entertain them for nuts. And the further the switch is away from the apparatus, the more excited they get. So when you throw him a wireless black looking thing controlling a character in some mystical world when he is old enough, you can be SURE he’d be stuck at the screen, fully committed with every awaking minute.

I grew up with the PC gaming community. I remembered playing the 2D scroller Prince of Persia on a black and white screen, and crying my pants out when my character died. Then there was the LAN shop era (which is dying btw) where we would camp around in some dark dubious cyber cafe spraying bullets at each other. Now, after nearly two decades, i’m quite sad to see that PC gaming is reverting to stuff like FB games. Except for Blizzards and MMORPGS – but that’s another story for another day. In a way, i was guilty of it – piracy. Piracy has, officially or unofficially, robbed the PC gamers of our first class citizenship in the gaming industry. Developers just don’t see enough profit to focus on PC gamers since they’d just gonna torrent it anyways. And that’s why i’ve decided to not buy pirated games anymore – a feat I’m still doing today.

*sigh* I can talk for gaming for on and on and on I guess. It’s just like that baby boy playing on the switch on and off repeatedly until he realise he needs to grow up and work. hahaha.

Alrite enough ranting. Still gotta work tomorrow. Nitez.

Dear Blog

i know that i havent been here to update for a while. i apologise for that. Things have been going bland. i finally understand what it means to “take your own sweet time”. it is an important lesson of waiting and waiting and waiting….

 

 

and waiting….

Truth be told, i’m still waiting right now. Sometimes its not easy, but with each trial comes great lesson learnt. I am eternally grateful for those who have provided me with encouragement and patience (esp my dear mama), and will continue until the good news arrive :)

I am officially…

a BEng. yeap. that’s what they called it here when you graduate. A B.Eng. Bachelor of Engineering that is.

oh well, time really does pass at quite a pace. I’ve been in Singapore for nearly a decade now, and it feels like yesterday. Last world cup, i was not even freshman in university. Now i’m a graduate. Btw, i just want to say that – OCTOPUS PAUL IS DUMB. even though it predicted correctly and Spain won. Cmmon guys, how superstitious can you get.

World Cup aside, i’ve finally made it through convocation. Not like it’s particularly hard, but for many of us, it has been the day that we’ve been waiting for since primary one.

Aye, but my sis is not around. In fact she hasn’t been to Singapore for dunno how many years. I will personally kill her if she gives some excuse not to come for my wedding next time.

Enjoy the pics :D

 

 

The gang has graduated. Too bad Peter is one sem slower.

Finding a Job

I dunno for whatever reason, i don’t really feel the urge to go and hunt down every single corner for the best job in the world.

Felt very lethargic actually, and really just feel like want to nua and read books whole day. nothing better to do. maybe go for a run to reduce stomach size or something.

aiiiyyyeee….

Pontian – Kuching - Kinabalu

I didn’t know when we started planning for this trip. it was just out of a sudden when we’re talking over supper that the topic of grad trip come trickling by and it was decided that we would go on a trip to east malaysia.

in fact, out of all 4 of us, i’m the only one graduating this semester. so i guess grad trip wouldn’t be an appropriate term.

So here we are, back in one piece after a 2-week break. Though we couldn’t get our initial plans going (we wanted to drive all the way from Kuching up to Kinabalu stopping by the little towns in Sarawak, but the car expenses that would incur is beyond imagination), we still managed a fine trip, ending with sore thighs and hips.

The aim was simple. It is utterly frustrating to keep track of how much to spend on eating and worrying whether or not the food will taste good. This is especially true of visiting countries with a higher living standard when travelling, and i’ve experienced that quite a bit. So we aimed to visit these 3 places and eat until the cows come home without bursting our budget.

Well there was another aim actually – to see how dead we can be by climbing the highest mountain in the region with minimal training. Turns out it smothered 2 guys’ motivation to climb ANY other mountain in their entire life.

So here goes some highlights. Pontian was great with awesome food. particularly, there was a dish called ‘Tong kang bee hoon’ in which the rice vermicelli is stir fried with a kind of fish that i’m not familiar with. very shiok. Btw, i have no food pictures because we were (me included) simply not interested in waiting for me to whip out my camera and take some photos. Digging in is the first thing to do. And of course the famous Pontian Wanton mee. shiok.

Sun setting over by the beach at Pontian. Click to enlarge.

Next, it was Kuching. From my memories, Kuching doesn’t really have a lot of tourist attractions – malls are not very big, (even the new Spring is well, hmm… fair-sized?) beaches are not very happening, no coral reefs... the only thing that interest nature enthusiasts is probably the rainforest. But we are no nature enthusiasts. we are food enthusiasts and food is just what Kuching has to offer – at a dirt cheap price. Along with a kick-ass shiok-daoooo mouth watering resort.

Damai Puri resort. I don’t remember it being like this but this is quite some scenery actually. Click to enlarge.

Anyway, the trump card was the last supper. Let me recount: 3 med-huge crabs, butter prawns, yam wall with mixed veggie, fried bilin (local veggie), fried beehoon, sweet n sour sultan fish, fried oyster, soup, 6 rice and 10 cups of drinks – all for 6 person. it amounts to less than SGD 12 per pax. seriously, we nearly flipped. Too bad there’s no food pics, or else you’d see crab carcasses all over the place.

 Sunset by the beach at Permai. i just liked this picture a lot. Click to enlarge.

Then came Kinabalu. You can imagine that we were still dreaming over what to eat and showed no concern whatsoever for what awaits us in the last days of our trip. Btw, we really give thanks to God and to all our friends for providing us lodging, car and food throughout our trip. You guys are awesome.

And so we’ve planned the climbing to be on the last 3 days, a wise move from hindsight. Food in Kinabalu wasn’t as cheap as Kuching, but in return we were rewarded with much sceneries to look at. It’s the tourist thing. you see, the more tourists a city has, the higher its living standard has become and that’s the case for Kinabalu i guess.

Just a random shot by the island. It really looked fantastic. Click to enlarge.

We did almost everything we could before climbing – eat, shop, hangout at malls, play bridge, BBQ, swim, snorkel… and then on the day before we climb, we went to have some simple briefing and mental preparation of what we were pit up against.

Mighty mountain behind the range in the clouds. It decided to show its face when we were on the island. Most of the time it’s hidden in clouds. Click to enlarge.

Turns out we really need the mental preparation. It didn’t sound so bad but uh… let’s just say that you need to at least train a bit larh before climbing. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Meaning i only want it once in my life. At the end, it’s something that we would be proud of and i believe that all of us now appreciates flat surfaces to walk on.

The most famous peak in Mount Kinabalu. It’s behind the RM 1 note. Click to enlarge.  

It’s almost a miracle that there wasn’t a drop of rain throughout our climb. KK has been very consistent in its weather – hot blasting morning, cloudy noon and braaahhhh.. poured in the late afternoon. But we really thank God we could witness sunrise on the peak and got home without a single drop of rain on our shoulders. Even the mountain guide was surprised.

I dunno whether we’d have such a trip anymore. Probably not since 2 of us decided that they’d only go to a mountain provided there’s car/lift/escalator. So this really makes it once in a lifetime :D thanks guys, you guys are awesome!

Time’s Up

I haven’t posted for a month, figured that if i want to keep this blog alive i’d better post some stuff.

Looking back to the first post i had in this blog (about 9 years ago), it really did hit some nostalgic points. though there were some dry spells here and there, this blog has probably seen my entire Singaporean life up til now.

And now time’s up and i’m moving on to the next phase. Again. Lately everyone’s been posting thank you speech coz its the end of 4 years, and memory lane is, hopefully, full of flowers and tinted in sepia tone.

This is probably the last time i’m posting on this blog in KR. i’m not gonna close down this webbie though - it’ll be quite interesting to look back at what i’ve wrote in another 10 years time. As of now, i’m looking forward to the next phase.

It’s always like that. Happened countless times - the emo only sinks in when you left, and by that time you should move on – for better or for worse. 月有阴晴圆缺，人有悲欢离合. its the process of being swept away by time.

4 years. of course it’ll leave behind some flowers in memory lane. maybe a pile of cow dung somewhere, but it serves to fertilise the flowers anyways. Ima gonna miss some stuff – practises late into the night with the Rockers, eating supper with mistress peter, talking about MW2 over supper with Claymore Yap and playing Dissidia with Otaku Kanneeaay when we were suppose to be mugging for our modules. the list can go on.

So, time’s up guys. it’s my turn to move on.

Sometimes

i just feel like being a recluse, imagining Chopin playing his nocturnes on a wintry full moon night, one after another.

The Stache-Off

Really one of the most kua zhang clip.

Internet Addict

I used to not understand how on earth can someone be so hooked up to the internet. Ok so i have an email, maybe i have a friendster account (so 1990s), or maybe i have a blog. So if i have to check them all and update, it’ll probably take like what? 10 minutes max? How would such a thing, especially when it loads pages like snails, be addictive? seriously. It’s not like i can play CS on it.

Turns out i was wrong. I’m used to not watching television – haven’t had them for the past decade. But right now, after four years of cable surfing, i find not just me, but my neighbours as well, stuck to the screen beside their beds almost 24/7. Quote “I haven’t been on the internet for 2 days! It must have been some kinda record..”

It’s quite intriguing that a huge chunk of information can actually be very addictive. admit it guys, how many of you spend hours in front of wikipedia. and the interaction with the virtual social world – facebook… not to mention the ominous youtube.

I’m always very fascinated to see how our generation has been so drastically different from the past. perhaps they thought they were different – when they had their TV. hohoho, now one greater than TV is here.

Perhaps some kinda measures have to be taken. Perhaps we should talk to people face to face rather than just tag on their wall or something. Perhaps i shouldn’t even be blogging about this. How ironic.

COD: MW2

Brings back memories of me rushing down to the LAN shop when i was 13-14, right after my exams ended. Never enjoyed a game that good since CS came out.

those were the days. where people were not so complicated and life was not so difficult.

i wonder why can’t we all just stay as innocent as we were. It is a choice, isn’t it. Knowing all the unnecessary complicated things behind and still wanting to remain innocent and pure is a choice. It is a choice to become gentle while you grow to become shrewd. It is a choice we have to learn how to make a decision from.

It’s a realisation especially, when i played this game, to see how far i’ve come to. to see how much i’ve grown into. and to remind me how much time i’ve lost. Such is life.

Plants vs Zombie

Now on your iPhone as well.

If you have tonnes of time, an iPhone and 3 bucks to spare, (THREE BUCKS – that’s like eating a lunch or something) please do yourself a favor and get this game.

iPod touch also can. *hint hint* someone who’s been growing mushroom, now you can REALLY grow some mushroom to whack the zombies.

A Serious Man

Lawrence Gopnik is a man in trouble. His wife is trying to divorce him, his daughter has nothing better to do than to wash her hair, his son is smoking marijuana behind his back, his brother is a nut staying with him in his house, his student tried to bribe him and some record company is billing him for things he didnt buy.

Yet, at the end of the story, you don’t get no answers to all his problems. Seriously, it’s either too abstract, or i’m just too noob to critic films. i am earnestly hoping that it’s the later. i have absolutely no idea how on earth this film can be on the list of one of the 10 best films of last year. i am sincerely looking for any enlightenment if you watch this film. TELL ME WHY IT IS ON THE OSCAR LIST.

the only thing i can make out of the film, is “who cares about Lawrence Gopnik? He’s just another average Jew who struggles with his life problems, and so do we.”

If movies are going in this direction, we’d be doomed. I’m serious.

铁棒磨成针

Before:

 

After:

 

Plus backache, finger ache, finger bleed, sweat all over, tears. sweat, blood and tears.

On a side note, i have my mp3 while doing stuff like that, and just realised that ‘Khalil’ Fong (方大同) sounds like ‘go and play’ in Foochow.

The Informant!

Matt Damon is superb in this dark comedy, and i really have to say, sometimes you just feel like slapping Mark Whitacre across the face when you watch the movie.

Until i found out that ADM is actually a real company, and Mark Whitacre is actually a real whistleblower.

I don’t know why this movie wasn’t really shown widely in Singapore, but this must be one of the most interesting movie of the year. Unlike blockbusters and all, this is a movie you can sit back and enjoy a few laughs but never stop thinking about how true this whole tale is :)

Red Bean

Red Bean doesnt sound like a very interesting title for a song, and actually this song has been around for donkey ages. But it just brought back some very nice memories :)

Last SEMester

Ironically, I’m not doing my last SEM (secondary electron microscope) session. Have lots of SEM to go before i can graduate, and above is a picture of it. Stare at it almost every week trying to look for tiny weeny inclusions on a metal surface.

Not very interesting, after you’ve realise how routine this work is. Actually, all the work that you’re gonna do will NOT be very interesting either, and that is a FACT. Gotta learn how to deal with it now, sooner rather than later.

Inspired

Recently read an article by a very renowned photographer, and it really makes you think twice before getting ANOTHER lens for your DSLR.

Actually, it’s not that i have a DSLR, but the truth is, taking pictures has always been about the PICTURES and not about your camera. It’s about the composition and the colour, not about your f stops and lens zoom.

I have to admit that with a lousy camera its harder to do stuff like taking pictures in the dark properly / get exceptional bokeh / get like super up close shots / get shots with very good colour representation…. BUT, having a complicated camera just turns your picture into crap actually.

And so, before i happily save up enough money to go get myself a decent cam, i think it’s important to get the idea right again – taking pictures, not playing with your camera. which reminds me, i can actually do that with my phone. 

Avatar

I haven’t blogged in a while, and since then, a lot has happened.

I’ve just had my progress presentation this afternoon, grilled by a total of 3 profs and finding myself in another pile of workload after that.

BUT! i have to post something about this movie. i’ve watched it last week, and despite the big brouhaha and high expectations of James Cameron blue men, i came out of the cinema and said to myself, “That is a darn nice film!”

I haven’t said that in a while, and avatar really, really, really deserves that. Not that i will watch it again in 3D but if you havent catch it, you’d better.

9.5/10