Political Apathy

For the past 10 years of my life here in Singapore, never have I heard of the term ‘Opposition Party’ to be of any significant weight.

Not until now. I admit it. I’m quite apathetic when it comes to politics. Partly because we Malaysians Chinese will probably never get a shot at doing politics anyway. March 08 was a great eye opener, and I guess it had something to do with the response you find in Singapore now.

20 odd years ago, I never heard of election as something that’s so happening – everything is just the way it is and will continue to be to an indefinite amount of time. Now though, things are a bit different. If you go to Malaysia – especially West Malaysia, and spark off a political topic among the heartlanders, you won’t have to sleep for the night. Quite angsty actually.

Decades ago the answers were all quite standard – leave larh, cannot do anything about it what. That’s why I’m here today. That’s why 50% of my family is not in Malaysia. Used to joke that Malaysian Chinese is a bit like refugees all over the world.

Sincerely, at the bottom of my heart, I’d hope for some kinda equality in Malaysia. But oh well, maybe I’d never live to see it.

Hot day

It’s my off day today, and normally I can only get things done on off days cos when I end work on weekdays/Sat, the sun has already bid my side of the world good bye.

So I’ve decided to make full use of my little toy, and rode down to Whitesands for a bite. After which I went on to Pasir Ris Park, and to my surprise, I found a little horse stable. So, having parked my bike I happily shuttered a few of the horses and they were quite friendly actually.

After which I went on to take some other images at the park, just for the fun of it. It’s quite a nice place actually, and cycling there to shoot is quite an exercise too!

Of course, all thanks to my trusty little steel horse – it hasn’t broke down yet and I hope it wont. The chain came off about 2x already but got it fixed so that it’s tighter at the gears.

As you can tell, I’ve gotten myself the cheap version of Photoshop so I can easily crop up some prints, do some nice effects and frame them together.

Hope to post more pics when I got the time

Some motivation

You see, pictures are huge motivation for you to post on blogs. when you have nice pictures, you tend to have more things to say. Whereas if you’re just ranting on and on, you’d run out of stuff in a jiffy.

That’s why I’m putting up more post at the moment – coz I have more pictures now. Though I must say that most of my pics are fairly limited to my living area, but still it speaks a thousand words.

The resident DJ with his new coconut hairstyle.

And my setup. I’m seriously running out of creative juices – need to go out someday to get some pics.

Power of the Prime

Now, it has been the longest time since I’ve wanted to buy a camera. People can testify to this – reading all about f-stop, bokeh, telephoto, macro, framing blah blah blah and still not own a decent cam.

After fidgeting for almost 3 years I’ve finally  decided to give it a shot. Literally – to get a good one.

The irony of the camera is that it can never take a picture of itself. Much like the irony of your eyes – almost a little Socratic.

But aside from the jargon, I’m really not that good in photography. It takes practice – and opportunity - to get a really good shot. I don’t have both at the moment, so I’m just randomly shuttering out images.

Prime lens make a diff – superb bokeh like the above.

The last one goes out to Ms Gracy Tan – since you asked for it in the morning

Holland Day

It was my off day. And boy oh boy, there’s lot to do especially on your off day.

Before I started ranting, it’s best to know some background: the only thing that’s standing between me and the PR card now is an x-ray, some documents to fill in, an appointment with ICA and some cash.

Now the x-ray story. I need to do 2 tests to get by the medical check up – HIV and x-ray. So on the off day, I happily rode to the nearby polyclinic to finish up the whole deal.

“Nearby” is a term more suited for car I should say, and it took me about 20 min to ride there. Not to mention I was lost and had to whip out my GPS halfway through the journey. Thing is, at least I got there rite.

Wrong …

“Oh, we don’t do this kinda medical check up. You need to do with GP, they will refer you here to do the x-ray.” …

Well, since I was out I might as well go somewhere else. So, determined to stay positive on the off day despite wasting my morning away, I rode to IKEA for a table lamp– another whopping 30 min. Happy with my purchase, I rode back just in time before it started to drizzle.

To find out that the lamp didn’t come with a bulb. And it’s already drizzling. Unfettered, I ironed my clothes while waiting for the rain to stop, and rushed out to IKEA again as soon as the sun came out.

After getting the bulb, the sky was turning ugly. Gulfing down an IKEA ice cream (btw you guys shud try the ice cream it’s awesome) I raced back home, just before the thunder and lightning pounded on my doorstep.

Well, at least I finished what I needed to do on the off day – oh yar I havent done my medical check up.

Could have been me if I stayed out another 5 min longer when the storm struck.

Biker’s Park

Strangely, it’s a sight that encourages you to ride a bike. Well I guess it’s because the facilities are there – the double-deckered parking lot seems cool; and the fact that there are more expensive bikes parked at the station (yours won’t be stolen) – just make sure you don’t buy the most expensive bike available. 

In a way, it really does make biking a lot of sense – daily workout, cheap, green, convenient, and don’t have to worry about theft. The part about green can be ignored actually, but what the heck.

Healthy dose of Exercise

When I was young, I used to stay in a huge mansion. It was probably then that I do not comprehend the luxury of space.

I started to know what it means by space constraints when I was about 9 years old, as I shifted to the kind of old shop houses you always see in Malaysia.

It was not until when I was about primary six that I badly wanted a bicycle to cycle to school. I tried all ways to convince my parents that I can haul it up 3 storeys and store it in our little house.

But then, to no avail. It was not about space constraints either. If you look at Malaysian roads you’ll know that they never design anything with pedestrian in mind, not to mention cyclist.

Well, things have changed since then. About 14 years that is. I’m now staying at this place called Pasir Ris, where people ride bike like they do in China. I’m not joking, will try to take a picture of the biking lot at the MRT station.

For now, this will sufficevery happy with my new steel horse.

So from now on, I shall ride to MRT everyday.

First time for everything

Let’s be honest. It’s been 25 years and face problem has never been an issue for me, literally. I mean, thank God because I seldom fret over what’s popping out of my face. I say seldom because there were times that I fret over some minute little dots on the face, and it was probably when I had chicken pox.

But. A few weeks ago I happened to stare into a mirror in a brightly lit environment, and to my horror, I thought I had hair growing out of my cheek. Yeap the blackheads were so bad it seems like tiny hairs crawling out from beneath my pores.

Paranoid, I quickly sought out a place where I can remove them – facial treatment. To be fair, I have no expectations of what it’s going to be like. I know that they clear pimples, acnes and just about whatever that grows abnormally on your face, but going through it was a revelation.

It was a revelation of pain. I had no idea how much I tear and sneeze when the black hairs are being squeezed out of my pores. But at the end of the day, it really felt very clean, and all was well.

I figured that at this rate, I’d only need another facial when I’m 50 years old, so it’s a pretty worthwhile investment HAHA.

Luvs it

Phase 1: Apple introduces some new gadget. The bloggers and the industry tell us why it’ll fail. Phase 2: It goes on sale. The public goes nuts for it. Phase 3: Every company and its brother gets to work on a copycat. (New York Times)

iPad 2 coming March 2? luvs it even if i dont own one haha.

The Apple Legacy

Apple used to be a very well-known household name since i was a kid - when NEC computer was still the very much coveted 486 processing system.

Well, right until Windows came in the 90s and snatch up almost all the market for PCs, and Apple had to eat dust for almost a decade..

So it's quite hard to imagine actually, now almost everybody owns something from Apple thanks to a certain Mr Jobs for reviving the brandname and mobile products.. sad to say, Mr Jobs will be taking his leave soon, and we really will see a legacy left behind by him in all the products that he has envisioned.

personally, i think Steve Jobs has some type of Geass power.

No D3 this year.

“When summoning the demonic overlords, it is best not to rush.” Gamespot 2011.

Dang blizzard likes to announce games that they will release 10 years later.

Wheeee

Seems like blogging doesn't leave me. I mean, not many people read the stuff here, and i blog like once in a purple moon.

Buuuuttt, just feels like writing some rubbish once in a while.

Had a good 2010, and now time brought us into 2011. Feels like i'm recounting the past quite a lot ==> sure sign of getting old actually. In fact, i have come to own this blog for about 10 years. 10 YEARS. though it's not awful loads of post but that's quite a long time i think.

So of course i'm not gonna close it down. It's been 10 years what's up with a few months without a post. So for those who still visits here - esp my ah zeh zeh, (btw saw ur new bangs they are quite awesome) i will have to say a bbbiiiiiggg THANK YOU!

ok bye.

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.