roles and identities

there has been a spate of drowing incidents lately, in swimming pools and reservoirs. i'm disturbed not by the drownings, but by how the media referred to the victims.

"There have been a few drowning incidents involving students during the past few weeks..."
"A few students have drowned during the school holidays.."
"Should there be more preventive measures to ensure the safety of our students?"

the victims, whom i choose to address as teens or children, are always referred to as Students. are we now seen as faceless students and workers, rather than as individuals? technically there is nothing wrong calling them students, but i'm suddenly disturbed by it. =(

so friendly

so...

while browsing thru jobsDB, i saw an ad for the ST Aero position that i had gone for 2 interviews for. they are still hiring. so, i must have gotten rejected because i wasn't gd enough, not because my fellow applicants were better than me.

there.

time to retreat to a cave to think about it.



from sign maker.

no more swaying

hello! i got back on sunday afternoon, but have been too drowsy and "sway-ish" to blog. I wanted to put more pics here, but for some weird reason, many of my pics turned out very blur. i am very sure i had the auto focus on. =|


backview of my parents


cloudy sunrise on first morning


pre-sunrise on a cloudless sky


along deck 7, view of lifeboat

anyway, i was on superstar virgo, and it was a really huge ship. i immediately felt the ship's slight engine vibrations, and i spent a lot of time watching ripples in my tea cups. it reminded me of the jurassic park movie. *Pomp....Pomp*
all the time, i felt kind of drunk. a little woozy and constantly sleepy.
when i used the toilet in my rm, i nearly lost my balance when i bent down. it felt like i was in an aircraft toilet. but the ship was really quite stable.

i think the reason i felt woozy was that i saw a lot of waves and foam on the sea as the ship moved, and my brain expected quite a lot of swaying to be experienced. but there wasnt THAT much swaying, so maybe my brain got confused. on the other hand, i was pretty sure the boat was rolling, pitching and yawing all at once too!haha....i know i sound totally crazy and confused.

i stood on the deck one morning and looked at the water. was the ship stationary, with ripples coming towards us, or was the ship moving slowly and the water more or less still? that made me EVEN MORe confused!

anyway, the bouncer at the casino made me produce my ic each time i entered...i had anticipated that, so i had brought my ic along. thank goodness, otherwise i wouldn't be able to see how pple gamble away soooo much money in minutes.

some tables had a minimum bet of $200 and there was no lack of gamblers there. there were several roulette tables, with min. bets ranging from $10 to $50. the gamblers placed their chips on almost every number, and when "no more bets" was called, the table was covered with chips. when the "lucky number" was revealed, the staff put a little glass statue on the winning number, and removed all the non-winning bets in a few sweeps of her hands. each round, hundreds of chips get swept off and only a few chips win. sighh...

my dad wanted to play the 5-cents jackpot slot machines, so he put in a $10 note and started playing. we were incredibly lucky, winning a few free bonus games along the way. our credits ran pretty low, when suddenly we hit some winning pattern and the the "WON" credits kept increasing and increasing. hehhehe!! when the numbers stopped rolling, we had a total of $161.20 of credits. yay!! haha...

my father wanted to play some more, but i persuaded him to hit the "Collect" button and just be satisfied with our 1600% profit. the machine started spitting out $1 coins into a collection tray. HAR?? are we gg to get 161 coins??
it's ok..anything is fine, as long as we get the money. unfortunately, the machine got jammed after a while, and an error msg flashed on the screen. before i finished reading the one-line error msg, 2 security guards and 2 casino staff came over and surrounded the machine....
fyi, it takes 4 staff members to settle the problem. one to un-jam the machine using a screwdriver, another to hold the machine door open, and two guards to oversee everything. and probably 10 pairs of eyes watching cctv screens somewhere in the ship.

anyway, we got a container (looks like a super cup noodle cup) to hold the coins. it was only half full though, and i hoped we had all 161 of them. we went to the counter to change for notes. the coins were dumped into some counting machine, and i watched the numbers jump. 140.....150....160.....170......... ....... 210!!

hahahaha....we actually got $40 extra! kekek. hurry take the money and go out liao =P

cruises are known to be food heavens, esp for those who dont gamble. there is breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. my family and i beat that.
0730: we had breakfast at a chn restaurant, consisting of about 6 dim sum dishes and a pot of congee. that's a lot, compared to my usual cup of milo and one slice of bread.
0900: THEN we had a SECOND breakfast of eggs, cereal, fruits and coffee. and tarts and whatever else my parents could eat. i was stuffed.
1000: morning tea!! had some croissants, doughnuts and coffee...
1200: time for lunch! 6 course chinese lunch with dessert and soup
1300: headed to buffet table for more fruits and coffee
1500: afternoon tea! goshh...i don't want to see anymore food.....
1800: dinner!!! same as lunch!!!!
1900: MORE FRUITS AT THE BUFFET TABLE!!!!
2330: SUPPER AT THE BUFFET TABLE!!! noodles, salads, fruits, and more coffee!!!!

ahhhhhh eat and eat and eat and eat!!!!!

by the law of conservation of mass (hopefully!), and treating my body as a control volume, i visited the toilet twice as much as usual. haha....my mother went three times her usual. see? eat so much!

yay! i'm happy

i'm going on a cruise over the weekend! yeah yeah...first time man. (yah la a bit suaku). i'm so going to gorge myself at the buffet table. heeheee =P

btw, i love mr & mrs smith! hehhe...it's a really funny show, and as yilin put it, i was very "tickled". =D the two of them are so playful! hehhe

and one of my professors (chew yt) suddenly emailed me, asking if i need any assistance in getting a job. it was such a surprise, because i haven't talked to him for a yr, and he had only taught me half a module. =)

*jump around in joy*

okok, time to clean my hamster cages now... cya!!

btw, jane, i meant that i could go to nus late tues afternoon to get my gown, and hang ard a while till u get urs. then we can have dinner together or something =) must rem to get my transcript from the university hall too..

i'm thrifty!

hehhe... just realised that the last time i received allowance from my father was 1 and half yrs ago. that was $3000..meaning that i have survived on abt $200 per mth! must also take into consideration that if i travel to sch everyday, mthly transport at least $100. =D

anyway, i've got fresh funds again! hehe..can breathe a bit easier now. but this money is to last me till my first paycheck! estimated to be 3 mths later...

yummy!

sweet, juicy, fleshy lychee!!!

have u guys heard of 妃子笑 lychee? this type of lychee is being sold in supermarkets in little baskets, and is supposed to be the kind of lychee that 杨贵妃 (Concubine Yang) loved. it's really a joy to eat, because it's not even remotely sour-sweet like the normal red kind. this one looks green and unripe, and a bit smaller than the red ones. But the seeds are really tiny (mutated actually) so after u peel off the rough skin, almost the entire fruit is edible. =D

20th june 2005

good morning!

i woke up today, all fired up and recharged for another round of job hunting. i was ready to take on temp jobs incl sales and waitressing! haha..except that i think i cant do waitressing coz the plates, etc are so heavy. anyway i eagerly flipped through the tiny Part/Temp section of the Recruit/Classifieds..... mostly part time perm jobs. the only temp jobs avail seem to be those "Students on Vacation! Fast money!".

and i think my neighbours have started to notice someone leeching their networks, and begun to password-protect their wireless.. =( and the best wireless connection i can have is only of "Low" connection quality. that's insufficient to surf or chat thru icq/msn. so i've to be in my rm if i want internet. don't worry, i'm gg to apply for starhub connenction soon. just haven;t decided upon the plan yet. =P

freakiest cooking show ever

if u guys are home at the right time, tune in to ch 5 at 12:30pm to Nancy Lam's cooking show. this is one really weird show, with weird hosts who dress weird and talk in an even weirder manner.

she talks really weirdly, as if she's telling an over-dramatic story.
"Helllloooo!! and WEELLLcome to MY show. Tooodayyy, weee ARE going to cook REEEEBBSSS."

sometimes the camera would focus on her so much that her face fills up the entire tv screen. it's really disgusting, IMO, and the only reason i continued to watch was because I was being thoroughly entertained by her. hehehhe...
her husband helps out in the show by passing her the ingredients at the right times.

she: "Ben! Are you having a GOOD time?"
he: "YES!"

such conversations (if this can be considered a conversation) repeat throughout the half hr show. one disturbing point kept haunting me as i watched. i thought she sounded singaporean! there was some angmoh accent on for most of the times, but i thought her way of speaking sounded really local.

a short write-up on her. turns out that she IS a singaporean...*faint*

spectacles-lover wrote:
"I am always on the lookout for strange or unusual spectacles. My Latest find is Nancy Lam, a chef who runs a half hour cooking show from her London restaurant. It airs on Friday nights at 7.30 on SBS. Nancy is the ultimate extrovert and, like the Elton John of old, her spectacles are a reflection of her personality. She has a collection of brightly coloured, thick rimmed spectacles. The show is worth a look, and not just for the spectacles."

marine parade is crawling with teachers

hehee...yesterday i went to parkway AGAIN, to the Giant supermarket to buy Pi Pa Gao. It makes a nice soothing and cooling drink when u mix it with ice water. anyway, i saw one of my mech eng professors, G. Leng, at the vcd corner..hmm. so that's what he does in his spare time. given that he's not married, has no car and no hp, i think he's one of the richest pple in sg.

it's 16th june now..and still no news of interviews...
shall read the freshly-borrowed lib bks.

guess who i met?

i was at marine parade with trish yesterday, and met this person whom i havent seen for 7 yrs. and we still recognized each other! remember a male chn teacher in rgs called 郑伟亮？ yup... mr.cheang. he was my sec2 chn teacher and also eca teacher (whom i kind of defeated at a game of table tennis...=P).

he was just wearing polo T and shorts, and he looked so shy! hahhaha.. it's as if i was the teacher and he's the student! he didn't seem to have aged at all though...and i think he looks shorter than i remembered. (trish, is he shorter than us?)

after the initial smile, he looked nervous and like dunno what to do. so i tried to 问后 and asked if he stays around here. he replied (shyly!) that he used to stay there, and just came back to see see.

hehe...interesting encounter. he used to be weirdly serious and seriously weird in sch, but i saw another side of him yest.

never been so touched before

i was watching ch U's Superstar show yesterday. they were having auditions in some shopping centre (jurong pt?). there was a visually-handicapped contestant, and he played the guitar while singing "I Believe". his voice was so full of emotions, and his singing so good, that i just cried while listening....

the audience and judges looked quite touched too..
i think it's the first time that i've been touched by a song.
incredible.

i can't control my brain

hehe... do i sound like a potential mental patient?

i frequently hear from frens and family things like "yiwen, you think too much." i think that's very true, but i can't help it.

for instance the one issue that has been preoccupying (sp is rite! i checked dictionary.com) me is looking for jobs. so far i have been to 3 interviews, and of course i'm not satisfied with the kind of responses i gave during those interviews. whenever my mind is free, it will replay some instances of the interviews, and i'll think of alternative answers that i could give, or improve on my body language so that i can portray a good image, etc. it's never ending, and sometimes it drives me crazy. for eg., this morning i woke up to find that my brain is trying to answer "why are your results not better?".....

interviews are not the only times when my brain does such replaying. i think other situations of (high) stress also resurface every now and then. in yr1, when i was still playing netball in hall, sometimes i'll automatically visualize myself under the net, trying to grab a rebound. i see my fingers stretching upwards, sometimes grabbing the ball, other times tapping it away from my opponent. for some weird reason, that actually gave me a mini adrenaline rush. i think such "uncontrolled" thinking helped to improve my game.
it was not till some time later that i found out this is a positive thinking technique employed by athletes to increase mental strength.

anyway, i'd rather not think so much...

qianwen! i dunno if u can read this... but enjoy urself there! (uh, uk rite?)

for the bored ones, here are 2 games to play.

yilin LOVES this one: H.K. cafe

i personally like this one better... hehe. it's easier! Dai Pai Dong

my head is throbbing

is this a hangover? i'm so not going to touch alcohol for some time. ugh..
i very seldom get headaches one... =|

hmm... got something to say but will hold it back for a while.
meanwhile, i'm feeling fine =)

freaking screwed-up interview

well....thanks for everyone's concern. i shall try to write in pt form.

~ while filling up form for interview, another female applicant arrived. chatted a little. found that she is chee ling, rgs rj, 2 yrs my senior. exchanged hp num.

~ both of us given a test sheet each. given a 3D drawing with measurements embedded in a long paragraph, supposed to give 2D views. also have a pg of manufacturing ques behind.

~ before i could finish half the ques, i was called into interview rm.

~ they pointed out my mistakes. i said i had no time to read the last ques. they say never mind, no need. Sian.

~ interview wasnt smooth. felt that they weren't interested in what i have to say.

~ left the room. tried to warn my new friend. saw 2 male applicants.

~ after her interview, cheeling called me. she said hers was terrible. they told her things like "if u want to get an engineering job, u need to have engineering knowledge." on her way out of the interview rm, she heard:

interviewer to secretary: anyone else?
secretary: yes. 2 guys
interviewer: ok gd. i'm more interested in the guys.

... ...

i had a beer and slept the whole afternoon. (after lunch of course! i'd never miss lunch). hope my parents dont realise the disappearance of the can of beer. i felt much better after that long nap. i'm ok now!

would u trust this airline?

airline

hotdogs

i love having hotdogs for breakfast. i'll defrost one or two sausages, microwave them, then put them on buttered bread.....yummy.

this morning i had a little scare. i was taking out one sausage from the packet of 10, when i spotted the ingredients listed.

Mechanically separated chicken, salt,.....

Um.. that kind of killed my appetite a little. just for a nanosecond....
(no, trish. this isn't going to turn me into a vegetarian...hehe)

farewell visit

hello, i'm in the comp area at the entrance of our beloved central lib, logging on to the NUS network for the last time...*sobsob*

i came to have lunch with a fren, then went to the photocopy shop in the lib to zap my certs. hmm.. there are quite a lot of pple here; almost every comp is being used.

i wonder if any of u have been to Munchie Monkey recently. I just did, and was pretty amused by its "Centennial Menu".

# 1
Soup Sunburst (Pumpkin soup)
-- the golden glow of the soup matches the vibrancy of NUS corporate orange which defines the vitality of the community's drive for excellence.

# 2
Centennial Global Pizza
-- the pizza's round shape brings to mind the globalization of NUS and the University's well-rounded education.

# 3
Everlasting Quencher
-- the colour of this drink is contrived in NUS Blue, which signifies timelessness and endurance. (the drink resembles a small mountain of ice shavings drenched in blue food colouring)

well well.... there were a few other "centennial" items with equally amusing (or disgusting) descriptions, but i didn't copy down all. hehehe... if u have the chance, go steal one home. Good for laughs.

driving lessons of a different kind

i obtained my class 3 license more than one yr ago, but since then i have only driven 3 times. my most recent drive (last night) was after a 9 mth break. hehehe..so i was a little nervous.

each time i drive, i learn something new. lemme recap what i have learnt AFTER i got my license.

#1 u have to step on the brake when u are slowing down and making a turn, NOT step on the clutch.

#2 inexperienced drivers like me CANNOT go up multistorey carparks on gear 2, unlike my dad who sometimes goes on gear 3.

#3 making left u-turns around large land islands are much harder than making right turns.

#4 ? stay tuned for my next driving experience....

bye bye nus...................yay!!

yippee! i've passed everything! yay!
now i'm really going to graduate! =D
.
job search still ongoing, but at least now i can 放心 and concentrate on looking for a job.

i'm gonna spend a lot of money this wk...shopping and watching movies, etc. hehe..