i hope i won't become like this

my maternal grandfather has been in hospital for a abt a wk because of some old age problems - he should be discharged soon. all day long my mother grumbles about having to go visit him in the hospital, and how this sibling doesnt visit much and yet the others dont say anything. and how time consuming and pointless it is to visit for an hour or so everyday when my grandfather is too weak to talk or interact much. HELLO, he's in hospital to recuperate from some sickness, how much do u expect him to say??

basically my mother is not focused on her father's recovery, but tells us about which sibling visited at what time, and for how long. and all that rubbish.
i find it so disgusting i always feel like scolding her when she talks like dat.

another shock to the system

just saw an obituary in today's newspaper. it's my senior in vjc taekwondo exco. she was a teacher at maris stella. think she collapsed while jogging. havent been in contact since like 5 yrs ago, but still......

haiz.

shock to the system

u wake up blurry eyed, and leave the house half awake. get to the mrt, and greeting u are a bunch of "ever-vigilant protectors of the homeland", in their berets and rifles (presumably loaded with live rds). it's kind of shocking, and that's how i really wake up for the day.

can the presence of these soldiers really prevent terrorist attacks?

woozy, eh?

yeah.....

a walk on the peaches and a little alley bliss later, i was not confident of walking in my heels. i eventually did, and even got to the upper level of my bus 65.
i got an aisle seat. the person next to me was sleeping peacefully, and suddenly a wave of drowsiness washed over me. just sleep la, the journey is a gd 30 min long. and so i slept.....

i woke up 3 times during the journey, when i was leaning over to the aisle side and on the verge of falling off my seat. =P i think i must have embarrassed myself hehe...

i tumbled into bed with freshly washed and un-dried hair, and slept from 0030 to 0830. my hair was a mess when i just got up, but it's back to normal now :)

my right ankle was slightly strained after a whole day of heels, esp when i walked from cineleisure to taka, borders, then to peranakan place! i sprained my ankle in jc, and now if i strain it too much, it will hurt. miraculously, the pain disappeared the moment i 脚踏实地 again. =D

feels good

to 脚踏实地! hehe.... (literally feet stepping on solid ground)

been temping in an office for a few days now, and have been wearing strappy heels. wah lau...almost dieded the very first day. i have a couple of un-burst blisters and feet that badly need a good massage. the tendons/muscles below the big toes are cramping all the time, and i had to massage and stretch them as frequently as i could at home. the next day, i'd still have a slight "muscle-ache" there. my feet are overall very tense when walking...massaging now.

no advances for my job search yet.

action packed

my dreams last night were full of jumping, climbing, leaping and fleeing for my life. i dreamt that my fyp supervisor was going after my partner and i, because a girl he likes is wooing my partner and i! and she's a really small girl, like below 10 yrs old. and we kept fleeing from my sup's army of alien soldiers. there were many settings. for example one was on board Superstar Virgo.
on my cruise, i was struck by how slippery and scary the sideview of the cruise ship was. if u fell over the railings at the top level, it's a good eight or nine storeys of air before u smash into the sea. in my dream, i was on the top level, and had to climb over the railings to escape. i still had enough common sense to spiderman down the side to a lower level, and not jump to my death... so that was one mini face off.
the ship was moving quickly towards the shore...much too quickly. as we were reaching the beach, the ship started rotating, like trying to make a u-turn to return to the sea. (this is actually what i experienced when Virgo was docking. the captain rotated the ship 180 deg so they could dock in the correct direction.)
before long, the ship ran aground, and broke into two. everyone was trying to grab their luggage and get onto land. i was worried that the fuel tanks or engine room would explode, and was screaming at all the ignorant pple to quit searching for their bags and just scram. at this time, i got pursued by my sup's army again.

i ran into some beach resort (similar to the one i stayed in, on tioman) and into a room. suddenly i found a few allies, and we tried to think of an escape plan together. nothing came out of our brainstorming. *BOOM BOOOM BOOM*
oh no! the alien soldiers were trying to break down the door! AHHH

we all ran to the super huge balcony, and climbed over the wooden railings AGAIN. i remembered climbing carefully so that i won't scrape myself on the wood/splints and the sharp edges. This time, however, we couldnt do the spiderman thing to go downstairs. there was a swimming pool to jump into, though. but it was still at least 4 or 5 storeys down. so the group of us just hung on the "outside" of the balcony and waited for the soldiers to come.
they did, and came immediately to the balcony. we all held our breath, so that these soldiers wouldn't detect our presence. (hahha...old trick from chinese vampire movies.) these aliens were pale pink, and they had elephant snouts. they came near and sniffed around, but couldnt detect us coz we were not breathing.
then suddenly, somebody shouted something.
turns out that these pink soldiers are not our enemies, but our friends! they are not my sup's army! hehe.. so they helped us climb over and that's the end.

phew....so tiring!!
-----
i visited 2 pple in hospital yesterday.
my grandpa was very weak on saturday, and almost "gone". but yesterday he was much better and more alert, thanks to some booster drugs the doc gave him. but they have to monitor him after removing the drugs, and see if he can recover on his own...

my sec1 cousin had an appendix operation. the surgeons did not stitch up the wound after the operation, coz they wanted to inspect the insides a few days later. ughhh
i think he was in quite some pain, coz sometiems his face contorted and he bit his lips. sigh....

lots of things to clear up

hehe...i'm not referring to my sudden outburst of pimples. (although i think my forehead has the unfortunate texture of a corn flake)

i'm talking abt the countless bottles of face and body moisturisers, the clothes hanging in my wardrobe which i wont ever wear again, the piles of FYP notes and other lecture notes on my table....hehe.. =P
i'll be very excited when i buy the moisturisers, and will use them diligently (aka daily) for a week or so....and then once in 2 days....twice a wk.....once a wk......and no more. my skin is screaming for moisture and i have enough time to slap on a few coats of vaseline, but i'm simply too LAZY to do it!

singaporeans only know english?

i'm watching the hongkong drama, 驳命老公追老婆. a singaporean customer went to the hk office for a meeting, and the hk pple had to translate all their documents into english. the "singaporean" had a bit of angmoh slang, and he couldn't understand a poorly-asked question by the hk pple. duh-uh....

ughhh

i have plenty of frens who are financial advisers and insurance agents. they are all nice and let me have space. i like their non-pushy manner.
HOWEVER, i got a call from an acquaintance today. He asked me if i had gotten a job yet, and i said no. here's how the conversation then continued:

him: "Since you haven't found a job yet, let me share with you my experience in being a financial adviser. maybe you'll like the job."
me: "Uh no, sorry. I am not interested in anything financial, least of all to be an adviser."
him: "Why are you not interested?"
"Because I dont like it? and also i like to do engineering job."

i was like soo frustrated. the above exchange went on for at least 4 times and i wanted to scream at him, "Which blardy part of "i'm not interested" do u not understand??!!" but i couldnt coz by now the entire bus load of passengers were hooked on my conversation. =(

he asked a FEW TIMES to meet him for dinner, and i kept saying NO NO NO!!!
then he finally said, "Ok lah, let's forget abt the financial advise thing. Can I meet you for dinner as a friend?"

Dammit.

i very much wanted to say "NO!! get lost and dont ever call me again!" but i didnt! UGHHHH
i agreed to it! on hindsight, after 6 hrs, i think i should have firmly said NO!!! f*** off!
ARGH

tiny, cheap radio tags created here

ST, H8.

"... radio tags, created by Singapore researchers, will make it easier and cheaper for widespread tracking and identifying of products."

the accompanying picture shows a really small chip, measuring about 1mm by 1mm. it is small enough to be embedded everywhere, in clothes, paper documents or cheques. now, isn't that scary? it's gg to be so much easier to track pple now. u'll hardly have any privacy. *shudder*

the creator is working very hard to make the technology economically viable.....
------
quote of the day: Dr Kluver on the hijacking of xiaxue's blog

"Disagree with the (blog) writer, but do it in another (legal) way, like setting up a blog to blast her."

so friendly
-------------
p/s: dont u guys think that professional cyclists have gd figures? hehehhe *blush*

quite bad

haven't had any inspiration today to write anything..

i just got a call, telling me i have an interview at the far end of the island, on monday afternoon. after that, i continued with my resume sending. i became much more selective with my applications, maybe becuz i think that i'll get the monday job for sure. (which isn't a healthy way of thinking!)

if i have learnt something from my job hunt, it is this: never ever think that u will get a particular job for sure.

this is half a hot dog bun, split in the centre. toasted with thin layer of butter, TC Boy white meat tuna in Italian sauce and Trim Chesdale Cheese melted over.

over-overdose

i'm a supporter of blogging, but reading the first 8 pages of Digital Life today gave me a slight headache. Those 8 pages mentioned nothing but blogs, blogging and bloggers. ahhhh!!!!

yes, the blogger conference was held recently, so the paper had to report on it. and blogging has become an integral part of many pple's lives. but i think digital life shud find some new topic to talk about. blogs have been featured heavily in digital life for weeks already, if not months!

hey...

did u know that XiaoAn in the kindred spirit is the real son of Char Siew Bing??
i didn't!

hhee..but i bet the person who is infatuated with harwick knows. =P


edit: oh no...my grandmaS have joined my list of photo debtors =|

for the ones with gd english

crank calls or prank calls?

what a hectic wkend!

hehee... my saturday started with filling in the ST car hunt contest form, while rushing to pack my gown and other things for the rgs "trip".
imagine my horror and franticness (it's a real word!) when i found that i was missing a letter A! oh no...now i can't even enter the contest, after all my hard work these 2 wks! i tried to find a similar-sized and shaped letter A elsewhere in the paper, but cunning ST does not use this font anywhere else, and size was another problem. i found a reasonably similar A, but it was still quite obviously not right.
argh!
then i saw the pre-printed A on the contest form. !!!
so i bought another copy of ST, just so that i could cut out that letter A. =P
what a waste of money....gave the new copy to my sis later in the day.
aiyah, in the end we didnt win anything. i didnt expect such a huge crowd. on my way to rgs, i got held back by the incredible traffic along Still Rd, towards ecp.

yay, it was really fun going back to rgs, and seeing mrs mak and her kids. =D
yuqi, if u r reading this, hope u will have fun at ur convo! hehe...can just imagine the whole auditorium of harry potters! hehehhe... what's the harry potter sch called?

after taking off the gown, a few of us bought fried chicken drumsticks from the malay food stall in the canteen. yummy!! then we took some photos at the athena statue. some of us agreed that the statue seems to have shrunk over the years. heheh
=P

then it was off to far east for lunch at han's. i was really puzzled why we could take 105 and also 132 to far east, and boarded the bus really confused. i thought we could only take 190? hee...someone then set me right.. hehe. all the buses there go to far east. =P how could i have forgotten that??

and then karaoke at....partyworld? hehe.. freezing cold room. hope u guys enjoyed urselves! =) yiding and i went off home first, before gg to our pri sch class chalet at pasir ris.

wah, by the time i reached home, i didnt feel like budging. after the intense rush to complete the stupid contest form in the morning, i was exhausted already. hee..

at the chalet, i played a lot of mahjong, and i kept asking my frens, "uh, can i game without a tai? pls?"
hehe..

anyway, didnt sleep during the night. a heavy rain at about six plus destroyed our plans to go watch the sun rise....(by the sea....ahhh).
i didnt sleep either when i got home, coz we went on our weekly routine of going grandma houses and ntuc. (oooh...dreyer's ice cream is buy 1 get 1 free now! $12 for a 1.89 litre tub! hehe...)

i realised that not sleeping for too long will raise ur body temperature. dunno why though. but for machines temp increase is due to heat dissipation < heat generation.

wah i have a lot of "requests" for convo photos...oops. hehe i havent' found the energy to get the photo stuff done and sent to my frens hehe... =P

ST car hunt contest

it's a contest whereby some letters are hidden in the newspaper everyday, and you have to cut out the letters (like my letter E) to paste onto a half-completed puzzle. the end result will be the location of the car, where you have to go to take part in the lucky draw.

one reader, male/47, had to take 2 painkillers for the headache he got trying to figure it out. DUH....
i didnt know so many pple were following and trying to take part =( i'm a bit sian sian now too. since i can;t go to the location on saturday anyway.

edit: chey the puzzle is so not challenging...=(

so creative!!

look at the "No need to switch channels" article in ST, main section pg 12.
the Sharp company has a new LCD TV set that's really cool. u can view different images on the right and left sides of the screen at the same time. u put a mirror next to the tv, and u will see a different image/program in the mirror, while the original program goes on! hehe
it's a bit weird, coz it means u have to watch things at an angle, unless u do a more elaborate setup of mirror to produce the effect of 2 tv screens side by side, directly facing u. but it's still interesting! =P
Sharp also has the technology to make hp screens that are viewable only at certain angles, so nobody can peep at ur screen.

pain pain

a little puddle of water did me in this morning. =(
i slipped and fell at home. i've got a skinned knee, skinned big toe and a bruised foot. wanted to take photos and post, but they didnt turn out very well. the injuries really stung immediately after the fall, and i quickly ran my hands over to check for broken skin and blood. lucky there wasn't any blood, but skinned knees take forever to heal. and my skinned big toe might prevent me fr wearing slippers. and i arch my bruised foot so i dont put stress on the bruised part.

nice start to the day....still hurts a bit

job again

i went for the 2nd round of the edb tap interview. it wasnt very gd.
my 2 interviewers handed me a piece of the engine and asked if i knew what it was. uh...it looked like an irregular piece of metal with tiny holes everywhere. so they asked me abt the features and their functions etc. i got stuck a lot, and they prompted me along, but i still didnt give the right ans, etc. there was a lot of silence. sigh... spent 20 min staring and thinking.

anyway, that was a little exercise for my rusty brain. not bad.

today

commencement!

it was a one-hour ceremony, ending with one hr of frantic "searching for frens and taking photos".....totally exhausted! the mortar board was so heavy that my neck started aching at the beginning of the ceremony.

after the ceremony, some professors lingered around the area like mascots. hehe...i took a photo with one of them (teo c.l.). dunno why also, coz i'm not like super close to him. heehee =P

at home, i had a nice time reading thru the entire commencement book. looking at the name lists of different faculties, i spotted the names of some frens. instantly, some bits of memories flooded back, like how i got to know that person, and what i remember most abt him/her. =)

in the engine magazine i also received, some mech eng student said that her favourite module is "any of prof lee kim seng's modules, coz always very slack."
HAHAHAH... i totally agree and i believe the whole dept does too. oh no, he's gg to have a lot to ans to the dean...hehheh =P

short

mother: no more shampoo already!

(stunned, coz it's the body foam bottle that's empty.....)
dunno how long she has been using body foam as shampoo. =D

booboos

alright..so i wore an office skirt to the technical assessment in ntu today. i thought i would be ok..

the culprit....

i modified my skirt during my (boon lay - eunos) mrt ride. after sitting stiffly in the ntu LT for like 3 hrs, the plastic mrt seat and 45 min ride didn't make for the most comfortable time in the world. so i crossed my right leg over left, uncrossed, left over right, uncrossed....and so on. when i finally was able to get up at eunos, i thought something was wrong. hmm... the skirt seems to be restricting my stride even more than before! after feeling around (discreetly!) for a while, i found out that my side zipper slit has moved all the way to my back! gosh gosh.....
and then i tried to move the skirt back, hoping NOBODY on that semi-crowded train noticed. ugh..

THEN, i almost fell flat on my face when i boarded the bus. i had forgotten about my new skirt-imposed smaller stride and my front leg couldn't reach the step. i panicked a little and pushed really hard with my back leg. imagine, my back leg tiptoeing on the kerb and my front leg is stepping on air.....
thankfully i managed to get on ok. (and i had to re-adjust the #%#% skirt coz the stupid zipper moved again!)

i was a lot more cautious when i got off. for those few seconds, i had to say byebye to literally hopping off the bus (my usual way).

stoopid skirt.

anyway, thankfully there wasn't any brayton cycle or corrosion problem in the test. there was a two-line question on each page, 4 questions in all. shear force & bending moment diagrams, how an aerofoil generates lift, how microstructures affect material properties and the costs involved in the life cycle of a car. i don't think i did well, but i don't feel too lousy either.

yay! not gonna have to wear the !$@#%@ skirt for commencment tm! hehe... pants rule!!!!

you've got to find what you love

[seek out a star]

it's really tough when ur expectations and reality don't match. apparently i have to start moving along the following path.

aerospace engr --> mechanical engr --> engr --> non-technical

perhaps the time is not right, perhaps my skills are not ideal.
i've always been relieved that i love mech engineering, becuz i wont starve to death as an engr. (u know, in contrast to being an artist or something)
suddenly i get a bucket of iced water over my head.
Hey. things don't seem to be working out as planned/expected.

so....i have to (change my thinking and) make a detour which may or may not lead to the desired destination.

=)
[hold on till the end]

arigato

many many friends and new acquaintances have eagerly tried to help me with my job search and interviews... i'm kind of overwhelmed. but i am guilty of not helping myself. kind of letting everyone down too.

i want that job, and i want to try my best to get it. but i haven't tried my best in about a yr, for just about everything. it's like running long distance. if u feel tired and stop for a short rest, it's hard to run again. gotta overcome that.

gd morning

i am more awake now.
i attribute the prev post to pms and late-night vulnerabilities.

reading the curious dog incident book this morning made me cry! i dunno why though..

i wondered if i have mild autism or something, because i think the same way as the main character in the book, who is autistic. i googled on autism, asperger's syndrome, mental illnesses, schizophrenia, deja vu (quite interesting!) and other stuff..

uh...i think i dont have even the mildest form of autism. but i do enjoy rocking myself in a sitting position. *grin*

p/s: i'm too pre-occupied with my unemployment status to write anything abt the london bombings. but honestly, curiously enough, i don't have any feelings or comments abt it.

p/s (2): a couple of articles in life! pg 7 caught my attention. sometimes i think i'm too easily swayed by what pple say to me. if i lived in another country, i'd probably be demonstrating in the streets every two days.

Live believing, dreams are for weaving

i started humming THE song when i got off the bus from parkway today. and i actually sang it out loud as i walked home, stopping only when i reached the lift.
-------
my dream: to start a good aero career
obstacles: difficult to get interviews, emotional-blackmailing parents, abundance of non-aero mech eng jobs, inertia, (lack of) gd grades and charisma. and dwindling $

it is so easy to stray off the path.
"you think it's so easy to get your dream job ah?!"
"just get one or two yrs' experience first."
"feed yourself!"

and i start wondering if i should single-mindedly pursue my dream. what if i take some #$@$ job for 2 yrs, then find it hard to switch? like more inertia or something. i'd be a disgruntled worker all the time.
on the other hand, as a young graduate, i should be flexible and adaptive, blah blah. so i shud take all sorts of jobs.
arghhhhh
i dont even know what to think.
i'm so sian of always talking abt jobs jobs jobs

ok.......
just heard of 2 frens who got aero jobs in the company which rejected me after interview round 1. not many left idling at home.

maybe i'll just take up some teaching sh*t.
reality always wins.......


does it?

book review

hello..

this isn't exactly a book review. i just want to intro an interesting book. u might have heard of it.

"The curious incident of the dog in the night-time"
by Mark Haddon

--"although gifted with a superbly logical brain, fifteen-year-old Christopher is autistic and everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbour's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructed universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is deeply funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally."

go get it! there is already a trick on the very first page. =P

to my mysterious fren who has a mysterious blog: i didn't know he's really autistic till i saw the back cover. and i can't find the name of his disease!

london won!

hehe.. if u are reasonably connected to the world, u will know by now that London has won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. tony blair gave a short message in London's video presentation. i thought it was a little ironical that he made the speech both in english and FRENCH. hehehe... =P

hmmm... i've got an ushering job on friday - hope it will all turn out well. i also hope that i can wear yimei's dress and shoes, otherwise i can't go! =(

tonight my father suggested i go teach at a tuition centre. he's turning me desparate......argh!!

minimum weight

females need a minimum weight of 45kg to qualify for the police force. (to sit on the criminals??)

anyway i dunno what to write here coz my days are really blank.
wake up read newspaper eat and sleep.

----

help help!

hey, i want to participate in the Straits Times win-a-car puzzle contest. anyone doing so? can tell me how many letters have been published since friday (1st jul)?

uh if u are not going to take part in the contest, can someone give me an extra letter E? coz i'm missing one but i really can't find it. it should be somewhere on friday's newspaper... pls pls. =P

thanks a lot!!

letter e

just 2 brief points:

1. bus fare adjustments In Your FACE
boohoo...no more $0.63 bus rides. changed to $0.64.

2. the quieter arcade with LAN games in bugis is quite gd. $2.10 for 5 credits. highly recommended game is Time Crisis III (yes, III)! 1 credit per game only! value for money i say, except that i "die" too easily and am not a gd partner. hehe. =P

T

pronounce "tea" in
1. hokkien
2. british accent.



sounds the same?