Failed Test

"FAILED".

By the time this dxmn word poped out on the LCD touch screen in the test centre, I know this time really "bai ga for" d... For sure I will become a joker. How can I fail such an easy test? Hmm...

For the first half an hour after the test I really had no answer. I referred back to the guide book and couldn't find a surprise mistake. So hmm, why leh?

"A problem is a real problem if you don't know where the problem lies."

So how easy is considered easy? My gut feeling tells me that you have to get at least 46 right out of 50 to pass. Perhaps I got all the ambiguous questions wrong.

Luckily it's just another $6 and an half day for resit of the test.

Somehow I feel less and less motivated for sitting test, perhaps it's a post-student-syndrome? (I don't treat myself as a student already, seriously)

Nonetheless still need to get this through. Better luck next time. ~_____________~

A song dedicated to you

Sometimes you do things just because you feel like doing it. And so I created this song, dedicated to all of my friends, especially those who are going to graduate with me soon.

It's a just a plain song, without any chords. Keys are limited by my narrow vocal range and blank knowledge in musics, and lyrics isn't very well written. After all, it's just an one night's effort. (few weeks ago)

Just hope you will like it. Cheers.

飞燕

拍着轻快的羽翼 我飞到这里

跟着迎新的弦律 慢慢地寻觅

好一批新朋友 相聚闹 欢笑共烦恼

在陌生的国度 涌出家的温暖

校内各处人来人往

功课任务堆积如山

忙碌疲惫孤独惆怅

幸好总有你们陪在我身旁

我们是 南来的飞燕

来寻找 梦想的天堂

不怕狂风 不怕暴雨 我们一起向前飞

我们是 南来的飞燕

来寻找 梦想的天堂

共度患难 共同成长 我们一起向前飞 看世界

如今四年岁月如梭

聚合离散路在何方

爱情金钱事业人生

是否各自都有心中的理想

从现在 不再怕孤单

去体会 现实的冷暖

不同地方 不同世界 我们各自向前飞

从现在 不再怕孤单

去体会 现实的冷暖

共度聚散 共同离别 我们各自向前飞 Say Goodbye

*****

十年后 缘来再相会

那温暖 依旧在心扉

共度哭笑 共同分享 我们依旧还得飞 Take Good Care

Happy 2008!

We've decided to call for a last "illegal gathering for xxxblxxx" to spend the last day of cny. So now finally we embrace a brand new 2008 (according to lunar calendar).

I was rather lazy and slack for past few weeks... Who can save me? :) I don't particularly like the feeling of not doing anything particular, but I don't really have any source of motivation.

At the start of the sem FYP was in a hopeless situation but with zf solving the problems now I no longer need to prepare for the funeral.

At the start of the sem I've set a goal to drive me forward but now the goal has been made obsolete.

So what now? I've too many options to explore and am a bit lost, just like a chained horse let loose. Perhaps it's time to narrow down the options and focus on few things.

So hope this will be a good start for me.

And hope everyone else will have a good start, for this brand new 2008.

Cloud appreciation

Yesterday I backed to my room when the sun was about to set and my roomie asked me to look out of the window.


It was such a beautiful painting in the sky. I look up to the sky occasionally but hardly see clouds align itself so nicely. My roomie was trying to identify from wiki what type of these clouds belong to, but it's beyond my apprehension.

And we were surprised by the existence of such society called the cloud appreciation society. Such a good phrase. Appreciation of nature's beauty, appreciation of life's beauty.

Final moments as a student

Works are piling up and I've just keyed in all my deadlines into calendar. The coming few weeks will be tough so I hope I can hold on to the bitter end. Kinda lost my momentum to pursue academic excellence since it doesn't make a difference if I am not going anywhere other than IMflash. This doesn't mean that I will become slacker as I already set sights on certain areas to improve myself before graduate.

But before that, I have to ensure that FYP can be "close cased" before deadline, and fulfill my basic responsibilities as a student to study "just enough", hehe.

Actually, it's hard to find the perfect balance in between studies, preparation to work, personal development, worries for future and enjoyment of final moments of Uni life.

Google Reader

There are so many new and good stuffs in the WWW that you need to spend a little bit of effort to avoid getting a little bit behind the times.

It wasn't until a friend of mine in China told me about Google Reader that I realized the the link between "Reader" and "RSS".

So now I don't need to keep bookmarks of blogs, and can even get the latest updates of blogs that I subscribe to. Great stuff.

This would mean I got at least few updates of gunners blog entries to check daily, not to mention updates from friends' blogs. @.@

GOOGLE really provides a lot of applications and comes close to become one-stop web portal. Is it good or bad? Heaven knows.

Rant

So gunners got thrashed. It was just one of such nights that all supporters wish to forget.

So to forget a nightmare is to find space to lick the wound, and not to think about it.

So you have to accept this is opponent's supporters moment and let them savour it.

So you have to endure teases once or twice from them for the sake of their happiness (if they are your friends).

What about being teased continuously?

What about being provoked incessantly?

What would be your response?

You know human is not joints of machines but bag of emotions, if your team lose you shouldn't go mad but you couldn't be bouncing off the walls, could you?

You want to forget it, you've shown that you don't like it to be mentioned let alone to be teased, and people still want to make fun out of it.

A fight is a fight. Win or lose is part of it. Abuse and humiliation is not. No matter you need to give your opponent the basic RESPECT.

You know why players shouldn't celebrate in front of opponent's fans? Because this is an act of PROVOKING.

What's the purpose of provoking? To rub more salts into wound? To add fuel to fire?

What you expect if you continuously do it?

I would tell you expect nothing less than an outburst of fire.

先挑衅者贱，打死无怨。

Rant over.

I've draw the line clear, make sure you don't go too far, next time.

Butterfly Leaves

When sun rays shine down,
When soft wind breezes through,
Leaves start flashing out,
With wings flapping around,
Like twinkling stars of Christmas tree,
Revealing life's beauty.

I don't know the real names of this plant, so I just name it tree with butterfly leaves. I google what "butterfly leaves" really is, some looks more alike butterfly, some don't.

Pepper Lunch

Had a good lunch in Pepper Lunch, Jurong East IMM. Salad was good, main course was fun to cook and ice-cream (especially black-sesame flavour) was good too. So filling until I feel like turn myself off to digest in dream.

Conversion of Driving License

Today went to Bukit Batok Driving Centre to book a place for basic theory test. Due to CCC's smart analysis of following L-license cars would lead to the destination, we took an unnecessary big U-turn and backed to where we were. ... I would say since earth is round, no matter travel to the east or travel to the west will lead me to my destination. @.@


You know what kind of cars are used for training? Brand new Honda civics. Can I say dxmx? Why I used kancil zai only? @.@

A prosperous New Year

It's friday night! It's all about gathering, cards, gxxblxxx, cookies and wines! I acted like cai shen yeh and gave away so many ... for many rounds of white knave, and when luck evened themselves out, I magically recovered and made them paid for greediness by a 5 cards-21 points-triple. ^^ Happy prosperous New Year.

Shiraz from Yellow tail was good but Riesling from south Australia sucks...no next time.

German Big Sausage

Available in NTU Can 13 Western stall for $4.50. I think it's worth it. Next time I shall order this. @.@

Stress, City, Nature, Life

Suddenly IMflash called me and Kahong to change contract due to their typ0 mistake. Calling in the last minute is certainly one thing I preferred the least from them. Do they do it purposely or they aren't that organized? I believe it's the latter case. Settling period for a new company.

When we reached there we left our names to the reception's guard and were waiting to be called. After a while, a young guy came down, called the name of a guy who was there to change contract like us and brought him up. I felt a bit weird but obviously he wasn't looking for us hence we kept waiting, waiting, and waiting until we felt something must had went wrong and approached the guard (not the same person as they had changed shift) to ask about it.

Out of my expectation she accused us for not following the guy go up, for innocently looking for the person whom we should contact to come down. She repeated this "story" to the person whom we should contact to account for the delay. Perhaps it was really how she observed and interpreted, and she wasn't really interested to listen to our points. Eventually the same guy came down and brought us up. He looked younger than us and was just a part time there. Obviously there was some miscommunication between the departments. Oh well, it wasn't a serious matter but what a joke! :)

I tends to believe sometimes people who works at the lower level in the company's hierarchy are harder to deal with because of their unique weapon they developed to defend themselves against stronger power. I don't really blame them personally but it's something that I should be aware of.

If I treat this event as a problem, and I want to find a solution, how could I? Where there's a problem, it could comes from any part of the system, not just from the most directly linked part. So if I am in charge to look after this issue, how do I know she lie? How do I judge? :)

Most of the life's stresses come from people, don't you agree with it?

********************************************

Since we were out to the town, we went to do our medical check-up as well. I checked the first page of the form that NRIC or passport was needed to verify my identity. My passport was with Chris but I got my NRIC so I thought it was fine. Out of my expectation, when I finally reached there, I was told that passport was needed for the form of employment pass (which was stated at the second page of the form) "It's stated in the government law" reiterated by the receptionist. I was a bit disappointed but I simply replied "I will come at another day", though her voice is a bit cold and unfriendly, though I could had be more careful.

Came to think about it, I could simply direct my frustration to her and beat the daylights out of because she's not friendly enough (nasty customer, huh, :) ) but haha, would you?

Sometimes life's stresses come from event and could traverse through chain of people, are you an amplifier or attenuator?

*********************************************

So the medical clinic is actually located at international plaza, just opposite of tanjong pagar's MRT. From the picture above, could you possibly guess that this building is 50-storeys high?
It's upgrading right now, where you could see workers from third-world countries earning their hard bucks. A moment later they already rose up to the top level of the square.

Perhaps you may think just for a moment that they are inferior to us because of our background and status, but if I look down them, I am looking down my own ancestors too. So I imagine in another way that decades later, their children will enjoy what we enjoy now, :).

Though I am wondering, for them, what stresses them the most? Insecurity? Future?

There's a Ricoh's park behind the international plaza. "Parks and greenery are ideal places for recreational and leisure activities. Visual and physical contact with plants is therapeutic and is believed to help reduce susceptibility to illnesses." Though it's a bit small, but I guess it's a perfect escape for everyone who's fighting in a city full of sky towers.

Can I plant flowers inside my heart for my own leisure? Dreamland.

cny in NTU

So wei wah & me spent the first 2 days of cny in NTU for the first time where everyone except both us went back to their respective hometowns. Obviously there's nothing much special you could imagine. I've spent half of the time playing and surfing net, and the rest studying.

As there were no canteens open, we have to cook for ourselves. Cooking in cny made me realized one thing: there are so many international students in NTU that I hardly find a kitchen that wasn't occupied! I've invited my dear neighbour Joeku for both lunch. So I just cooked some home-cooked food with my newly bought wok. Oo, it's so long since I practice my cooking skills. Luckily, taste were still ok except for the excessive beehoon. The fish was delicious. ^^. That had made my day.
We had turned ourself to become night stalker temporarily and hence supper was a must. First day we couldn't have it because McD delivery had too many orders to NTU area. @.@ Second day we decided to order a large pizza. A very fulfilling supper, though it costed us as much as the sum of all our previous meals. ~.~ But pizza + ginger beer tasted quite good, you can try it out.

Do you know how to deal with people?

If such question were asked during interview, most of us with prior preparation could answer well. But it's easier to say than do. In reality, how often we feel frustrated for all sorts of interpersonal problems? Difference in opinions, values or even personalities could cause incomprehension of friends' action and further separation.

Sometimes you could be driven mad just because you don't know why could they do this. Sadly, there's no way you could understand fully different beliefs of different people. Nor could you correctly attributes all of their actions to a certain cause. Because everyone, including you is a complex person. Hence the key in dealing with people is not judgement (to judge whether their actions are right or wrong from your own set of belief), but tolerance and empathy.

If you view someone as devil, you would notice some of his/her strength; if you view someone as angel, you would notice some of his/her weakness. None of us is perfect. So be more tolerant to allows others rooms for improvement, life's never without a mistake.

With my mind machine turning on now, I starts to become more and more tolerant in dealing with peoples, as I were before. I feel like it's a round trip of journey of myself. I've back to where I were before, with better understanding of myself and others.

Future

I still remembered the first time I visited NTU at June 2004, the weather was exactly the same as the picture shown above with light-grey in colour clouds cover the sky. The end of a path is a beginning of another. Decision has to be made, transition has to be taken, confusion has to be endured. I was wondering where am I heading to?

Few days later, I was offered a job by IMflash. Without much hesitation, I signed it on the spot. It's a new company backed up by Intel and Micron, so job prospect is good. With 6-month US training and KaHong working at the department, I couldn't ask for more from luck. The only concern is it may not suit me. But for the sake of future, I can make myself suit the job. You would never know until you've experienced it. So unless I got a job of better prospect, most probably I will take this job. At least I secure a job, isn't this the most important thing?

Not for the first time I heard from others that this job need good soft skills, though I wonders where the need comes from. If it is, it's better still because I could learn more and prove myself good in it. I don't wish to be a technical geek who learn and improve little in other aspects, you know?

New journey begins with a special new year - new year away from home. Let's explore and set the sail. A hoi.

NTU Career Fair

No final year students could afford to miss this opportunity but guess what? You can even find third year, second year or even first year students... How come they are so powerful? I was still day-dreaming when I was first year. @.@

Hence, as expected, it was really crowded. After all, it's the place that offers hope and future for us whom are facing major transition in life.


One of the more interesting booth was set up by AMD, though it's not interesting in the sense of job prospect.

And when everyone leaved, the place became empty again with leftovers of booth displays. Events come, events go. People come, people go. That's life, isn't it?

Paparazzi

I think I owe my phone camera a great deal of appreciation because it allows me to become paparazzi. I like to take random photos especially friends' photos when they don't notice it (though it's quite hard now since they know it). Just fear that one day they might file a case against me to protect their image rights. @.@