December is here

Its the season to be feasting...

First breakfast up in the cooling climate with our jackets on.


The lovely breakfast spread!


A salmon n shephard's pie feast!

27.11.11

- Many highs and girly shrieks. A wild day out and momentarily gone are the essays in mind and papers to read. Whispers in the ear entranced more girlish giggly. Much eye contact. Out with iPhones, tablets and many busy fingers. Conversation assured.

- A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label whisky, mixers, several clinks and much reddened faces. The dark floor twirled with multitude perfumed bodies in liquors' breathe to the DJ rock. Alas, I conveniently left my hearing aid in the throbbing decibel.

- Sat by the river till 4 am. Chat about our dreams, our wishes and hopes. A break from all that mind boggling mugging.

Cold Cuts

A large platter of Sashimi, a liberal amount of sake, some O-Cha and the best buddies company makes K a very happy girl =)

Guide To Getting Lost : Derelict Buildings

After a week of exams and projects presentation, I have decided to take a break over the weekend and immerse myself in 2 days of fun(Sat-new drumming activity and Sun, exploring SG). Yeah... I'm fully charged =)

Many people often complain how small, hot and boring SG is and they fail to look at the positive factor here; safety. Its pretty safe here as compared to other countries and societies and getting lost here is no big issue. One can simply just look into their iPhone maps to get directions or call for a cab if they are really lost.

So one of my favourite past time in SG is to getting lost (not relying on GPS etc) which Tim and I found ourselves in the middle Kranji industrial estate looking at an abandoned army camp, while heading towards Sungei Buloh Wetlands.

Here are some photos of the disused camp

Abandoned

We were basically looking at the camp from outside cos its a military place and we cant enter.

The gates

Barred

Electric meter. If only we could get it working...

Wired

No entry

Disrepair

Arc

Johor across the waters.

Walk The Owner

(The smell of freshly mowed grass and the evening sun during my jogs =))

The weather has been great so I have been going for bi-weekly evening jogs at Bishan Park.

During my jogs, I noticed that there is a young lady(who is around my age) who is having difficulties with her Siberian Husky. Very often, I would jog past her and see her struggling with her Husky on the leash, where the husky is pulling her in all directions or the husky is walking way ahead of her and she is trying to keep in pace with the husky by walking quickly from the back. Watching from a passer-by's point of view, it is mildly hilarious.

A new saying goes, the dog is taking its owner for a walk =p

Tools of Trade

9.35a.m : A day at her desk. Is working hard on her projects and doing up research.... (Yes.. Citation is a killer)

Sunset Way Bridge

HDR Shot of the disused Railway bridge

Sunday Morning Run

Went for UN women's NGO Film Talk(√) Collected my race pack at my friend's hm (√) (photo as above) A light jog this late afternoon in the park(√), a bottle of H-two-O(√), some stretching exercises (√).

I'm getting my calf ready for tmr's Safra's Army Half Marathon Run! (√)
(P.S : I'm going for the Canon Photo Marathon next weekend!) Its another "run" again! (To-be Checked =p)

The Green Corner (Part 1)

Near King's Albert Park is a green and quiet little oasis where the newly former KTM railway track is. Yup, it was a cool day to grab my camera n take a walk down the breezy green corridor before term starts (Naw, I took this in early July)

Heart from the railway

The tough Wooden railway tracks.

Along the tracks at Bukit Timah Railway station, I spotted this long stretch of exposed long kang(drain). At first, I noticed there were many moving ripples at the water surface n thought that there might be mosquitoes breeding since the place is quite near the forest. After taking a closer look, I realised that the ripples are actually guppies residing in the long kang!

I wonder whether these guppies were placed by former KTM employees working at the Bukit Timah Railway station or just wild guppies. Anyway, I suppose the place is like my parents' growing up years in the 1950s n 60s. Lots of lush greenery and wild life.

Many guppies in the long kang. Useful in combating mosquito larvae.

A pigment of life among the grey track.

A Music Day out

It's a perfect sunny evening (somewhere in June) n we decided to make a trip down to Fort canning. Here's my Friend's violin and my flute.

Side reading

Yeah... Its an enjoyable day!

The Peak

1.5 mth later, I'm back in HK... Yup, this time round for another round of gathering... Today is a much clearer day at the Peak =) Will be back in SG on Sunday...

My Addictions (Likes =p)

Here are some things I'm addicted to...

1) Wrigley's Chewing Gum

(My latest assortment of chewing gum- om nom nom!)

Besides the usual assortments of candies and tic tacs, chewing gum is considered the "luxury" item in class(cos of the ban in SG) and whenever my friends n I pop by Malaysia, we are sure to get a stick or 2.

2) Android Tablets (HTC Flyer / Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1/Dell streak 7)

As shown above : Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Well, if u were to ask me, Tablets are the second best thing to boyfriends. They are cool, sleek, fondling every surface is a new high. With so many tablets to choose from (different designs, processors etc), one cant help but to practice gadget polygamy and in the techie world, electronic polygamy is a widely acceptable and well-known practice; the more technical gadgets u have, the greater fun it is.

Having said so much, u may ask which tablet would I choose(oh no... not the boring old ipad2 though its gd). I would say Dell streak - it boasts a Nvidia Tegra Processor 2 (Faster processing as compared to the 2 n great for gaming).

3) Camera

Micro 4/3 camera =). Whenever I feel like relaxing, I will get my camera, a couple of buddies and we explore different places in SG n capture shots. The weather had been cooling lately, so it makes me wanna go out n take more shots =)

4) Pressing Palm

I have this habit of pressing these areas on my palm now.

In yr 1, I used to notice one of my classmates pressing the edge of his palm in class, sometimes during conversation or sometimes at rest. At first, I thought he was nervous (pressing/ playing with one's hands isnt a very gd thing while talking to others) but I soon notice that he is always pressing on one or two particular points of his palms.

Out of curiosity, I asked him why is he pressing his palm n he told me its keeps him awake. I did not quite understand until he pressed the points on my palm. OUCH!! It really hurts but I do feel a bit more awake (I dont know whether its a subconscious thing or maybe some unknown pressure point). And from then on, I also develop the habit of pressing the areas on my palm and yes, its some how quite a habit for me now =p

5) Koi - The Fresh Milk Tea with Grass Jelly

Top View

The Grass Jelly milk tea!

Yes... I love this drink! The savory milk tea and sweet jelly concoction is so smooth, its glides down ur throat. Slurps! Perfect remedy for hot afternoons or pep up in lectures.
( I usually drop by Chinatown along NEL to get a cup before taking bus 33 to sch (yeah.. our dear HZ, the hall stayer always ask me to da bao for her. Tsk tsk... Lol!) or meet Tim & Co at harbourfront cos they da bao Gong Cha to sch!). If there's an outlet in NUS, it will be good for us to da bao some to last us through those long lab sessions too!

Journey Up North

Here are some photos which we took on the KTM train

The Polis

The Crowd (Nope... I Did not take the 1855 Train... I took this photo when we first bought the tickets on an earlier date.)

An unknown Passenger - This is the train which we boarded =)

The Flag

The ring token

The Railway Track

Lavendar

What greeted us after a 4hr hike up the steep northern border is a sea of spectacular vivid purple. Its worth the aching muscles =)

Cocktails

The blazing hot days are here... One of the few things I would really like to do is to go for a swim in the sea and enjoy a cool glass of Mojito n S.3.x on the beach cocktail (yeah... Girls have sweet tooth)...

Taiping Lake Gardens

Scenic view of the Lake Garden... The garden is huge, with a few large lakes and really beautiful... Shall visit again if we drop by Taiping =)

Forest Trails

Jun 25, 8 A.M : Was up in the forest trails at Maxwell Hills, Bukit Larut.... Its cooling n really peaceful to be in the nature... The resort is abit run down, but rustic =)

One thing though, our bed sheets n washroom had some mysterious blood stains when we first checked-in...( The other bungalows were fully booked)

Jun 29, 1P.M : On our way home, we took a 3 hr bus ride to KL, waited for the delayed train for another 4 hrs, b4 spending another 10 hours on the KTM night train to Woodlands, which stopped for hours at different stations n we reached SG 8 hrs later than the scheduled time! Reached Jurong East at 0930am!

My First Pay/ Helpdesk

During every vacation, I look forward to my time at the helpdesk even though it can mean very long hours and late nights. Its where I picked up my technical skills ever since I was a non technical related Biomed poly student and its where I decided to take up Com Sci as my major in Uni. I'm glad and fortunate to be given the opportunity to learn in the technical field even though I started off without much technical knowledge and am a female. (In the Techie world, its still pretty much a male dominant industry)

I enjoy the company at the helpdesk. My colleagues and I (we are in the late teens or twenties) would go for coffee or late after work suppers and would talk at length about studies, friendships, relationships, our future, bread and butter issues like housing cost, raising cost. We would often calculate how much we need to pay for our uni fees in return to our parent's CPF (for my case its my CPF) and how much we need to in our CPF to pay for a flat. We also chat abt the high housing cost and joke that we should try our hands at lottery. (Naw, the odds of winning are one in a million but we chat about the possibility of the things we would do with a winning sum - migrate overseas, buy a house, car, travel around the world etc) and what we would invest in.

Till date, my biggest investment is my Uni studies (yeah, I spent the large bulk of my savings on my studies after graduating from poly and working for 2 years ). Eh... I guess I will see its returns when I graduate =)

I remember when I had my first pay in 2007, though mum and grandma did not expect nor told me give them monthly allowances, I set aside monthly $200 for mum and $100 for grandma
( after so many of years upbringing, its the a responsibility I should do as a grownup and yeah.. I would like give more but that's the amount I could set aside then after setting aside a bulk on savings for my Uni studies, bills, expenses and insurance.)

I was seating at the living room sofa and wondering how I would pass the money to mum and grandma since it was my first time and passing the cash in the normal way (like how we pass cash to people) seems too hard-cold and normal. I thought, giving the cash in an envelope would look very much like giving a resignation letter and ang pows are meant for elders giving cash to the younger generation.

In the end, I placed the cash in two small mooncake boxes. After dinner, I told mum and grandma I just received my first pay and would like to give some allowances before giving them each a mooncake box and blushing.

Yeah... That's my first time giving allowances and the feeling from getting my first official job pay then was something special (cant really describe it but its a feeling more to independent and grownup).

Avenue of Stars

Velocity

Moving Tram

City in Oil

HK Street painting

Back =)

A year later, I'm back =)
(P.S - Doing some yoga poses in the middle of busy CBD.. Oh yeah... =p )

Technology Literacy

Spore is a technologically advanced country. However, in this advanced pace, its surprising that there is also a large group of people who go up and about their life in the most traditional ways; not owning or using a mobile phone, not using the atm machine and go into the banks to do their transaction, queuing up to top-up their ez-link card at the counter(I cant remember the last time I joined the queue at the counter to top-up my ez-link card) and many more.

My 78 y/o grandma is one of the large group of people who do things the traditional way, even if it means taking a bus and queuing for half n hour or so just to perform a simple transaction. I asked her several times about it and she said " Ai yah, I'm so old. The ATM machine words are too small and too fast for me. So many options, I dont know which button to press. The bank counter is better, the cashiers at the bank counter are helpful."

In grandma's words, the bank counter cashier is more user-friendly. I feel grandma could take more autonomy in her own transactions and after some thoughts, I decide to do an experiment; to take "baby steps" to convince grandma to use the ATM machine. So I wrote a simple application (I named it Withdraw.apps and wrote the program using JBuilder) , which has the options of an ATM machine and a log in module (authentication module). I went to sim lim square to look for a numerical keypad (so it looks just like the normal ATM machine keypad) and a couple of weeks later, I got it up n running.

The most difficult part was convincing grandma to use the application. I racked my brain cells and told her I was testing out a sch assignment for elderly use and grandma said she would help me. So grandma got down at my laptop and started learning to use the "ATM machine app" for the very first time! After a number of trys, grandma said she's getting use to the application. I told her it works just like an ATM machine and took the opportunity to convince grandma to use a real ATM machine.

A few days later, we were in the bank and grandma applied for an ATM card. We went to the ATM machine outside the bank and I could feel the moment coming. I watched with bated breath as my grandma started typing the options into the atm machine and after 30secs the machine chunked and soon, grandma turned with her ATM card and two $10 dollar notes in her hands! Yes! Grandma did it! I apologized to grandma and told her the truth that it was not for my sch project. She said that I was very cheeky =p

Anyway, I believe if anyone would learn, technology is not as difficult or complicated as one would perceive it is.

If Chinese New Year is one Big Halloween Party...

Every year as Chinese, we celebrate Chinese New Year. The elders (i.e my grandma and other older relatives) really look forward to CNY as a mass family gathering. However, like many youths of my generation, we feel that Chinese New Year has long lost its sparks.

In 2009, I visited Taiwan during the last week of CNY and the mood is definitely different. There are fireworks everywhere n everyone is really spirited abt celebrating CNY. I remember spending the 15th day of CNY shopping at Ximending and the shop owner invited me to release fireworks. What an interesting experience! I told grandma that my cousin n I will take her overseas to celebrate cny but she said we have to stay(during the 1st week) cos its where our relatives are.

CNY in Singapore is lacklustre; there is no live firecrackers, no fireworks and our very memories of CNY here are watching streams of repeated telecast, eating snacks, having steamboat(Usual Singlish response - Wah! Steamboat again... sian) and making visits to various relatives house, whom we see like once a year . There will always be this polite awkwardness where older relatives who cant remember our names try to make conversation with us - " Try the pineapple tarts. Its nice. How old are u all? How's work/ sch? Which Uni? Which Job? Any Girlfriend/ boyfriend? And the concerned ones would offer to dish advise to singles on dating(sighs...)"

Sometimes I imagine CNY could be a lot like Halloween party. (Yeah u can say that I'm too imaginative, unrealistic, crazy, impossible etc). It would be a lot more fun and interesting to dress up in different costumes(Yes... u will have less headache shopping for new year clothes too) and it would be even more fun seeing our elders in costumes (imagine the tall and stern looking 2nd uncle dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow). It will definitely be a great conversation starter and yes, I will not say no to anyone who offers Kueh Lapis in a leopard suit.

Alright, enough said, its back to reality for me cos I'm helping grandma prepare reunion dinner and do my projects and study for the exams after dinner (P.S :why do they like to put exams n assignment deadlines just after CNY?)

Stereotype

Ok lets admit, some part of us is pretty stereotypical. My classmates and I were at the library and the librarian who was at the counter was pretty unhelpful and to an extent rude to us when we asked her for help to run a directory search of the books we were looking for. I guess the librarian, who is around her 50s, must have had a busy day or a bad day with so many people asking for the same enquiries. However, it did not escape the notice of some guys for they were harping about the librarian's age.

Guy 1: "So rude and unhelpful. Scold us for no reason. Did u notice how old she looks? "
Guy 2 : " Should at least be in her 50s."
Guy 3 : "Ai yah old auntie, no wonder lah... At this age, she confirm menopausing that why so rude and irritable!"

I told the guys to be more understanding and just look for the books ourselves but the third guy went on and on about the menopause theory. Geesh!

As for me, whenever I work part-time at night, at the helpdesk during my holidays, there will always be this HR person who goes "Yo!!Yo!!! Geeks are cool! Yeah!!"and wanting to high five whenever he sees me along the corridor or at my workstation. After some time it got quite irritating and I told him to stop. Apparently, this HR guy thinks that techie ppl are all geeks. Well, we can be very involved with what we are doing at work but we have our personal lives out of technology.

And how many of us do not feel guilty when chatting with fellow school mates from FASS and half thinking he/she must have poor A levels results and thus being dumped in FASS.

I am often too asked by people who asked me why I choose SoC and have been reminded countless of times during my poly life, working life and uni life that technology field is doomed and that I will be in the front line of unemployment and retrenchment when I finish my degree or that I should not take up honours cos I will be wasting another year of my life. Many assume that I too, have been dumped into SOC due to poor A level results (Naw, I did not take A levels but as a Techie poly entrant, I wasn't given much choice either). Anyway, I'm interested in technology and that's why I'm in this field =)

Or how some ppl recoil about working and living amongst foreigners and recoil even further when I picked going to Chennai for internship program during my poly days. Yes, it can get rowdy there but it was one of the most beautiful place I have ever been to and the people are really nice and after being there, I become more appreciative and understanding about their culture and working style.

I guess with a bit of open heart and being more accepting and understanding, one will be alot less bitter and can truly see the beauty of things around us.

Just a shot

A party before sch starts on Monday. Yeah, its a great night out n thanks Elliot for the JW with Perrier! Happy Birthday Tim!

1.1.11 Food Poisoning

Today is the first day of 2011 and I'm seating in bed typing into my iPad.

Food poisoning is a sneaky illness. One moment, you are well and happily playing charades with your friends and next, a sickening dizzy, nausea washes over, followed by waves of strong abdominal pain which makes u double up and u could feel bile rising up your throat.

This is how we spent our class New year's Day countdown chalet. Eight of us were down with food poisoning (those who had taken the egg mayo salad)and I wouldnt say that its a pretty affair because we ended up in a puking frenzy even before uncorking the champagne we bought for the night. I was having my first bout in the tiny chalet washroom and turned to be sick and I knocked my head into door. For that moment I could'nt decide which was more painful; having to come out from both ends or having a big egg on my head.

Anyway, our bottles of aerated drinks came into handy. We drank some fizzy drinks, after much more puking, we felt much better and once we could keep something down , we took some activated charcoal and went to sleep.

Alas, we missed the countdown, champagne and planned wee hour trip to visit the "Red house."