My three new roomies

I have 3 nos new roomies for about a month liao. And they ain't human, literally. Heez. They're cats, or neko, in japanese. First is snowy, a female cat with a beautiful white coat that was once stained by some rat trap sticky stuff. She could not lick it off while she was cleaning herself, neither did she allow us to wash it off her (I think all cats hate water), so we just left her to ther own devices. In the end, she resorted to plucking out her own fur, so for a period of time, there was white fur with sticky greenish - black stuff stuck to it all over the place & in my room. Finally, it's all gone & her own fur's slowly growing back, so she looks as beautiful as before. Could be due to the expensive cat food we've been feeding her all this while. It says on the packaging that they contain all the necessary nutrients needed to maintain a nice coat of fur.
Next up is Mr Grey, or I prefer, charcoal. He's big, old & has a black coat with some white bits here & there. Maybe he was originally black, but due to old age, he grew white fur, as we humans grow white hair when we get old. He's the most tame of them all but he got into a fight with snowy recently & pinned the white cat under him before we hit the 2 of them to get them to separate.

Last but not least is ginger. The smallest cat we've been feeding so far an she has a brown coat, which is also as beautiful as the other 2 nos cats. She's the fiercest of them all, as Mr Grey (Charcoal, whichever you prefer) seems to be afraid of her, or maybe he's just trying to be a gentleman to a young lady.

Nevertheless, the cats has brought us joy & worries at times, when they don't appear for food at certain times. I've taken quite a few pictures of them but blogger don't allow me to post them. Well, we'll wait & see if things improve after the exams. I wonder how long will they be with us? It's nice to have a roomie who will take care of them when I'm not around & also loves cats as much as I do, maybe even more than me.

Ja neh!!!

Black wednesday

Uploading pictures is a problem again. I guess I must start to try other people's computer to try & upload pictures. Maybe I'll do it when I'm not so stressed about studies. Just had my HRM (CL 422) quiz in the afternoon. Well, to put it midly, I was raped by the paper!!! It was all memory work & nothing on concepts. List 6 out of 9 principles of this, state the features of effective compensation, what is the demographic time bomb. Boom!!! I feel like killing Prof Vip. He told us to study everything, but I guess not everything was tested. And it was all memory wotk. nothing much to understand at all. Since when did NTU advocate rote learning? Sigh. I guess I must bear the lion's share of the blame. I did not study as hard as I should. And I should have guessed HRM was a memerizing subject. From the way things look like.

Well, after the quiz, the gang & I met up at Hall Eleven Blk 56 TV lounge to complete our bridge, & it's finally completed!!! We made really good progress & we sort of finished everything in about an hour's time. Which was really a big difference from the first time we tried our hands - on project. This is what some people called the learning curve & it can be pretty steep or shallow, depending on how much intelligence a person has, or how good a person is with their hands.

Mid week crisis

Sigh, I tried to upload pictures again but it doesn't seem to work. I think it must be either because of me or because my computer is lousy. Double sigh. Is the bad luck still around? Tomorrow is the Human Ressource Management quiz & I have not really studied for it. Yah, I did all the tutorials (Except for tutorial 6 because the tutors conveniently did not go through it due to some classes being cancelled) but I do not have any feeling of security. Not even a tiny winny bit. So i guess I have to take some serious remedial actions tonight. Maybe i might study in the canteen or in the smelly study room because I have too many distractions in my own hostel room.

Coming next up is another management quiz, Civil Engineering Management (CL 421), which should have some mcq & short opened questions. Calculations are also involved. It's on friday & I'm even more afraid of it because I didn ot attempt all tutorials & a lot of reading is required. Sigh. And there's nobody to copy from in the lecture (both my management quizzes are conducted in lectures).

Lonely saturday in Hall Eleven

Seems like I'll be blogging for a while without any pictures to show you guys, because I can't get the upload thingy to work. Wonder if it's the NTU network or my computer's problem. I tried uploading pictures using the Mac in the Students Activity Centre & it work, but I only managed to upload only 1 nos. Wonder how come things are starting to go against me. Or is it my imagination? Maybe I'll try again when I have more free time.

Next week would be management quiz week. This is because I have Human Resource Management (CL 422) & Civil ENgineering Management (CL 421) quizzes coming up. So I guess it's time to start reading more & hopefully complete all the relevant tutorials in time.

Later my group mates will be coming over to NTU Hall Eleven to try & complete our bridge project. So nice of them to come over. Well, I guess this is the next best place to do it since the Protective Engineering Lab will not be opened today (5 day work week kindly implemented by our dear PM). Don't want any lab technicians to nag at us for every little thing like remembering to wear covered shoes (which we always do!!!) & telling us to keep the place clean. Sigh. I don't really like them. Come to thing of it, I hate everybody. Heez.

Tonight will be anothern ight of EPL matches but I guess I won't be placing any more wagers for a while. Recently just cleared my debts & there's till other partied to pay off, so I might as well be a good boy & use the money instead to have a drink at the regular pub I go to, or maybe when use it to pay back my Mum or meowie24.

Slept late last night, around 0400hrs. Was watching Great TEacher Onizuka (GTO), the anime. Downloaded by meowie24. So nice to watch, but I guess the live action version would b ejust as nice. Managed to download Naruto ep 152 this morning, lucky!!! Story was kinda slow moving, but at least there's some development to the plot, instead of just 1 of the numerous flashbakcs that creators are so fond of doing when they have no idea what to draw next.

Should I go down to the pub alone to watch? Or should I stay in hall to catch up on my studies? This is already Week 9 & the exams are coming really soon. Time flashes by you when yoy are short on time, & it crawls by when you have too much spare time on our hands. Why it life like that? Why can't it go with the flow, instead of always making things difficult by going against the flow? I guess we should learn to manage it since so many people have good time management, but unfortunately, 1 of my "strong points" is that I'm really really good at wasting time with nothing to show for it. Same goes for money. Which happens to be 2 of the most important things to a student. Any student.

Okie okie, enough lamenting. Time to get my big fat ass moving or else time will really leave me behind, & there will be nobody there for me to blame except myself. No point blaming any higher being, because... Never mind, religion is a touchy topic.

Ja Neh!!!

Finally, a short breather for the week, but alas!!!

Actually I have a lot to say, but the blog's driving me crazy!!! I can't seem to add my photos, and even if I managed to add them, I have to do them one by one which is really time comsuming. When I read the blogs of my friends, they can have so many pictures in 1 nos blog entry & I wonder how they managed to do it. If I wanna blog using my mac, it gets even worse. I can only see the html window & not the WUSIWYG window!!! Who the fark blogs in HTML??? Not me loh... I'm a computer idioit... amongst other things. What's wrong with this freaking blog??? Just when I thought I could finally relax & spend some time sharing my stuff on blog, these problems come along & make my blood pressure go back to the level it was the previous week.
Sigh...

Extremely horrible bad luck over the weekend

Oh my gosh. I think I took too long to write my blog that I forgot what I wanted to say liao. But I do remember the gist of the whole matter. I guess it's because I lose money on soccer. It seems like the world of gambling was against me & whatever I betted on, I lost. I bought under 1.5/2 goals for a certain match, I think it involves Newcastle, & as I went out for a smoke & came back to check Livescore, Newcastle had scored 2 goals!!! Just in a space of 10 mins, Owen & Shearer scored!!! After a lacklustre 1st half... Sigh...

Then I placed a wager on the Manchester City match. Sinclair got stretchered off early in the 1st half & there was little penetration after that. But Man City pressed on, only to hit the woodwork 5 times!!! It looked destined to end in a goaless draw, but some stewpig idiot decided to commit a freaking obvious handball in THE DYING SECONDS!!! So as a result, Richard lose all of his wager instead of only half... If that isn't bad luck, I don't know what is.

The following days were just plain horrible. Everything seems to go wrong, or maybe it's just my imagination. I mentioned I was studying hard for my Steel Design Quiz. But when it comes to the crunch, I blanked out & couldn't solve what i realized later was a simple question that required some iterration. Sigh. Dory, whom I absolutely hate had that smug look on her face, as if she had gotten full makrs & even asked the tutor what was the correct answer. Hmmm... Sour grapes me feel that if she didn't had someone to copy from, she wouldn't be able to wear that smirk on her face. Oh well. Enough of all the negativity & time to start focusing on the positive side of things.

Things ain't going too well between me & meowie24, & I have only myself to blame. So I guess it's time to stop feeling bitter & start working on my exams before I really lose on all fronts.

Ja neh!!!

I will not give up. This is my way of the ninja.

Uzumaki Naruto said "I will not give up. This is my way of the ninja". In japanese of course. BUt I can't type in japanese though I know a few words in japanese, but that's not the point. I woke up today & after buying some breakfast from Canteen 11, watched Naruto Ep #151 while eating my bee hoon (which tasted horrible by the way). In this episode, Hinata showed the result of her hard work when she single-handedly saved the team as they were under attack by members of a rival clan. She worked so hard to proved to others that she too can improve & be a valuable member of any team. However, the most important reason is for her crush (Naruto) to notice her & acknowledge her. Which seems to be very important to a few people in the anime. Actually this is important to any one of us, no matter how high our self esteem is. We want the people whom we care about to notice our presence & to acknowledge us. It can be a person we like, our friends & parents, even our most bitter rivals.

So Hinta trained hard & developed her own syle & jutsu. which looked really cool because it was an absolute defense technique. She defeated a giant angry queen bee all by herself, which is a far cry from the old self, who was shy & resigned to the fate assigned to her by her own family & society in general, even though she's the next in line to lead a powerful clan. Well, sometimes being a girl does have it's setbacks because we do live in a gender biased society. (I have my own views regarding the sex eqality thingy, but I won't go there).

Going to take a shower & then go to school liao. Meeting Gabby & Xiaoyen to catch up on CL 402 (Integrated Design) project. Wah, projects really diving me crazy liao... Sigh. Ja neh!!!

Second Steel Design tutorial done

I think you must be really sick of me talking about school work, but it's not everyday that I get 2 nos tutorials done. Heez. So please let me blow my own trumpet for a while. Muahahahah!!! Anyway, I kinda understand what's going on but it's still too early to tell if I really know what's going on, or if I'm relying too much on the provided solutions (provided by friends, not the School!!!).

Turorial 2 talks about members in compression. I must refer to to many tables, & the values are so small. Once I was looking at values for Curve A instead of Curve B & I had to redo the whole question again. Copy also can copy wrongly right? Sigh. I'm a bad student.

Anyway, as I was trying to do the tutorials, I feel disgustingly fat. I think it's time for me to really do something about it & try to get some exercise once in a while. And then increase the frequency as I gradually get used to an exercise routine.

Feeling hungry again. What's wrong with me? I had dinner with Chris, Richard, Jason in Canteen 9. Their spagetti was nice!!! It was done aglio style but it was much more salty & unhealthy (aka tasty). Yum yum... But it wasn't cheap. I'll post a picture of my dinner when I find the mood.

Ja neh!!!

First Steel Design tutorial done

Finally, i managed to do the first tutorial & I guess a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I hope I had taken that step & in the correct direction too. Kinda tired, both physically & mentally too. Studying is really hard work. Today i studies in the tc lounge of Blk 56 because I noticed that people seldome go there to watch tv & it's usually deserted. Which is a good thing, so I can concentrate on my work without being tempted to people-watch.

Gonna take a shower soon after this post & being work on reading the lecture notes & doing tutorial 2. It's rather late to be doing tutorials now, but better late than never. At least tomorrow's not the exam paper & I'm not trying to cover as much ground before I go & face the exam paper. Happened to me too many times liao, & I don't like the feeling at all.

Ja neh!!!

Manchester United survived a draw with Villarreal

This is my roomie, kevin. His old monitor suddenly decided to die so he had to get a new one from JP. See how happy he is to finally change to a better monitor. He's one of the rare few still using Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors. They're really cheap compared to the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors but they weigh a tonne. And they take up a lot of space. Oh well, they still have their strengths so it's not easy to write them off just yet.

Anyway today is the 4th day of the recess & I have not really accomplished what i set out to achieve during this break. Time is running out & I must at least have prepared for my Steel Design quiz coming up on Mon. The others already have taken their quiz so since I had more time to study than them, I must do my best & not let them down.

Last night was another night of watching Champions League soccer, just like the night before. I was rooting for Manchester United so I placed a small small wager on them to win. The odds were level so as long as they don't lose, I will not lose money. Anyway from the way Manchester was playing, I had a feeling that they were not in a hurry to win the match, but rather not to lose face by losing. They didn't have much choice considering that they're without their captain, Roy Keane. Well, a kep player must not be indispensible, or else if anything happens to him, the while team will not function as per normal. But his lack of presence was felt & Manchester looked lost & aimless.

After the 2nd half, Wayne Rooney made a rash & silly mistake by mocking the referree after he was awarded a yellow card. He immediately earned another yellow card & was sent off the field. I knew he had a bad temper & he was unfortunate to have met a referree who would not tolerate any nonsense from a young star with as much talent as Rooney. I do hope he reflectes on his actions in the locker room & think through his actions next time in such a situation. I know he's still young, & we're all been through such a foolish, carefree stage in our lives, but since he's playing professional football & is an icon for many of us, he must learn that he carries with him heavy responsibilities.

During the match, I had 2 nos beers & I was happy. Alcohol makes me happy, but beer makes me burp. Hahaha... Kinda gross right? Well, I get high pretty easily, so please don't make me drink too much. Anyway I kinda have a headache now, maybe it's due to the weird sleeping hours i've been keeping these few days, or maybe it's Asahi's fault.

Time to take a shower & start revising liao... Ja neh!!!

Early part of the 2nd day of recess

A nice ice cold Coke takes away my headaches.
This is Darence, 1 of my project mate. He has quitted smoking & I will use him as 1 of my sources of motivation. We're both Manchester United fans (yes, i can hear the groaning from here) & he's a nice guy.

A good part of the day has just zoomed passed by me without doing anything of real constructive value. Sigh. Yesterday richard (my hall neighbour) told me a chinese proverb about how time is like an arrow. Well, I think it's faster than an arrow. Feeling rather sleepy today after doing more work on the Structures II project. The bridge we're building (if you think of cambridge, it's quite lame) has started to take shape and we were able to work much faster than yesterday's session.

As usual we went to the Protective Engineering Lab in the afternoon to start work, but all the senseless & useless nagging by the technicians were driving me crazy. They keep going on & on about how we should always wear shoes that covered our toes in the lab, we should always push in the chairs after we're done using them & not doing any drilling in the air con area. I mean, come on!!! You're making us undergrads sound like idiots. I mean, of course we know that we're not supposed to do any drilling in the air-con area, because that would make the place dirty & there isn't a proper vice to hold the specimen securely while we drill. And if we do drill in the air-con area, it's because we're too lazy to go out & too many people are fighting over the same power socket. Sad to say there're many selfish people in NTU who only care about their own business & are paranoid about other groups making more progress than them. Sigh. The higher you go, the keener the competition, up to the point where it becomes meaningless & choking.

We went back to hall 11 block 56 tv lounge to comtine with our project. Jason, Richard & company were already there disscussing their own project but they say they can share the place with us & do not mind the drilling. So nice of them!!! And these people were from the polytechnics. So maybe that's the difference between poly & jc culture. I'm quite satisfied with the progree we've made today & should be able to complete everything in another session. We decided against that because Jasmine has 4 nos (FOUR!!!) quizzes when school reopens. So I guess I should make use of the remaining time to complete as many backdated tutorials as possible, study for my 2 nos quizzes & also to go to the lab to get some work done on my FYP.

I'm nobody's child. Sigh. If only my original supervisor was here to guide me in this project. I had wanted to work with him, but he has gone to a much better place liao. Hope he will look out for me & guide me through this FYP. For now, i must put my trust in SKY, LQS & my fellow lab mates.

Studying in Canteen Eleven

Richard's mp3 player... Actually it's his sister, & he's doing a trial for her. So he filled it with chinese songs and we were listening to it while we were studying in the canteen. I bought a 2 way audio plug by Belkin for my iPod Shuffle and it definitely came in handy tonight. 2 person can listen to the same player at the same time. Pretty cool invention I must say. It's the white thing on the left of the mp3 player. So who wants to share their mp3 player with me when we study together???

This is what canteen 11 looks like when I was studying. Deserted, a wee bit stuffy, and not really conducive for studying. But they say it's all in the mind, so these are the things my mind is telling me.

One of the posters on the notice board outside the canteen. I was taking a smoke break because the canteen uncle said they have to switch off the lights because it adds to the electricity bill & to shift to the other side of the canteen where the lights are not under their charge. He also whispered to me that when they're gone. It's probably because that were the instructions of the canteen auntie (Margrate, & I do not know the relationship between the two of them). More gossip on them when I have the time. I can turn on the lights & fans again. Oh well... When you have a weird way of charging people for electricity, you get requests like the one i had. If I had a say in the running of the canteen, I would make sure the tables are properly cleaned and that there are no houseflies flying around the place. It's kinda dirty considering how many people actually eat there. Jurong Point's (JP) Mac has millions of people eating there everyday but their tables and place in general is so much more cleaner than canteen 11. I didn't want to shift places because I had cleaned the table & I was all comfy there, but since he asked nicely, I'll just play along. Anyway, no real work done though i did complete 2 nos tutorials on Civil Engineering Construction Technology (contech). Sigh, must try to complete the remaining tutorials by tomorrow because i'm going to the Environment Lab on Wed to catch up on my FYP. Progress report due soon, but not making any real progress. Ja neh!!!

First day of recess in school

I was on my way to the Protective Engineering Lab to meet up with the rest of my group to begin work on our bridge when i saw this car. What attracted me to it was the license plate number. My dad's car also has the number 17 in it, so I keep a lookout for cars with similar license plate numbers. I later learnt from Darence that this car belonged to his friend. What a small world.

This is what the inside of the Protective Engineering Lab looks like. We did not use any of the very sophiscated equipment you see here, but just an electric drill & a pair of snippers. Heez. Hope I didn't fool you with my pictures.

I changed my bed sheets today too. I think you all must be thinking how come I so boliao, talk about all these things. Anyway, this is a rare opportunity to see my bed made so nicely. And the stuffed toy on the bed is supposed to be a dog, not a bear!!! Don't let the confused cat / pig hear you call it a bear. You might get your head ripped off, & eaten, after being stir-fried with ginger and dark soy sauce. Or maybe double-boiled with smelly chinese herbs. Or maybe done tempura-style. Or maybe made into sashimi. Or maybe I'm starting to make you feel gross and lose your appetite. Muahahaha. Ja neh!!!

Pasta Stall in Canteen Eleven

There's a newly opened stall (actually not that recent lah) in my canteen which sells pasta and something called "Baoger" which iz a play on the words "bao" & "burger", hence it's a cross between a bun & a burger. Anyway this is the chicken pasta, aglio style (olive oil & chilli, i think). It cost 3 sgd, which to me is rather steep considering it's sold in a school / hall canteen, but the food's decent and they don't charge me extra 20cents for the disposable plastic container if i chose to take away, unlike the noodle stall. In this particular picture, the man got my order wrong & use tomato sauce instead of olive oil. Nevertheless, it was nice. Yum yum... There was once, I went to the canteen to buy my late late lunch, and I had the craving for fries. So i ordered fries from the western food stall and when I went to pay for my pasta, i realized i was 20 cents short!!! The man said, it's okie. I said I'll walk back to get the remaining 20 cents, he told me to pay him back next time I buy food from him. It's not a big amount, but yet that was a nice gesture. In the end, I took my food back to the room and brought the 20 cents back to him. Okie, enough of talking about food. It can make people like me fat just by reading my own blog because I have what i termed "negative metabloism". I get fat just by watching other people eat. Sigh. I badly need to exercise hard if I want to lose the inches, but when i look around, there's BILLIONS of people who don't exercise much and yet remain as they were. Of course they don't get slimmer or more muscular, but at least they maintain their own weight. I'm one of the unfortunate people with the inverse metabolism. Okie okie, ja neh!!!

Chicken Cutlet Rice @ Far East Plaza

Right now i'm craving for some food, because i only ate 1 meal today. Please dun get the impression that I'm a small eater (I am actually, but i eat more than most girls). It just that I'm kinda sick of Canteen 11's food. Even if they serve the best cuisine in the whole of the ENTIRE galaxy, imagine eating that for a few months. You'll get sick of it right? Well, the food here is horrible by most people's standards, so that's a double whammy.

Ja neh!!!

In Hall Eleven on a freaking Sun night, start of recess week

Recess week is coming soon but I'm not happy at all. Not even a little bit happy, because when school reopens in 7 days time, I have Steel Design & Structures II quizzes. These are really horrible modules that we, poor suffering students, have to take so that we would have some vague idea of how to design steel structures & also how these structures will behave under certain specified loading. Sounds boring right? Imagine having to take an exam in another 6 weeks time. Sigh. As you can see, above are pictures of my Steel Design lecture notes. Learning all about beams & columns and their modes of failure and what's their bending capacities and what not. We're only considering beams with equal flanges (refer to bottom picture for definitiion of flange) so I guess it makes things a little easier for my severely limited grey cells.

My First Ever Blog Entry

This is my first ever blog entry, so the learning curve's mighty steep, but what the heck right??? Anyway the picture on the left is the evening scene during the 40th National Day Parade (2005) held at the Padang this year. Even though the parade doesn't start till around 1800hrs, all of us were there bright & early (it was really hot that day, but sunny weather is better than rainy weather in the open) so we can get good seats & a closer view of the parade. However, it seems that certain sectors (the seats were divided into color sectors & I was in the blue sector) had a better veiw no matter where you sat within the sector. Kinda late to be posting National Day stuff but I suddenly had the urge to create a blog for others to read. Hope to update my life here regularly, as I never had the habit of keeping a diary. Will be posting more stuff as & when I have the time. Oh, by the way, most of the pictures that I post will be taken with my mobile phone, so do excuse the quality of the pictures. And I do not have any formal training in photography, so composition of the pictures may not be of a high standard. Thank you for taking time to read what I post though...

Ja Neh!!!