its my birthday...

sometime this day 19 yrs ago i was born...

i still remember my early birthdays. all full of fan fare. all the relatives will come my house and celebrate. got food, presents and fun. as time passed, i grew older and less emphasis was placed on celebrating birthdays.

at home, the best was a cake and dinner out at hawker center or coffee shop. in pri sch, no one knew. i guess i wasn't very sociable then. but still i had hopped that someone would wish me happy birthday.

when i went to sec sch, i thought that things would improve since people always say sec sch will be the most fun and got alot of friends one. but sadly sec 1 and 2 were like fuck. much grief and sorrow. then i moved to bedok green. those days were the best of my sec sch life. good friends, teachers and i got my first birthday card from someone other than my relatives. was very happy cos to me it meant that they cared.

now at MI, got no card nor presents for the pass 3 yrs. the best was last yr when all the girls in class spam me with happy birthday smses. this yr also nothing different. got abt 7 greetings from people.

as i mentioned, last time got cake to blow candles on. in the recent yrs the cake become a slice. this yr got no cake at all. not even a slice. got no candles to blow. sad right?

heh. sounds like i'm wallowing in self pity. i can't help but wonder, how many people like me. every yr pass birthday like a normal day? and how many people who celebrate theirs with friends or family at some restaurant with much fanfare and gifts. sounds like a dream. but i'll really like to experience that someday.

on a slightly lighter note, i had my 5th driving lesson today. since i 1 mth nevery drive le, i drove 2 rounds around the circuit to refresh. this car no 187 the clutch is higher that the previous car. so need to release quite abit to let it move. den we went out onto the road.

i tell you man, driving on the road is much better than driving on the circuit. can speed up some more. but also more stress la. got to watch mirrors and manage the gears plus keep in lane. some more ubi there got heavy traffic. den the car stop, move stop move stop lidat very tiring on the left leg. but i think its really fun. to be in control. drove at kaki bukit towards bedok reservoir, den turn into temasek poly.

yah! exams are over!!

hah! had my last 3 papers today. the sch very sick one. all my papers cramp into 4 days.

see... the best one is both physics and econs together. like tue and today. both papers sap brain juice one.

you know we are supposed to crush all out rough paper and throw it away after we leave the exam hall? well, i din. :P since i got not much thing to write, might well use them as blog material.



these are the rough work i did for the econs essays on tue. very tedious.

i did the question on free and merit goods, externalities, international trade, monetary & fiscal policies and inflation. do until i wanna vomit blood...


this is the one for maths paper 2, just yesterday.


and the one for today's physics paper 3. totally screw up.. haiz.

some rubbish pics i took throughout the week...


a cup of tea. haha. taken at shawn's house. was there from sat night till monday morning where i went to sch straight from his place.


as you can see, not very clearly from the LCD display, this pic was taken on last sunday at 9.55am.


was using the rings to re-inforce my stack of statistics notes on tue night.


super macro photo. taken using the cam and then cropped on the cam also.


see the time!!??

haha. been leading a super mad life for the past week. everynight study till like 1 or 2 max 3am then sleep till 5.30 wake up & go sch for paper.

now that exams are over and i got 1 week of break, i gonna catch up on my sleep. in 3 more hrs will be my birthday liao. who's gonna give me presents for this yr? haha..

Exam period

heh. haven blogged for 5 days le. now having mid yr exams. damn stress. cos whole day study till quite late ( 1 or 2 am). so sleep only a few hrs each day. tmw is the last day though. den frim friday till next week got no lessons as the arts people still got papers. now gotta go revise econs and physics. see ya!

got my PDL!!

hahahahaha... passed my BTT le!! :)

same paper as before. just realized something. the station number is the reverse of the one i sat on previously.


see?

This time i sat between 2 uncles dunno from where one. i think from China judging from their face.

was pretty confident as i had 2 straight days of trial test and for yesterday's session i got nearly all 100%. so this time i told myself not to be over-confident (like last time) and take my time to do it. the questions were just like in the trial test and i din have much difficulty as i already knew how to do. still, i forced myself to read through and check and re-check 3 times. took abt 30 mins. actually i abt 5 mins finish le. but must check. so i check lor. when i was done i ended the test and i passed. no surprise la since i'm quite confident. but still, i'm relieved cos now i can move on to module 2, the road training phrase.


result slip that i printed from the machine. initially the machine jam, den many people print also cannot come out. after that a TP officer went to fix it and the printer started churning out slip after slip. one malay auntie printed abt 4 or 5 times den got a few copies of her result slip.

had to queue for a long time to apply for the PDL. got a form to fill in and then need to pay $25 for it. @#$!^!$@~@#$~$ so expensive for 1 piece of paper. no wonder TP got so much money to buy new cars and hire so many men.


the vaunted PDL that allows me to drive a L-plate car on the roads. the blanked away part below the name is the home address. this piece of paper need to use 6 mths sure become tattered and torn one..

late night post...

going to sleep soon... haven posted the pics of the BBQ yesterday.. lazy ah. anyway, went to comfort for the trial test again in the morning. this time my results were better. i'll say a 100% average for all 6 tests. of course got a few is not perfect, cos do too fast or careless. but i'll pass my BTT tmw!!!

Class BBQ/Chalet

heh. tried a test just now..

Your Blogging Type is Unique and Avant Garde

You're a bit ... unusual. And so is your blog. You're impulsive, and you'll often post the first thing that pops in your head. Completely uncensored, you blog tends to shock... even though that's not your intent. You tend to change your blog often, experimenting with new designs and content.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

i dunno whether this is true anot.. why dun you tell me? haha..

anyway i'm back from wan's BBQ. went pretty well this time. compared to the previous time. alot more of us turned up. including the new additions from the JCs. any i had a great time and though i din stay over, i din regret it cos if i did, i'll probably be miserable in my stinky long sleeve shirt.

quite tired now.. so i'll post some of the pics that i took from the BBQ tmw.. since my sister's going out, i can blog in the day!! :)

liv tyler is very super pretty!!

din do much today. sleep, wake up, do some reading and watched tv. after that eat soba noodles and then go back to sleep. woke up for dinner and then watched some tv. din study much. haiz..

using this pic as my wallpaper. i think liv tyler is super pretty. especially in her role in the lord of the rings as the elf Arwen. super pretty. she like always got aura surround her.


another one... her blue eyes are very expressive.. like can talk lidat.
watched the 3 series of the lord of the rings recently. i think it can be considered as one of the epic trilogies of all time... very good the screen play. the story also not bad. just that its a bit long. i think the fight scenes are particularly good. so many orcs vs so few men.


saw this outside my flat just now.. so mac is hiring people... not tempted to work there as the pay is rather low.. but still, their paper is very colourful.. typical macdonalds'.



a recipe from the newpaper on sunday. had to scan it in 2 pieces as my scanner can only take A4 max. think i'll try this one day.. sounds very easy.. but the floor sure very oily one. den later need to mop like mad again. very hard to read right?


the power of image editing. used arcsoft to sitch the 2 pictures together. not perfect cos i anyhow do one. haha.. anyway the image is damn big.. abt 3.4MB.

tmw going for BTT trial test and class Chalet/BBQ @ Changi. i'm only going for the BBQ. eat already go. shoot and scoot. not staying over for chalet as i dun really like staying out. also dunno wad to do the whole night. hate playing truth or dare. keep asking who you like la blah blah blah.

2nd post of the day...

update: the praying mantis is still there... dunno doing wad. maybe its injured? or is someone's pet den kena thrown there?

had curry fish for dinner just now. home cooked! also tried a new type of rice. ever had nasi bryani? the rice they use for it is the basmati rice or long grain rice. i've long wanted to tried it. so bought 1 packet (1kg) and try.


the packaging. looks very nice right? but its expensive. $2+ for 1 kilo.


the grain on the left is the normal fragrance rice. the right side one is the long grain rice. its slightly longer and thinner than the normal rice.

i cooked 1 cup and had it with dinner. not bad la. quite fragrant. just that its very hard. so for people like me who like the rice hard and dry, its great. the rest of my family dun like hard and dry rice. they prefer it to be wetter and softer. hmm... dunno where i picked up the habit of eating hard rice..


going to watch the united states GP later at 12.45 on RTM2. since i got no cable, could not watch F1 for many many yrs le. but this yr i realized that the malaysian channel is broadcasting the race. so i try to catch it whenever i can. i'm rooting for Hamilton to win. since Schumacher retire le, no one to support. everyone loves the hero la..


ronald's doodle when we were in GP one day...


lol.. very bo liao

praying mantis

was walking to the rubbish chute to throw my rubbish when i saw the praying mantis on the parapet. at first, i thought is some toy people put there one. den i took a closer look and saw that its real!! my god! den i faster run into the house and take camera and shoot.

taken from quite far away.. abt half a meter. looks very aggressive. like gonna pounce on me lidat.


den it turn its head and look at me. no matter where i shoot, it turn and look at me.


see wad i mean?


its seriously scary....


front view. if i were some insect, i also wouldn't want to mess with it...


can see the wings? clearly. folded back.

before i posted these photos, i went back out to see if it was still there. it was! had wanted to bring my tripod out. cos the camera put on tripod more stable. but i still scared the mantis pounce on me. :P wad if it scratch my camera lens? so i dun dare..

another browser

was reading an article in stomp just now. then saw that the safari browser from apple is out on windows. so i decided to try out. most of the people who replied on the forums had mixed reactions abt this browser. 

the download file was abt 8mb and it took 1 or 2 mins to install. i realise the functions are vastly different from firefox.. firefox like simpler to use. or is it cos i'm used to it le? haha dunno. but one thing is that the pages load faster than firefox. dunno whether is the net at that time fast or cos the browser loads faster.

but it takes up more resources. open 2 tabs nia take up 130+K resources according to task manager. firefox open 1 dozen tabs den take up that amt of resources.

here's how it looks like..

the page loading bar is acutally the address bar. when loading, the address bar will have a blue highlight moving from left to right showing the load progress. i'll say its quite nice la. but looks alot like the itunes menu.

also, when i posted the pic above, very leh chey. must drag down. in firefox, i just cut and paste it where ever i want. still remains to be seen whether this browser will stay in my com anot. i tried opera b4. but din really like it and din have a need for it either. so i got rid of it.

was reading up on contact lens as i plan to get a pair to try out. what's it like not to have to wear specs for 1 mth. been wearing specs since i was 5. abt 14 years le. quite envious of those who have 20/20 eyesight. so good. no need to spend money on specs and to have to endure the inconvience. ie when its dirty or falls off.

there are 4 spec shops in CompassPoint. the prices all quite high actually. 1 shop wanted to sell me 6+1(free) sets of contacts for $180. if 1 set by itself is $45!! that's for the 1 mth disposable one. daily disposable is $120!! cos my degree differs for both eyes. so need 2 boxes (30 pieces x2) which cost $60 each. siao ar. so expensive!! lidat per pair is wad? $4? nuts...

and to add on to it, both my eyes got astigmatism. means that if i get contacts, my lens have to get the more ex one. sian. i thought could get one pair for $18 (wad my sister said) + maybe $10 more for the solution and casing and try for 1 mth. now turns out the cheapest is $25.7 (the 6+1 offer mentioned above).

sian. wad for i get 7 pairs of contacts when i only wanna try? no point right?

heh. or i can save up all my pennies / coins and go for Lasik. did some checking up. turns out there are quite many medical centres and hospitals offering lasik. i think by far the cheapest is the National Eye Centre. even then, the cost is abt $1320 PER EYE. multiply by 2 and add $140 for pre-precedure consultation and $40 (x5) per follow up consultation and you get...

$2980!! where to get the money sia? work also need to work for along time.. that's assuming i dun spend a single cent of my salary. imagine this..

$5 per hour for 8 hrs per day with a 5 day work week. 1 mth is abt $800. so at least $4 mths den can get abt $3K+.

or i could save up my army pay for the 2 yrs that i'm in army and get it done after i come out. cos $350 (recruit) x 24 mths = $8160. $3K go to eyes, left abt $5.16K can buy a new com. :) not very likely. sure got lots of things come in and conplicate matters one..

heh. i might strike 4D (though i din buy) in the future. or i buy big sweep kena the 1st prize! haha.. or i pick up a $1000 note lying on the roadside? who knows man? infinite possibilities...

going abit nuts already. the holidays stretching too long le. and i still haven prepared for mid-years yet!!

maths maths maths...

today was a rather boring day. the only major thing i did was to do maths. woke up quite late. abt 11+am. den went to bathe and took 2 buses to shawn there to do the 2006 maths mid-yr paper. din actually start when i reach. but dilly-dally abit then went to Tampines Mall the popular to buy the maths guide book. quite alot of books to choose from but we picked the copy that have the most things. cost $17.56 after a 20% discount. so ex.. i dun dare to check my bank account. cos recently spent alot.

so started to do the maths at abt 3 pm. progress was very slow... 1 question per hour? do until 8 pm also the paper not done yet. den i came home lor. since it was quite late and there was school tomorrow. took bus 81 then 88 home. had to wait some for the buses.

when i was walking across the road, i received a surprise call. Ms loke called to check if she had told us the timing for tomorrow's maths remedial. she did tell us though i think most of the class forgot le and said she din tell us. so she posponed the lesson till monday after the mock exam. means that monday whole day will do maths. sian. but this also means that i got more time to do the 2006 maths paper.

wanna watch Ocean's 13 and Fantastic Four. but got no money. anyone wanna treat? haha..

too fat le...

my PES status is B/P. means i can do most vocations but need to go for 15 week BMT to slim down. haiz. all these years of skipping pe and junk food finally caught up..

had breakfast at my house there the kopitiam and then took 2 trains down to redhill to meet up with ronald and shawn. ronald had a friend with him though. :) we then took bus 145 for 6 stops and alighted. CMPB is not the only building. still got the defence towers 1 & 2 where i think DSTA and DSO National Labs are housed. DSTA and DSO are the 2 home-grown defence research agencies.

had to walk all the way to the main gate to sign in. then shawn and ronald had to lock their phones in the locker as cannot bring camera or cam phones inside. my kodak also went into a locker. except for the sentry in FBO with the SAR-21 rifle, the place would look like any other office building and business estate.

have to walk abit in to reach the CMPB building. so after registering, first stop was photo taking. need to wear the army no 3 to take photo. quite strict. no coloured hair, forehead cannot have hair touching, cannot see the shirt beneath it blah blah blah.

den proceed to medical center for reg. first was hearing test. had to go into a sound-proof booth and wear headphones. then they will play very low sounds into each ear. when hear raise hand. my hearing is pes A. after that go eye test. also pes A. then went to the lab where they did the urine test and drew blood.

had to take a container and test stick and go toilet to pee into the container and dip the stick into the pee. then had to show the medic the stick. after which i had to sit down and wait. soon after the medic called me and asked me if i had any allergy. i say got then he give me a letter to give to platoon sergeant when i enlist in NS. so have to wait and wait to draw blood.

the medic could not find my vein as my arm quite fat. so he took a long time. finally poke in but no blood. -.- den push the needle in some more then got blood come out. by then there was a damn long queue at the lab. cos all the other stations process fast. all jam at lab there. got >20 guys.

the dentist was the next stop. got a pretty doc and one army guy. the moment i laid down on the bed and open my mouth, the doc started rattling in the stuff she saw. damn fast. before i had a good position i'm done le. same for chest x-ray. damn fast also.

after that did went for ECG where have to take out shirt, shoes and socks and walk around. den measure height/weight and blood pressure. my BMI is 31+. finally went to see the MO. there, had to show him my *ahem. then he ask got any allergy and things need to declare blah blah blah. and he sent me off with a good luck and a PES B/P status. -.- all the docs i've seen are captains.. funny.

anyway went to the last station and had to wait some. saw ronnie there. then went in to do the aptitude test. the programme is like damn old one. those programmes running off the IBM coms 10 yrs ago one. but they very brutal one. give you like 35 qns must answer in 15 mins. even if you not done, they move on. got questions on number sequence, maths, physics, shapes and orientation, memorize number etc etc. the more i do, the more sian i get.

finally finish all tests and i got a recruit book as a farewell gift.. haiz.


solid right?

after leaving CMPB, we went to mac for lunch. then walked back to red hill to take train to city hall to buy my camera stuff. ronald and his friend wanted to watch Ocean's 13. me and shawn din want. so we split. @#$!@%#!@#%!% he was supposed to go with me la! ditch me over his friend... @#!^$#%$@!!&*!%@^!$

so i bought a new bag for my camera at Pennisula Plaza.


my first Crumpler. haha. look and look for a very long time and finally settled on this cos its big enough for my camera stuff and i feel its solid enough to withstand some knocks here and there. cost my $36. can put my camera, 6 AA spare batteries and 2 SD memory cards in the bag. :)


the board that came with it. for quality assurance i guess.


picked the brown one as got no black and i felt the rest of the colours sucked.


cute logo.. but damn expensive.


the model..

then i bought a screen protector for the LCD, lens cleaning kit and tripod case for my SLIK tripod. i had emailed Cathy Photo for a price quote and i brought the email down. sure enough, i got a discount on all the items. :)


screen protector..


cleaning kit...


tripod case.. before, when i brought my tripod out, i had to hang it on my bag. now no need le. :)

this is it...

jia lat. tomorrow is medical check-up at CMPB already... abit scared. dunno wad the mindef docs will do to me.. my appointment is at 9.30 am. must bring IC, health booklet, medical questionaire and wear pt kit. i think i'll go there in jeans and then change somewhere..

someone requested a repost of the Mars VS Venus theme songs..

Would you be there by Ridwan Ali

幸福双人床 opening song

ok. reposted. again, they are good for 100 downloads or another 7 days.

today got no photos to post, cos i run out of ideas on wad pics to take.

PASSED MODULE 1!!

din do much work today. woke up at 11+am. then went for run with sister. thought would be very easy, after all i'm fitter than her. or so i thought... target was 3 rounds around the rivervale. i only lasted 1 round. when i got home, i was panting so deeply that i cannot talk... jia lat. really damn fat.

had intentionally wanted to go down eat lunch. but sister say cook at home better, some more can save money. so i thought, why not? cooked 3 cups of rice and warm up a can of peanuts, preserved vege with fish and curry chicken. and a cup of ice milo. :)

along the way i cut up the left over red pepper and king mushroom and a onion. cook them with some remaining spaghetti that was left in the bottle. i was afraid that the red pepper will spoil, so cook into the sauce can last longer. :) turns out when i tried to put the red pepper back into the bottle, it keep splashing sauce all over, so had to use a pair of chopsticks to put them in one by one. same for the mushroom. all in all, the sauce expanded from 1/3 bottle to a bottle. can use it tmw for lunch. :)

went for my 4th driving lesson today. turns out i had the same car which meant the same instructor today as i had on sat. as usual, drive around and shift up and down. today's focus was on intersections and lights. so spent quite a lot of time stopping and going through the traffic junctions in the circuit. he also thought me how to turn correctly so that will end up in the center of the lane.

i stalled the car twice while turning a sharp corner which required full lock on the steering. the purpose was to apply slight buy firm braking to slow the car through the bend. i braked too hard and the speed drop too low. so the car stall. so pai say. both occasions also the same. too much braking. guess i need to work on my braking. cannot brake too hard initially or else the car will jerk. and it wont be smooth. i also had to pay alot more attention to the mirrors and blind spot. have to keep looking left and right, here and there so that won't hit anybody. in the previous lessons, the instructors did most of the looking and told me when to turn and so on. but i guess this Mr Cheong was training me to be independent and not rely on the instructions of the instructor.

throughout the lesson, he was asking me questions on the car and all that. i thought he ask for fun one. turns out he was asking for the evaluation. since i knew most of was he asked, he passed my evaluation part which meant i pass the entire module 1!




haha. yah! 4 lessons and module 1 clear le. now i must pass my BTT on 22nd june so that i can drive on the road next lesson. which is on the 1st wednesday of july.

he also taught me 2 new things.

one, was that i din have to pay when i used the centre's toilet. cos they got one guy sitting there collect 10 cents. so i've been paying for a few times le. when he's not there, i act dumb and just go in. today, after my lesson i just walk in. :)

two was how to jump start a car. this method only works for manual cars. need at least 2 people, one in the driver's seat and one pushing. before the car move, turn the ignition to the start. then engage the clutch. once the car start to move, engage end gear and release to half clutch and step on the accelerator. the engine will start. cool right? i din know that. tried it twice and it worked! for auto cars, need to jump start using cables connected to the battery terminals of your own car as well as another car. he says that the other car has to have a bigger CC or more horsepower for the jump start to work. i din ask him how to do that though. next time i will ask during my next lesson.

quite fun la today's lesson. i'll make my notes on driving now...

stupid beetles!!!

stupid beetle!! wad's wrong with them!!? whole day keep flying into my room. this is the second one this week. fly here fly there. just when i closed all the windows and turned on the aircon. den hear this thing flying around and land on my curtain. nabei. had to walk into the kitchen and take the plastic container to catch it. normally i use a bottle. but this was on the curtain, so need the lid to force the beetle into the container.

the last time the beetle came visiting, his friend the bee came too. also fly here fly there. in the end i had to wait till mid night to ensure that they left b4 i can sleep. can you imagine when you sleep some insect zoom around your room and land on you how? normally i'm not squirmish abt insects. but this kind really cannot tahan.

Mars VS Venus theme songs.

rather uneventful day today. spent the day watching tv and videos on youtube. my sister is nuts over the 幸福双人床 song. spent over an hour downloading from some link. stupid. ended up cannot even listen. spent a rather good portion of my time searching around too. well, i managed to get a version that is quite good.

here's the link:

Would you be there by Ridwan Ali

幸福双人床 opening song

the links are to yousendit.com and are good for 100 downloads or 7 days.

a few photos from the show.









normally i dun post such stuffs abt dramas. but i think this one is quite funny and touching. :)