10 Day countdown

It is just 10 days away from my grad trip, getting excited. Excited over the trip, and also excited to see my bank accounts empty for the first time in my life. Well I have already prepared myself for reality, haiz having decided to go on this trip, I have already expected this day to come. My mum just told me that if I really need to just sign the card (my mum got a sub card for me, just in case I need to pay for anything in emergency, I love my mum), yup she told me not to wait till I'm hungry till I'm like crawling on the ground, haha how cute can my mum get. My bro has generously agreed to sponsor a little to my trip, yup, he's been of a lot of help lately. My birthday treat, sponsoring a little to trip, buying a wii so that I can play, and he even told me to sell his old Hp and use that money as a subsidy for my new Hp. Yup, thats why I love him too, hahaha. I love my family. We have our squabbles, and we hate each other at times, but that happens in every family right. And it is times like this that they show that they really care for me and hope that I enjoy myself. It does make me think that I've been pretty selfish at times. When the opportunity came to go on this trip, I literally jumped in, not really thinking that I will have any money issues. As you know, I'm not from a well to do family, far from it in fact. I knew that my account would barely be sufficient to support the trip, but I still readily agreed to the trip. Maybe deep in my heart I just thought that my family would support my decision, and lend their helping hand voluntarily. It didn't even come across to me that 'what-if' they didn't support me, what am I going to do. Even though I know that after I come back from the trip, I would be totally broke, but deep inside my evil self is telling me that someone will support me during that time. And now, I just feel that I am a little selfish. I always proclaim that I will spare a thought for others, for my family, but in times like this, I sort of let the dark side take over me. Not that I am saying that I regret agreeing to go on the trip, but it just makes me feel loved and cared for. All these times I've been taking things for granted, the things that I have and the people around me. I always tell my family that if they had the money just go on a holiday, buy things that they like for themselves, don't save up for me. My mum is going to HK with my aunt this sat, and she needs the money there, I don't want her to save on herself so that she can give me some money for my trip, my bro is going to Vietnam on sat as well, he too needs the cash to enjoy himself there and he's also thinking of going into investments now, so who am I to take their money so that I can enjoy myself, while they are feeling the pinch. This is the thing that is breaking my heart sometimes. I guess it is time for a little reflection on myself, now that I am moving to another phase of my life, I guess I'll need to grow up and face reality. I hope I will be able to secure a good job after I come back and treat my family to a good meal, and earn enough to bring them for holidays. Whatever it is, I've promised myself that in the future if my bro ever needs financial help (if he does) and that it is within my means, I will provide as much as I can. I guess thats the least I could do.

Having said that, I will be going to Sentosa tomorrow (I'm such a sucker), but its gonna be a cheap thing. We are just going there for a tan. No expensive expense. Its been ages since I last went to Sentosa, hopefully I can get my aunt's camera tomorrow morning. Well I do need to get it early to do some trial photo taking session. Need a crash course on how to maximise the camera. Okie, guess I better sleep early, gotta wake up early!

Hmmm... just wanna say it again I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!

The last lap

Today, or should I say yesterday, I had my final presentation, and man it was hell. I got the person I really didn't want as my moderator, my worst nightmare, Prof Lim Kee Yong!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh... The moment he came in, I knew that I was going to have a hard time, and as expected, life wasn't easy in during the presentation. In fact I didn't really presented anything at all, it was an 1/2 hour Q&A session. He just kept shooting me with questions, its was rapid cross-fire. He came on and he said that he had already read through my entire report, and all that I was presenting was already in the report, so he didn't want to hear all that, what he wanted to know is how I substantiate my points, and what I write in the report. And he kept asking me about my figures,"why did you use 3? why not 5 or 10 or 1?", "why 65%, where did you get this magic number from?", "who said that it this number is reflective, it was you right? Now, what we want is not about what you think, its about what your research shows", questions like these were flying throughout the presentation, and I was drilled like hell. All that I prepared the day before was totally useless. Well I don't blame Prof Lim, its his job to drill me, and before hand I already know that he's the type of professor that really drills his students hard, so when I saw him come in, I already expected the worst. What I really hated was my own prof just sat there and smiled to himself and didn't even try to help me out a little. I mean at least try to put in a few good words for me lah, I'm not asking for much also, alamak. He just sat there and smiled and laugh to himself, as if he also knows that my fate would be such when I am faced with Prof Lim. Before the presentation I've already told a lot of people that I just hope that my moderator is not Prof Lim, Just don't give him to me, and tadah, it just had to be him. My friends that sat in for my presentation was terrified looking at my presentation (she the next to present, but to a different moderator), from what I heard, she was clutching my other friend's arm throughout my presentation, hahaha. Well one thing about my own prof, I must still commend him because a lot of things that the moderator asked for, my prof had also reminded me before. For example the survey, and the substantial part. So I must say that he did reminded me a lot but I still didn't include some of them in my report. Well I know that my report is not the most accurate, in fact there are many big flaws in it, but seriously it is not easy for me to come up something that is new in such a short time. Apparently they believe it is do-able. Although I have an entire year to do this project, but I still have my other modules to clear. I'm not saying that it totally cannot be done, but its not as simple. But Prof Lim did tell me that it was their job to drill my report and to drill me to answer questions. And after everything he came up to shake my hand and told me,"Congrats, you've graduated". That is a sigh to relief, hahaha. At least I know I got through already, hahaha. And not all about my report is bad, Prof Lim did mention some good things about my report, he said that my format is good, my referencing is good, and my command of english is good (surprise, surprise, never thought anyone would ever say that my english is good), but my literature review is not strong enough, that I am making too many personal assumptions, and the the case studies are too bias because I based it on a single user (which is myself). Well I still thank Prof Lim for his time today, and if you ever read this, I just want to say," you really gave me a hard time, hahaha". Haiz, never mind, its finally over, now onto the next phase of my life - unemployment. Now I'm officially unemployed, so anyone got any jobs offers for me?

Final Presentation

Finally I've reached the end of the road, in just a few hours time, in fact it is today at 1300 I'll be giving my final presentation of my FYP to my professor and to a moderator. Well I've only finish creating my slides yesterday evening, and have just finish rehearsing the presentation, and I'm like screwed, hahaha. I find that my presentation is too long. Just now I tried timing myself and I ended up using close to 40 mins to finish my entire presentation, that is like 25 min overtime. Now, it is going to be difficult for me to cut down any more of my content, so I guess I'll just have to practice to speak faster later on. Lets hope everything goes well tomorrow, all the best to me, wahahaha. ORD lor!

Birthday part II

For my birthday today, let's see I practically did nothing, wahahaha. Met Imran at Whitesands for Swensen's lunch (it comes with a birthday treat). So spent some time with my good friend, shopped a little at Whitesands (as if there's anything to shop there), then went over to my grandma's place for dinner and the sweet noodles (what we eat at every birthday, it comes with 2 hard boiled eggs). And thats practically it, thats all for my birthday. Well, maybe I'm getting a little bigger now, so birthdays arn't a big deal anymore. Of course I treasure a good time with my various clicks of friends and family, but just a simple meal together, or drinks (not necessarily alcoholic, coffee & tea is good) is satisfying enough. We don't even have to eat expensive, I'm happy even if we eat at some kopi tiam. Yup, I think its the company that counts. Well I'm happy that many still remember me and my birthday, got quite a number of birthday wishes on my handphone and facebook today, thank you very much people, I know you all love me, I love you all too, wahahahaha. So now, the most important thing to do is, to start on my presentation, I haven't done anything at all, damn it. I'm like so screwed. Ok once again Happy Birthday to ME!!!! hahahaha...

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yup, today is my Birthday! I'm now officially 25, at the mid point of the twenties range, at an all time low point in life. I can't remember if I've blogged about this, but remember I'm now unemployed and broke. Hmmm can life can any worse than this. Well lets forget about the worrying stuff first can get onto the happy things in life (at least for today). Well last night (actually it was just a few hours ago), my brother treated the whole family to dinner at Imperial Herbal Restaurant.

The Restaurant is at Vivocity, which serves great herbal cuisine. We took a package dinner, which had about 8 dishes (think wedding dinner style) that consisted of a cold plate, sharks fin, noodles, fish, sea cucumber, abalone, and a lot more. The dinner was meant to celebrate his first pay back in Singapore initially, but of course my smart Brother delayed the occasion to include the dinner for my birthday + mother's day. So it was 3 occasion in one. Smart move to save some $$, hahaha. Well dinner was terrific, the food there was superb, and it was most filling. I'm like bloated after the whole thing. We started with the cold dish which was a deep fried frozen cocktail fruits. It looks like a goreng pisang, but when you bite into it, it is like very cold inside. The frozen fruit is just starting to melt, so the cold juice just oozes out when you bite, the mixture of warm and crispy outer layer with the cold fruit is just heavenly. This dish also came with some cold vegetables with some strands of black stuff (I think its seaweed, donno just eat) which was also very good. It was tossed in sesame oil and other kinds of sauces, and it taste great. Then it was the sharks fin soup with crab meat and roe. They also added herbs inside, so it tasted a little different from the usual sharks fin eaten at wedding dinners. Yum-my! Next up was the herbal chicken. The chicken is super tender, the sauce is super tasty, and you can really taste the herbs. The next dish is sea cucumber with abalone and wai shan (I don'y know what is that in english). I don't really eat sea cucumber, because I think its very slimy, gooey and has a fishy, but this sea cucumber is really well cooked. It is not slimy or gooey, you can still bite into it. The abalone is braised then sliced, it taste alright, very tender, not overcooked (think like eating rubber). The best part of the dish is the wai shan. This is some root like plant that taste a little like yam, a little like potato, a little like tapioca, yah something like that. It was fried and cooked together with the sea cucumber and abalone, and it taste superb. OMG, I have never been a fan of wai shan. I do eat it, but I do not particularly like it. Woah, this dish changed my perspective of the plant altogether (later on the desert is also wai shan, absolutely changed me into a wai shan lover now). Then it was the fish. The fish tasted ok, I thought it was a little over fried, but it still does taste pretty good though. And after all that oil and meat, next is the vegetables. It was celery stir fried with mushrooms. After all that heavy tasting food on our taste buds, this dish was a very refreshing change. And the mushroom is really really nice here. By now we are already at 120% full (ie we are already super full), so when the next dish came, which was the noodles, we asked for them to serve only half the plate and takeaway the other portion. But I must say, the noodle is really quite nice. It really taste quite good. Then, it was birthday surprise. Yup, because I was all along expecting the dinner to be for his first pay, so I didn't think my bro will get a cake for me. Orhhhhh, so sweet! Hmmm come to think of it, its been a long time since he did something this sweet for me. But who cares about the past, thanks bro, love ya! Well they bought a cake from baker's inn, luckily they only got a small one. For the cake, I also asked for half the cake to be served (although it was already a small cake). So each of us got a small little bit of the cake. Well we had to conserve whatever space we had in our tummies, there was still desert. The desert was the famous malt strands wai shan (erm I think its translated this way). Basically its the wai shan coated with melted malt. Before serving we were given bowls of cold water, so when the dish came, we had to immediately pull the wai shan and put them into the cold water. So as you pull the wai shan, strands of malt forms behind the wai shan, a very interesting sight. The cold water will solidify the malt to prevent the wai shan from sticking to each other. After everything is in the water, we take them out of the water, and back onto the plate to eat. Oh man, this dish taste good. The malt has a very scented sugary smell and taste, the wai shan is bite size and only very lightly coated, love it! The service at the restaurant is really good, and I would highly recommend anyone who loves herbal stuff to go there for a meal. Great place, great food, great service, what more can we ask for. Thanks to my bro again! Happy Birthday!!!!!

My birthday cake!


Me and Mum & Dad

My cool grandma (and aunt when to toilet, so didn't get a pic together with her)

With my bro and Huiling

The three of us acting cute, wahahaha!

Brand new start

Well as most would know, my birthday is coming, and just 2 days ago I had my first celebration (erm maybe its the second, remember the drinking session that I had in March, that was supposed to my birthday celebration as well). Yup, met up with Wai Hon, Benny, Andre and Han Rong at Tampines Mall to have dinner at Phins. As usual I was pretty full because of a late lunch. So I only had a bit of here and there, didn't really have a full meal. After that they got a 'cake' for me, well sort of a cake, we bought 4 pieces of Hershey's Choc ice cream pie from BK and put them together into 1/2 a cake. It was like the most innovative cake I've had in my life. Very good idea, coz we didn't have to wash up or cut the cake, hahaha. After that we went over to Benny's place for Mahjong, hahaha I won! Well thanks guys for the birthday! With many more years of friendship to come!!!

And today, I finally finish clearing up my room. With a new coat of paint and a new order of furniture (I can't buy new stuff coz I'm now broke and unemployed). Yup, so its a new beginning for me. Oh yah, as expected my Europe trip got some problem now. At the back of my head I'm thinking "I told you so", but of course we'll try to work something out. Okok I gotta end here to go put a parking coupon on my car before the parking pontianak comes. Ciao!

Nights out

As said earlier, I went out to party right after my papers. Was supposed to head to Wala Wala's, but we decided against it, we were at Holland Village though, instead of Wala, we sat at Olio's for drinks, there was 1 for 1, so it was pretty worth it. I ordered 1 pint of Hoegarden (which means 2 pints, because of 1 for 1), and we sat there just talking all the rubbish non stop, haha. The reason we didn't go to Wala was because Jeremy brought his dog (I think he was called skettle) along, anyway he just got castrated today, haha poor dog, another reason is because we wanted some place with seats. Knowing that Wala would not give us a seat, and most definitely not allow dogs inside, so we chose to sit at Olio. It was a pretty good session, I got to know May better (Bucky's gf) and the Koreans guys much better (Jung Mun and Johnny). Well I think the drinks also made it easier for communication. Thats the great thing about drinks, not too much, just a little to lighten up the mood, and we can talk about everything under the sun, haha. After spending hours at Olio, we headed over to Mount Faber to sight see. And I am ashamed to say that being a Singaporean, this is my first time up there after the renovation. I haven't been like to Mount Faber since eons ago. Jung Mun and Johnny will be heading to Thailand next week, so I guess probably I won't be able to see them anymore (unless they make it back before I leave for my trip of the century), so I hope they enjoyed themselves tonight, and all the best in their future. Have a safe trip back home guys, will miss ya.