Merry Christmas!

Log Cake from Bread Talk

I had a really really sweet Christmas eve, hope all of you have wonderful Christmas too!

Result. Reflections Again.

EE3001 - A-

EE2401 - A-

EE3408C - B-

CG3207 - B-

EE2007 - B+

A weird mix of feelings on the results this semester: slightly disappointed, yet relieved. 3.76 for semester CAP, cumulative CAP increased by 0.06 to 3.48.

I know I shouldn’t be expecting grades which are any better, since I didn’t exactly put in efforts which deserve the better grades. But I was really hoping that I can hit 3.5 CAP for the Second Lower Class Honors, as falling so may hurt my chances in the Vacation Internship placement. At the same time, I am very relieved that I didn’t do worse. With the projects squeezing every ounce of energy, I had no motivation to study during the reading week, so I was pretty much gaming all the way. Bad habit of gaming during exam preparations, I know.

The B+ for EE2007 was expected, I knew I didn’t cut for an A-; I didn’t expect to score for the written paper all along.

The A- for EG2401 came as a surprise. EG2401 is a totally redundant module which I didn’t bother to put in any effort in, so I guess my smokescreen ability is pretty good huh.

My Technical Electives end up my poorest modules this semester, I guess that's pretty much expected as well, since I didn’t put much time into them. The thing I have to say about CG3207: a supposedly interesting module was made irritating and retarded due to Mr T-Cube. That is the first time I ever used the random function to generate answers for exams, so you can guess how bad situation was.

EE3001: the biggest headache this semester. Leading an 8 man team which all members have a higher CAP than you is no easy feat; I was worried that we can’t do well for this project and end up pulling their CAP down. Despite the differences in the grades for each member, I think we did pretty well. To be frank, I know that I’m not the best option for the team leader; I still believe that if Antz was the leader instead, we could have gotten an A. Nonetheless, I am glad to have worked with such an awesome team, and deeply honored to lead the team.

In all, I guess I’m quite satisfied with the results this semester; given the inadequate efforts put in, I actually got 2 A-, this is the first time I see so many As. Even though it’s not full A, and one of the A- modules is only 3 MC, I’m still glad.

I'm not too concerned about academic achievements anymore, I think I’ve finally figured out the limits of my capabilities after 2 years in NUS. I am now more focused on just doing what I can, and doing what I am interested in. As of now, my girl takes on the highest priority in my life, not because I’m crazy over her (tho I must admit I am), but because I’ve finally realized the truth that your loved ones always precede everything. In life, no matter how good or lousy your career and academic achievements are, your loved ones will be the only thing that will always stand by your side.

My Love, the Love of my Life

I’ve been pretty busy throughout the past semester, with many projects and stuff stacking up to my neck. After a surprising slack exam week and a not so optimistic exam results, the semester has finally ended, and the holidays are here. I've been looking forward to this holiday the entire semester, there's so much to do this holiday.

Went to watch 那些年，我們一起追的女孩 with my girl last week, it was a really nice movie, the story is good – slightly cliché but not cheesy, the characterization of people in the movie is very well done also. And of course, a very nice balance of (pervert) humor and romance.

I have my fair share of romance as well, brought my girl to Haagen Dazs for a chocolate fondue dinner.
Here are some pictures:

 

Haagen Dazs’ fondue is pretty expensive compared to the Andersen’s one. The one we ordered is the Royal Fondue, which cost S$48++. The Andersen’s fondue was around S$20. Of course, the item was worth the price, more money = more food, more quality.
Here are the pictures for the Andersen’s one:

Of course, as with all the ice cream and other sweet stuff I had with my girl, the taste is not the thing which accounts for the sweetness, my girl is the reason why it’s sweet.

So we went to our favorite hangout at the Esplanade Roof Terrace after the fondue, which is where it all began; the place I’ve met my girl, the place where she becomes my girl. I suppose all my readers have already guessed what I’m trying to say from the title of this post. Yes, my story has change from這些年，我在追的女孩 to 這輩子，我最愛的女孩.

Love has been a very magical experience for me. Each time I hold her hand, I can hardly believe that this girl is mine; yet it is so real that I can feel the subtle sweetness from deep in my heart. It is such an amazing and wonderful feeling that you’re in love with someone, and that special someone loves you back.

5th December 2011, she is my love, the love of my life.

勝品香燒烤 - Toa Payoh Lorong 8 Market

The market at Toa Payoh Lorong 8 closed down for renovation works about a year ago. And I was deprived of my favorite satay for one whole year. I've been eating satay from 勝品香 since young, back when I was still a little boy. The satay from this stall is awesome. Literally awesome. So when the market re-opened, the first thing I tried is the satay.

15 satay chicken/pork at 40¢ each, chicken wings at $1.20 each

Chicken wings:

Tender. succulent, juicy chicken wings

Actually pretty standard for grilled wings, though some lousy stalls do screw up and over grill wings which end up dry and hard. 勝品香's wings are well marinated, and control of the grill is good. What you get is very rich flavored wings which is tender and juicy.

Satay:

Well marinated satay having rich flavor.

The satay is also very well marinated, giving the it a very rich taste. The meat texture is a bit hard though, and it hardens after a while (or if you ta-bao), so eat it immediately.Why wait when the good food is right in front of you?

Satay sauce:

Awesome sauce is awesome

The best part about their satay is the sauce, not because of the strong and wonderful flavor, but because of the peanuts. Many other satay stalls fail on this, with grounded peanuts which is almost powder like. The sauce from 勝品香 has chunkier and crunchy peanut bits, which makes it extremely satisfying  The photo don't do the sauce justice, it's more awesome than what's in the photo.

This stall is located towards the back of the market, you can't miss it if you look for the 勝品香 name. There's also many new satay and chicken wing stalls in the market after the renovations, but I doubt they can be as good as 勝品香. Pretty rarely do people come to Lorong 8 of Toa Payoh, as it's the furthest from the bus interchange/MRT station, but if you do happen to drop by, give it a try. And oh ya, it opens only for night business.

Lerk Thai

I met her for dinner after her lessons that day. We were at Marina Square, and as usual, dunno what to eat. So we walked around looking for food, passed by Lerk Thai, and the promotion posters caught our attention. It was a weekday, so Marina square was pretty quiet, and most of the restaurants are empty, Lerk Thai was also empty, but decided to eat at Lerk Thai since I've not tried it before, and I was hungry.

Her order: Crispy Soft Shell Crab with Glass Noodle in Hot Pot

Crispy Soft Shell Crab with Glass Noodle in Hot Pot - S$9.45

This is Lerk Thai's new specialty dish, which was having a 50% promotion. This is a pretty interesting dish, Lerk Thai is pretty good with the spices, the crab and the glass noodles have a really rich taste. By the way, glass noodle is 東粉 or Tung-Hoon, google it if you still dunno what it is.

My order: Massaman Curry

Massaman Curry - S$11.90

Awesome dish, it is voted the World's No. 1 Delicious Food by the CNN. Extremely spicy and fragrant, the gravy is thick, but not gluey. They have a pretty generous amount of chicken and potato, so it is pretty filling.

Choked on the spiciness once, which brings me to my next point: this restaurant charge for ice water. More specifically, they do not serve ice water, they sell you mineral water. Of course, I didn't start a "Joanne Peh incident" and quarrel with their management, but I refused to order any drinks. Call me stingy, but when the 10% service charge is in the bill, I expect the minimum of ice water to be served. There is really no right or wrong in this, but just imagine the kind of impression you will leave in your customers..

Overall, Lerk Thai's food have pretty rich flavor, in contrast to Thai Express, which has subtle but impressive taste. The ice water part is a pretty big turn off, and this reminds me, Thai Express serves free flow ice water.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc - Inaccuracy in touch screen input

I got an Xperia Arc recently. Camera is great, screen was great. The problem? Touches NEAR the edge of the screen are being received as inputs AT the edge of the screen.

This is what I mean:

Where the touch was supposed to be

What the Xperia Arc receives as input

This is a really retarded problem. I wont even call it a bug, since it is likely a hardware limitation. I was using HTC Desire, it didn't have such problem before. Even Samsung doesn't have this problem.

This causes a lot of problem in game-play and, depending on the user, a lot of problems in daily admin usage; since many apps seem to like placing small buttons near the edges of the screen.

I suspect it's a design flaw in the phone: It is likely that Sony Ericsson employed a digitizer same size as the screen, as such, touches near the edge are inaccurately received. For HTC, I think their digitizer is slightly bigger than the screen.

If you're using an Arc too, you can try playing "Cut the Rope", try touching the reset or menu button at the top right corner in the game, then you'll know what I mean.


I posted this problem online several times, there are always some idiot Arc users insisting that there is no such issue with their Arc. Well, maybe they're really lucky, but I've tested over 10 sets of the Arc, the problem is real.

Went to the Sony Ericsson service center at Wisma Atria, the pinoy women insisted that there is nothing wrong with the phone, and even tried to blame it on the custom launcher I'm using.

 There's even a (blur) video on Youtube which demonstrates this problem:

Since it's more like a hardware problem, I think the only solution for this is to change phone. Hmm, 2 more years till contract ends.

*Update 29/01/2012
I've been trying out several other phones by Sony Ericsson, turns out that all touchscreens of SE phones are designed this way.

Models which I have tried includes:
Xperia Arc S
Xperia Neo V
Live with Walkman
Xperia Ray
Xperia Play

*Update 16/01/2013
I really like Sony phones because of walkman and its camera, frankly after using Sony for a while, these two are the only good thing they have. Their software and customization - in my opinion - can be said to be far from impressive. So with just a thin hope that they would rectify the edge touch issues,  I've been testing Sony's new models to check for it. They have sort of worked around the issue, the "dead zone" near the edge is reduced in the newer models, but it is still there, and I'm sure using it would irritate sooner or later.

The models I've tried are:
Xperia V
Xperia Ion
Xperia Arco S

The Xperia Z which is just announced recently at CES 2013 looks stunningly beautiful, I pray hard that the edge touch issue will finally be resolved in this model, and that the software doesn't suck as much. However, after trying out the many generations of Sony's phone, I have a hunch that I would be disappointed yet again.


*Update 11/02/2013
I made a diagram to illustrate what I mean on the inaccuracy in touch screen inputs near the edge.

As shown in the diagram, there is a "dead-zone" NEAR the edge where all touches are registered as input ON the edge. There is a small area near the dead-zone where touches calibrated to 'spread' the inputs. In newer 2012 xperia models, the dead zone is slightly smaller, but it is still significantly noticeable when you use the phone for daily usage. I really have no idea why would anyone design the touch screen to receive input this way, especially when other manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, HTC and even BlackBerry have touch screens which receives input properly.

Squirrel!

I was in school and while walking through the car park, I was startled by a squirrel. For the record, I'm not scared of squirrels, it was behind a car, and it was moving fast.

Cute huh. They're actually everywhere hiding up in the trees. Might be plotting to take over the world with cuteness. I'm pretty sure cats are planning to take over the world as well.

What good does a government made up of cats do?

Nothing, but at least they're cute.

Shit falling from the sky

School has been extremely exciting. I dunno if you've played this game where there are shit falling from the sky and you control this matchstick man guiding him to avoid the shit. This game pretty much describes how my life is like right now, and I'm hit by shit all over. This semester is way tougher than I thought, my inability to meet deadlines is increasingly apparent. My severe lack of sleep is affecting my cognitive abilities, if I had any to start with.

There is simply too much work lying around to be done and too little time and concentration to complete them. I have started the semester in the worst possible way: by playing games. Even though I’ve quit that game, the time lost has already proven to be too much.

Project is a major pain in the ass, hiccups everywhere. A (I think) supposedly brilliant-and-practical idea is now retarded-and-wtf-is-this-shit. This point out another major flaw in my character: the inability to notice details. There were so many hints around which I neglected. The only option left now is the usually patch work; keep trying to patch problems here and there when we find them.

Because of my 6th module, I'm having the 好人 vs 坏人 identity crisis again. This points to another flaw in me: I really should stop talking the way I do. Very often, what I say is different from what I believe. The statements I make are cold, negative, and asshole. But sometimes, I secretly hope that what I say is not true. I deny myself. Before I know it, I begin to spread negativity like an aura. I learnt to doubt, instead of trust. Lacking the basic trust for people and even myself. I don’t even know which one is the true me: what I say? Or what I think I believe?

好人? 坏人? Which one am I?

Oh damn, this end up as an emo post again. Here's a totally random and unrelated picture of my desk with my new monitor to make this post look a bit more interesting.

Acer S221HL 21.5" LED Monitor - S$179 from Comex 2011

Two weeks after school start

This post was supposed to be "week before school starts", but since I was working all the way till holidays end, together with my supreme procrastination, it has become "2 weeks after school start". I'm still pretty pissed with having to work all the way till holidays, work has pretty much left me exhausted for the new semester, but I needed the money, so pretty much no choice.

To be frank, I am not quite ready the new semester. This semester is supposed to be my strongest semester as the electives I’m taking this semester are subjects of my interest. But the workload and complexity  is also the highest as well, 3 team projects, 2 individual projects. My "can do, do; cannot do, ignore" technique has served me well. I don’t know if I can call that a strategy, since that's basically depending on luck to scrap thru year 1 and 2. I don’t know how far luck can take me before it runs out, but time is a linear motion, it drags me along.

An update on my life: a new chapter is beginning: a source of motivation, a direction for my life. It’s still too soon to see where it’s going yet, but I hope it’ll work out. Love is a very interesting thing, you’ll never really understand it until you in it. What it is like to be missing someone, what it is like to have someone always on your mind. Looking at all that I've said in my blog so far, this new chapter is really slapping me right in the face, turning all the theories I had into meaningless bullshit.

Sorry for such a short post after such a very long time, there’s quite a few things going thru my head, kinda messy, so here’s a totally random picture of a Hokkien Mee to make this post look more interesting.

Gourmet Paradise Foodcourt Toa Payoh HDB Hub, Basement

PS: This Hokkien Mee is really quite not bad, try it if you happen to be eating in Toa Payoh

Night View from Esplanade Roof Terrace

With the recent and sudden job change, I only get to go gai gai on weekends, and weekends is super crowded everywhere... We wanted to eat at Astons, but the queue is loooooooooong... so we end up eating at Thai Express at City Link..

Tom Yum Fried Rice Set - $8.90

Barbeque Chicken Set - $8.90
Seafood Tom Yum Soup - $7.90

The food is quite okay, nothing much to say, I suppose almost everybody have eaten Thai Express before. One word of caution, the Tom Yum soup is extremely spicy, I drank 5-6 glasses of water because of that.

After dinner, we went to the Roof Terrace at The Esplanade. Brilliant place, very nice view, cooling and endless wind, very romantic ambiance. Literally a cool place to bring your girl to.

Art Science Museum, Marina Bay Sands

Raffles Place, Office Buildings

We missed the NDP fireworks totally. I didn't even know it was the rehearsal, as I don't care anything about the NDP, as she put it: "no sense of belonging". Well, doesn't matter, I think peace and quiet suits the place and ambiance better anyways.

Orange Tee Building - 丰味 (Flavvors)

*edit*
丰味 has closed down. Guess their food really isn't fantastic at all.

The Orange Tee building at Toa Payoh Central has opened for quite some time now, I've tried, eaten, reviewed, and stopped eating at Luvvy Curry, but I've not tried 丰味 yet, so I decided to go with my mum today.

Here's What we ordered:
(I know the english name sound stupid, it's actually from the menu)


炸明虾角 - $4.80
(Deep Fried Ming Xia Jiao)

This 明虾角 is actually very exquisite, the best 明虾角 I've eaten so far. The "skin" is extremely thin and crispy, unlike the usual ones which are thick and hard. There's actually 4 明虾角, but glutton me only remembered to take picture after already eating 2.


芒果炸春卷 - $6.80
(Deep-fried Mango & Prawn Spring Roll)

This dish looks damn nice in the menu, but it doesn't really taste like it looks. I'm not saying it's lousy, just that the picture got me expecting more, I can't really taste the mango, the spring taste like spring roll, the typical restaurant kind of spring roll. Still nice tho.


香菇滑鸡盅仔饭 - $6.80
("Zhong Zai Fun")

This is what my mum ordered. Very nice, really, one thing I notice about Flavvors is, they are very generous in their food (meat/料) portion; while dishes like this in many other restaurants have only a few pieces of chicken and mostly rice, Flavvors have a generous amount of chicken (and mushroom). The gravy/flavor is very unique, giving a very fragrant taste, makes me wonder what's in it. They also to give a generous amount of the gravy, such that all the rice is soaked with it, other restaurants have a lot of  白饭 (white rice) underneath. It's details like this that impresses your customers.


炉饭 (鸡扒白汁) - $8.80
(Baked Rice with Cheese, Chicken Chop w/ White Sauce)

This is what I ordered. This is good shit, really, makes pizza hut cry. I did mention that Flavvors is very generous in their meat, the chicken in this is really everywhere in the bowl. The taste is awesome, cheese is thick, definitely worth the $8.80. Having this kind of quality in a chinese restaurant makes many western restaurants cry.


Desert: 芒果布丁 - $3.80
(Mango Pudding with Sago)

I'm a giant sweet tooth, and I love desert. This mango pudding is pretty nice, but pretty "common tasting". I think I have yet to recover from the sweetness from Gelare on Tuesday. Well, I guess all mango pudding tastes around the same, but of course I did try some disgusting ones before.


Well, generally I'm pretty please with the ambiance, quality of food, and service of Flavvors. Tho I'd love to see less China staff, but I guess that's impossible for Singapore. Anyways, the prices are pretty good, that much food for around 30 bucks, I've been eating at restaurant a lot lately, that's actually the cheapest so far. If you ever come by Toa Payoh, give it a try.


Restaurant Details:

 http://www.flavvors.com.sg/

430 Toa Payoh Lorong 6
Level 1 - 01
Orange Tee Building
Singapore 319402

Opening Hours:
11am – 11pm daily

Reservations: 6255 2151

Gelare Tuesday Waffles Day

Today is Tuesday, Gelare Waffles Day, so I went with her and had some ice cream.

If you don't know what's Waffles day, basically they have big discounts on their waffles. We got the "Waffles + 2 scoop of ice cream" for S$9.90 each, I think the usual price is S$13.90.

*Edit 24/7/2011* i was told the waffles day is only offered till the end of july 2011

*Edit 17/8/2012* i was told the waffles day is still valid, i don't know if it's a permanent promotion

Mine: Chocolate Chip and Tiramisu

Hers: Cookies and Cream and Banana and Walnut

We suspected that there should actually be whipped cream on the waffle too, I think they forgot, and by the time we realized that, we're already half way eating.. Well it's not like the whipped cream matters much anyways.

Oh one thing I must mention is the chocolate chip ice cream. I'm a big fan of chocolate chip ice cream (and also mint chip and mocha chip from the $1 street ice cream). The chocolate chip from Gelare is awesome, it's really chocolate pieces in vanilla ice cream. It's so awesome that awesome is not enough to describe.

The waffle is really filling, not your typical waffle from the bakery, we had this for brunch (burp~) and we were still full in the afternoon. Taste wise, it's sweet, seriously sweet, so sweet that both of us got turned off by the sight of any other sweet food. And of course it's not just the ice cream which is sweet.

New train of thought

My high school teacher left me an advice regarding book reading last gathering, which changed my opinion on reading books. I used to think that reading books is just one man reading another man’s junk. But he said, the author of a book may have spent 30 years to gather the experiences, he compiled it and wrote it into a book, which would probably take you around 1 month to read it. Whether you find it beneficial is another thing, but if you do get something out of that book, you spend 1 month to absorb what the author took 30 years to experience.

While I still believe that many so-called “inspirational” books are still bullshit, I decided to act on his advice, to pick up a book and start reading. The first book which came to my mind was “The 7 habits of highly effective people”. I didn’t regret doing that. Stephen Covey is indeed an incredible author.

Well to be frank I’ve just started reading it, and I’m not going to talk about what he wrote in the book, what I want to talk about is the thought I have after reading it.

Anyone who knows me would agree, that I’m a self-proclaimed asshole that, as she put it, goes around and agitate (offend) people. Yet on the other side of the coin, there are people who see the good in me, like some of my friends, and that teacher I mentioned. He said, my nature is good, but I keep saying things which will agitate/offend people (she’d agree) and make people think that I’m an asshole. He also said that I should drop that defensive armor which I’m “wearing”, because if people wanted to attack me, they’ll still get through anyways, so there is no purpose in that “armor”.

For a very long time, I couldn’t figure out which one is the real me. Am I an asshole who tries to act nice sometimes to create a nice guy image to get some attention? Or am I a nice guy who acts tough on the surface in attempt to defend myself from harm?

Stephen’s discussion on character and personality ethics gave me an answer. In a nutshell, what I understand from his discussion is: character is like the core of a person, something which will hold true regardless the times and environment; personality is the reaction which a person develops to adapt to the situation, something which is temporary and changes according to the environment.

I have many theories of how the world is unfair, how money dominates human etc, but beneath all that, I felt a voice within me which really want to believe there is still good in this world. I realize immediately that the theories I’ve developed is really a defensive measure in reaction to deal with the world, and that small voice within is my character. I realize that I really wanted to be a good person.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. -Albert Einstein

Never in my life have I been able to see myself so clearly; never in my life have I so strongly feel a need to change. The book was able to lift me to a higher level, and allowed me to solve the problems which I had for so long. I really hope that I’ll be able to complete the book, and that it’ll grant me even further insights.

Movie. Dinner

Waiting for my hair to dry (which should be quick, short hair :D), just a quick post before I go to bed.

Went to watch X-men: First Class at Filmgarde Iluma today. Movie was awesome, cinema was quite unimpressive.

Dinner was at Billy Bombers Bugis Junction. I must say food has gotten more expensive since my army days, or that army pay was actually pretty good. Anyways, here's what my friend and I ate:

 

Beef

Fish

I seriously can't remember name of the dishes, such complicated names for value sets, which taste really "value".

Well, it's not the food/cinema which matters anyways, tonight was still really nice.

Anyways, time to sleep, gotta wake up early for yet another "exciting" day of work tomorrow...

Cycling. Injured again.

Last summer I learned that you should not talk on the phone while cycling; this summer I learned that you should slow down when taking corners.

I’m an experienced “accidentee” with many different kind of injuries here and there, but I must say this time I got it quite bad.

Let’s see what I got:

A pretty deep wound at the elbow

A sort of swollen ankle

A pretty bad (and a bit swollen) wrist

Pain coming from one of my rib bone.

My mum purposely pressed hard on the wound while applying the antiseptic, to serve as a warning, and as she put it “看下次你还敢不敢” lol. I can tell she’s quite concerned about my injuries, even tho I come home injured quite often. I was told she was damn upset when I got injured in the army that time. 养儿一百岁,长优九十九,all mums care for their children. I know she doesn’t like me going cycling, since I get injured quite often on the bicycle, which is why she stopped me from cycling to school when I was in sec 2. But boys will be boys, haha.

Despite the injuries, yesterday was really nice, I’d crawl my way there if I had to. And oh ya, I finally made it to ECP alone, first time in history. To think of it, I have no idea how I managed it yesterday, I could hardly move when I woke up this morning.

Results. More Reflections.

EE2006 - B+

EE2009 - A

EE2010 - B-

EE2012 - B+

LSM1301 - B

The impossible has happened: I actually got an A, and the A is for EE2009. I still can’t believe I got an A, my first A in NUS. And of course, I still have no freaking idea what that module is talking about.

I must say that I am extremely satisfied about my results, with 3.9 for semester CAP, and pulling my overall CAP from 3.26 to 3.42. Still a pretty lousy CAP, but the improvement is there.

Now, even though I did pretty well (in my opinion) for the exams, I can’t help but to feel somewhat disappointed too. I’ve always thought that with my capabilities, I can score more A’s if I want to, I’m just being lazy and under performing. But it turns out my capabilities might be just limited, and pretty low at that. I’ve summoned the highest level of self discipline ever and put in a lot of effort this semester. I’ve done the most number of past years papers, and followed the tutorials as closely as possible. Of course I’m glad that my effort paid off, but at the same time, I think I may have reached my limit. My peers are getting like 2 A’s and 3 B+’s or even better. I hate to admit it, but it turns out that I am really inferior. This semester’s result might be the best I am capable of.

Of course I can’t use that as an excuse to slack off and give up. I think the true enemy is your own self, if you believe that you are bounded by your own limits; there is nothing else that can be done. I know that. I need to challenge and push my limits even further, I might not see A’s again, but i should  at least try to reach the second lower class. I need to try hard not to compete with others, since they’re so far better than me, comparing with them will just dampen my own morale. Instead, I should focus on outdoing myself, trying to do better than I ever did before. It’s like a race, if you see that the others are far ahead of yourself, you feel demoralized and give up. But if you just focus on yourself and keep putting one leg ahead of another, you will eventually complete the race.

Reflections: Confidence vs Arrogance. Persistence vs Stubborn

Two simple comments from her which made me think: “You’re like living in your own world” and “You like to assume”. I guess I've been receiving too much compliments from a friend, an ex-colleague, and a colleague, who said that I have very mature and deep thinking. But she said “You think that you’re very matured”. I think she was joking when she said it, but there is some truth in it.

My take on Confidence vs Arrogance:

Confidence is being certain of who you are, and what you are capable of.

Arrogance is when you’re so confident of yourself that you think others are inferior.

My take on Persistence vs Stubborn

Persistence is about having principles, views, or opinions of your own.

Stubborn is when you assume your principles, views, or opinions are always true.

Basically I want to be confident, yet not arrogant; persistent, yet not stubborn.

But I think I have slipped back into arrogance unknowingly.

I think she’s right in saying that I am living in my own world. My knowledge is extremely limited, and my views are narrow-minded. There are too many stuff which I don’t know, and I do not understand; my views are not properly balanced. But the compliments I had recently have made me believe that I know a lot, as if I've seen and know everything. I do know that my views are very extremist, the childish part is: I am actually proud of it.

“You like to assume”. Adding on to the fact that I am living in my own world, I also like to assume. Biggest mistake is that I assumed that I have a good judge of character, and each time I say something about something or someone, I conveniently assumed that I am correct.

How the hell did I let this happen again? I like to describe arrogant people by saying that their “glass” is full, but in actual fact is”我有嘴巴讲别人, 没有嘴巴讲自己”, I have failed to realize that my glass is also full. I should have noticed it when I realize that I find more and more people stupid. I mean really. When you find that everyone else is wrong/stupid, and you’re the only correct one, something must be wrong.

Considering the giant asshole I was in JC, I took great care not to turn back to the asshole I used to be. But it seems I am not able to tame the arrogant bitch in me after all so long. I need to work more on keeping myself in check. The irony is, I was just commenting on another person who tried so hard to change himself into someone he originally wasn't.

I think the first thing I need to do is to reflect on some of the “philosophies” which I have, I need to start acknowledging the good, the miracles, and the nice things in people, instead of assuming that everyone is an asshole by default. Of course, assholes are still everyone, lol. Also, I must do something about being lazy, time to throw this old pest out. Throwing lazy out is quite complicated, but what needs to be done has to be done. I have no idea how, but I think adopting the idea of “what needs to be done has to be done” can be a start.

Work at Polo Ralph Lauren

For this sem’s vacation, I’ve managed to find myself a relatively better paying job at Polo Ralph Lauren, S$7 /hr. So I can finally say goodbye to The Headphones Gallery and its bullshit.

This job is pretty nice actually, but as usual, I always have something to complain, lol. As with all front service jobs, standing long hours is a must, and I have mostly gotten used to standing long hours. But the most irritating part about this job is the leather shoes, I hate wearing leather shoes seriously, pain in the ass. Ok, maybe pain in my feet, not ass.

The pay: even though it’s S$7 /hr, per day I have only 8.5 hrs of work for morning/afternoon shift, and 12 hours for full shift, deducting the break time, it is $52.50 and $73.50, at headphones, I’m paid $60 per day, so sometimes more, sometimes less. Furthermore, the work per hour is higher too, with many random tasks to do.

Oh ya, one thing I must mention: IBT. IBT is transferring stocks from the Scotts Isetan branch to the Takashimaya branch; I suspect it stands for Inter Branch Transfer, tho I’ve never asked. It takes me around 10 minutes just to walk to Isetan. Seriously tiring, but each time I go for IBT, I can waste half an hour, very good way to pass boring time, and to lose some weight as well, haha.

As some may know, Ralph Lauren is expensive in Singapore, the polo tees are around S$200 and this is like the standard pricing. I was steaming a dress the other day, and I was shock to see the price: S$1070. Can you imagine that? I can buy an iPad with S$1070.

I took a picture of some of the over S$1000 dresses:

S$1430

S$1070

S$1070

To be frank, Ralph Lauren does indeed have pretty quality products, compared to brands like LV which sells only the brand. The designs are humble, yet very nice, and the materials are  quite good. Take that blue dress I steamed for example, it looks simple but pleasant, and gives a classy feel. And oh ya, the material is 100% Mulberry Silk. I can only imagine my (future) girlfriend wearing it, she'd be quite gorgeous.

Anyways, after only 1 week of work, I'm feeling pretty worn out already, and work just feel like counting down to ORD, just like all my other jobs. I should be working till end of June, tho I'm asked to work till July. I think I'd consider, base on how tired I am. Anyways, I doubt it'll be a big deal if I don't continue, since the other part-timer (also from NUS) is pretty hardworking and smart, actually better than me, and I think he'd continue.


*Edit 15/06/2011*

S$890

 Added one more dress, I really like this one, my favorite. A nice touch of feminine and "coolness" together. I bet my girlfriend will look gorgeous in it too. Just one problem (other than the price), I don't have a girlfriend, hah.

Joe Ten turns one!

It's been exactly one year since I start blogging, happy birthday to Joe Ten!!

2 interesting fact about Joe Ten:

1. Joe Ten was originally intended to be some sort of tech blog, initially named "Da Noob Geek". Then I found that my tech knowledge is actually very low and superficial, thus I changed it to a story on my life.
2. "Ten" doesn't actually mean "Perfect Ten" or anything, I took the name "Joe Ten" because it was sort of a (cool?) mis-pronunciation of my name back in NS, when my buddies started calling me Joe Ten, some even added eleven, twelve, thirteen etc.

As I started my blog in the middle of exams one year ago, I am currently having my exams now as expected. And as usual, I'm in pretty deep shit in my academics, if things go on like that, I might end up graduating without the honors.

Anyways, to people (especially friends who know me) who are following my blog, thank you for your support! I'd try to keep my blog updated regularly, with little bits and pieces of my life. I'd also try to make my blog less emo, or else it'd turn into a whining station, hah.

Meaning. Passion. Equipment.

Sometimes, in pursuit of high-end, better, and even better equipment, people forget the original intent of the equipment. Common groups of people are Audiophiles and Photographers.

Audiophiles, by definition are people who seek high-quality audio reproduction via the use of specialized high-end audio electronics; so the group I am referring to is really music appreciators. 

Music is fundamentally a form of communication; a message that the musician wants to convey. Every “ting”, every “oom”, the selection of every single instrument, vocal harmonies and many more; it paints an image the musician wants to show, it shows the hard work put forth by the musician.  Being able to take apart, and appreciate each layer of the harmonics by itself, and then put them back together and enjoy the piece as a whole. That is music appreciation.

I believe that the purpose of high-end audio equipment is to enhance the music appreciation experience. To me, high end audio equipment is about giving credit to the musician, and hearing music as what the musician intended to be. However, when one become obsessed with high-end equipment, music becomes secondary, and equipment takes priority. Music becomes something for one to appreciate his high-end equipment; but the original idea is the other way around.

I feel photographers are quite the same. Tho not a photographer myself, I see some similarity in the pursuit of high-end equipments.

Ever heard of the phrase “A picture paints a thousand words”? Same as music, behind each photograph, is the story the photographer wants to tell; it paints the image (literally) that the photographer wants to show. The purpose of a high-end camera is to enable the photographer to showcase his capabilities, to the photographer to tell his tale fully, and not be restrained by the limitation of his equipment.

And the same problem arises: obsession with high-end equipments. The question is: just by hanging a $4-5k DSLR on your neck, does that make you a photographer? When you shoot for the sake of the equipment, the photograph is hollow; it does not have a meaning. Photographs then become just a showcase of the camera’s capabilities.

The purpose of your equipment is to empowers your passion. When the focus is shifted to the equipment, the meaning in your passion is lost. Simply put, it should be “I want to do this, what equipment can allow me to do that?” not “I have such good equipment, what can I do with it?” If your passion is about flaunting your wealth and getting expensive equipment, then I have nothing to say.

I am. I am ...?

Aha. I figured out what’s the problem with me. Simply put, I’m half-fucked. Stuck halfway between the 乖乖 boy, and the chao ah beng. Tho self declared beng/fucked-up/asshole, I know I’m actually far from it. But I cannot be considered as a good boy either. I figure that I want the posh feel/look of being atas, but yet I want to be punk. The fact is, it’s unlikely that I can be either. Thus, I end up half fucked in between. So in the end, I’m just a childish boy who thinks that he knows about life and experienced it all, yet actually he knows nothing at all.

Money

Singapore. Elitism. Money. In school, it’s your exam results; at work, it’s your monthly income. The more the merrier. There are only 2 groups: [Elites], and [Others].

Principles, Karma, Moral/Ethics. Ideologies for us poor and weak to feel better about our pathetic lives. These are really redundant things which can be easily overwritten by money.

Principles:

These are really just threshold values which can be easily covered by money.

Say a rich man goes to a pub and he wants a particular girl in bed.

He offers $100, she’d prolly say “Are you f**king crazy?!”

He offers $1000, she’d prolly still reject him, abiding by her highly “principles”.

He offers $10 000, she’d be in some hotel, and prolly throw in extra services and sound effects to earn more tips.

Principles? What Principles?

Karma

This one is even easier to explain. There is no logic to it at all.

Say 2 person David and Kenny. David is a high flyer, getting up the ranks by unscrupulous means. Kenny is a lowly subordinate of David. So David keep exploiting  Kenny, claiming all the credits, gets promoted, earns even more money. Kenny believes in karma, and believe that being a nice person, he’ll get rewarded.

Guess what? In the end, David lives in luxury, have a beautiful wife, has almost everything one would ever want. Kenny? He leads a pathetic life, struggling to make ends meet, can’t get a wife, die alone.

Morals/Ethics

Well, there’s nothing much needed to say, the previous 2 examples already shown that morals/ethics are redundant.

Why are such redundant things still so popular then? Simple, because people seek comfort in such ideas, and the media always show stories which glorifies such ideologies.

Taking a common scenario which always occur on TV. Say David has a girlfriend Penny, and Kenny also like Penny. David is a jerk, betrays Penny and have many other girls than Penny. Penny knows that. Kenny treats Penny really nice, and he really loves her, Penny also have some feelings for Kenny.

In the TV, Penny get sick of David, and marry Kenny instead.

In real life, Penny marrys David, David still fools around. Kenny? Well sucks to be him.

Money is not the most important thing, it is the only thing which matters.

[PS. In case you're thinking I'm some elite laughing at losers, my life is more like Kenny's (sadly), and it's not remotely possible that I can win David.]

Emo Update

The score for 2 of my midterm tests disturbed my mood quite a bit. I really shouldn’t be too bothered by that, since my grades are pretty lousy to start with. But seeing the majority scoring a lot better than me still makes me kind of sad. Don’t compare –so they say. How to not compare? This is Singapore.

I’ve been rejected by the company I’m applying for VIP. No email, no calls, no notifications; they just stealthily changed the status of applications from “No response from company” to “rejected by company”. 2 possible reasons: 1. Year 2 inexperienced and lack of knowledge. 2. My grades are too lousy. I suspect ‘2’ is the dominant factor.

I am not a nice guy

Long time no blog. Long post. Emo post.

I am still struggling to identify what kind of person I really am, and what I really want to be.

Even though I pretty much self declared that I’m a giant asshole, I know I’m not quite one.

But I’m not a nice guy either.

I am extremely sarcastic and skeptical, or even cynical. To me, every single person is assumed to be evil unless proven otherwise; every person has a motive to doing everything. When somebody does something nice, there’s a motive behind his/her actions. When a new policy or system is implemented, it’s because people want to either cover their asses, or bring greater benefits to themselves.

Basically, I believe things happen for a reason, and people will only do things for their personal benefit. Perhaps it’s sort of a defensive mechanism; I always see bad points faster than the good ones, and think that the bad points are more significant than the good. I often analyze things until I find something bad about it (cynicism).

Don’t be mistaken. I don’t view the glass as half full, nor half empty. I’ll think of why the glass is filled in the first place.

I am extremely selfish and egoistic, but lazy. I am a perfectionist; I like to win. Many times, I become selfish in the process of trying to win. But process is not important, winning is. Nobody cares how many hours you spent, how much effort you put in. The question is always “How did it go?” The “at least you’ve tried your best” is just a sentence of sympathy. As long as you win, it doesn’t matter how you got there. Morals and ethics are redundant. Money is essential.

My academics is full of crap. Of course I’d love to be on the first class position, who doesn’t? And I did mention I like to win. But I’m far from first class. For perfectionists, it’s either 1 or 0, if you don’t get the best, you simply don’t care.

Some friends said I am reliable, dependent, above average, nice etc. My skeptical nature compels the thought that those comments are just socially obligatory. Nonetheless, thank you, it’s nice to hear positive feedbacks, and I am pretty touched.

But I am not nice. I don’t even know how the idea of “nice” got linked to me. I don’t see anything nice. Sure, I’m pretty smart at times, pretty good at analyzing things at times, but that’s as far as it goes, and those are just 小聰明, I depended on luck most of my life.

Indeed, I did say “don't just hate yourself; work hard to be the person you want to be.” But the fact is I can’t abandon this part of me. Sarcasm and skepticism defines me. There are times which I don’t like the way I’m thinking/commenting about things, but it is an integral part of me, I need it.

My ego and selfishness are actually curbed by quite a bit compared to some years ago. On the surface, I am not as jackass as I was last time, but am I really? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m just hiding it, or it has really reduced. I don't know which is my masked self, which is my true self

Living with myself for that long, I don’t even know me.

It’s a love-hate relation which I have with myself.

Expectations, Promises.

It’s common for a couple to quarrel, but why? Let’s look at both side of the story.


男人：说就天下无敌，做就无能为力。
Face it boys, we all have too much ego. Regardless whether successful, unsuccessful, or useless, all boys have an ego that is waayyyyy more than their capabilities (including me, sadly). When a boy talk, he talk BIG, usually at least 1.5-2x of what he is capable of.


女人：我希望的不是很多，我只要你爱我。
This is a very big trap, “不是很多” and “我只要你爱我” do not have a specific number attached, girls think that their requirement is very simple and basic, but seriously, girls’ expectations are really hard to live up to. They just don't know that subconsciously they are really expecting a lot. Even when girls say that they don't expect boys to do 'something', deep inside they still hopes that boys would do that 'something'. When that 'something' doesn't happen, girls get disappointed and it's the boys' fault again.

The gap between reality and fantasy is called expectation.

So, boys talk big, girls expect. The image portrayed by boys’ ego is already 2x of what he’s capable of, and girls expects roughly 2x of the image she see, so in total, the girl expects 4x of what the guy actually can/will do.

This result in boys constantly falling short of girls’ expectations, by way a lot. That’s called disappointment, by the way.

Note: we are not talking about Singaporean golden cheese pies here, SG-GCPs follows a simple rule: more $$$ = better.

People say love is complicated

I just identified one of the reasons why I am still single: I do not have MN1101 – Money $$$$$, the pre-requisite for LV1101 – Love and Women. Ya sure, everyone says “you don’t need money to have a girlfriend”, but hey, they say god exists too.

Let me break down the expenditure for a basic, simple, easily contented girlfriend.

Monthly:

In our minimalistic model, let’s say the couple goes out just once per week, and summing up the miscellaneous expenses (meal, movie, koi, etc), that’s at least $40-50 per week, that adds up to approximately $160-200 per month.

Special occasions:

There are several special occasions when you’re attached, Valentines’ day, Christmas, Birthday, and random Anniversaries. For our minimalistic model, let’s say you get a bouquet of flowers, a small gift, and a meal to celebrate.

Bouquet of flowers (small): $50-$100
Small Gift: $50-$100
Meal: $50-100
Total: $150-$300

Annual Fee: $160 x12 months + $150 x4 special occasions ≈ $2500 per year.

$2500 per year, that’s 4x the amount I have in my bank account. Now, the girls will probably defend themselves by saying “I don’t need my boyfriend to spend that much what”. C'mon, these calculations above are very minimalistic, assuming the cheapest items like food courts, fast food for normal meals, normal entry level restaurants for celebrations.

Now, remember we are talking about a MINIMALISTIC model, and we took the lower limits for the calculations. Singapore girls as we know, are on average pretty high maintenance, so it’s not MN1101 and LV1101, it’s MN2301 and LV 2401, with the annual fee multiples of what we calculated.

Now here comes the interesting group: the atas undergraduate girls. Simply put, they are basically LV4601-GCP – Love and Golden Cheese-pies, with pre-requisite of MNC4900-FIR – Money, car, and Father-is-rich. The grade you have for MNC4900-FIR, determines the grade you get for LV4601-GCP.

Basic gradings:

-not rich, stays hdb,
-don’t have car
-take bus to school,
→ you do not have MNC4900-FIR, pre-req not fulfilled.

-pretty rich
-family has car,
-usually take bus to school, sometimes drive,
→you have MNC4900-FIR, grade C; you are eligible for LV4601-GCP, grade C.

-rich, stays in condo or landed property,
-have a personal car
-drives to school
→you have MNC4900-FIR, grade B; you are eligible for LV4601-GCP, grade B.


-fucking rich, landed property worth 10mil
-have branded sports car, porsche, audi or anything expensive
-drives your sports car to school daily
→you have aced MNC4900-FIR; LV4601-GCP, grade A will throw themselves to you.

So, people say love is complicated, it's not really that complicated, just pre-requisites and calculations.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing everybody a happy valentine's day！

For those attached, hope you and your darling can 細水長流。
For those single (incl me), hope you find your "The One" soon!
For those "it's complicated", c'mon and figure it out already!

Here's a really cute mv for you guys!



叮噹 and 阿信 looks so cute in this MV.

And of course 叮噹 is damn chio! ^ ^

Me and girls = Φ

I'm still thinking about who I am and what I want to be. One thing I figured out is, I am a pretty lousy guy to pick for girls. You see, I am so lazy and nua to the extend that laziness/nua-ness index → ∞. Like duh, I should have known, but ego was in the way. Girls really don't like guys who are lazy.

Side note: Ego is a very irritating thing. The need to feel superior to other people; it exists in everyone. My ego is quite damn high, sadly.

Oh another thing. Atas vs Ah beng. I have to face the fact. Most chio bus are really damn atas, and being a chao ah beng is damn far from atas. But atas need money to maintain, that's why it's called atas in the first place. Dunno what's "atas"? Refer to this link.

I know there is the need to change. And i did say "don't just hate yourself, work hard to be the person you want to be." Maybe for the laziness/nua part i can do something about it. I need some real good motivation. No, keep telling yourself "you can do it", "this must be done" etc etc doesn't work anymore, I've been doing that for god knows how long. One possible option is to random hoot a girlfriend, and use that as a source of motivation. Wait, wtf idea is that?

The real problem is, I have been a ah beng for damn long. Ok, just to clarify, I don't really qualify to be a full fledged beng, but compared to the nerdy/atas undergrads around, I am sibei cao beng. Anyways, the beng part is the tough one. I've been living beng-ly for god knows how long, I really don't know how to live as a professional/atas/act-cool. And another problem to that is $$$$$. Pre-requisite for atas-ness is money: get your clothes from zara, a macbook, a iphone 4, or prolly even a crumpler, all of these requires money, loads of it. Oh yes, did I mention I hate atas people?

Ok, maybe I've exaggerated a bit here and there, I always exaggerate, it's fun. But you have to admit, the fact is not far, I blown it up by just a bit.

PS: maybe I should start changing by doing the 6 tutorials waiting to be done . . .