post hall blues.

after nias and the xmas party in hall on monday, and all the exciting news on ihg, i've been missing my 2nd home for the past 4 years a little too much :( 

missing the days being in many different committees planning for many events, training day and night for bball and darts and winning game after game to get our desired results (semis and 1st!), keeping track of the game scores and wins and counting down to winning the rec champs, dancing day after day just for that 7 min slot during hoc, going for events after events and hanging out in the middle of the night just to chat and drink some beer.

too much memories, too awesome a life.

sigh, i really am going through a different phase of life now. need to grow up.

just wanna say, really glad i went to nias, and back to hall for the xmas party :) thankew wenxin and loi for jio-ing! and seeing kc and ziai made me feel all loved. i have to say i really enjoy talking to dearest kc much (: she's such a good listener and always so comforting! so glad that we went to nias tgt (:

oh yes, congrats to hall 9 darts and carrom teams for the DOUBLE GOLD! :D a very good start to our rec games. :) darts hat-trick and carrom's first win after 7 years! i really think the carrom team deserved the win so much! (: even though bzz and kailiang went nias with us, they managed to make it! :D heehee so glad for their consistent trgs and that extra effort made to becoming the best. the awesome hall 9 spirit! :)

once a niner, always a niner :D

+ guaishou's! :D

goodbye.

Resilient? No. Determined? Nah. Strong? Definitely not.

All the qualities that may be key to last long in the organisation, I don't have it. How long more? I ask myself. It's no longer a matter of whether to leave or not, its just a matter of when.

I think it's really the suicide effect. When someone close leaves, the same thoughts would naturally come. Now that one would be gone, probably meant that my workload would probably increase by a large proportion again, which would only serve the strengthen all the push factors.

Definitely not getting strength from the work I do, the sole reason I may be here is the people I'm with. I don't see anything wrong with it, just happens that its not going to bring me through all the shit once they are gone, or once the shit outweighs all the fun I'm having.

Looks like I really have to take these 5 days to properly think abt what I'm going to do for the next bits of my life. I don't want to live with regrets, and no matter how people talk about living their dream or pursuing their passions, sometimes what we really need is having that cash to do it. Where I am is definitely giving me the express route when it comes to this. (I'm being very practical here.) I just have to decide how long I'll need to sacrifice to simply have the ability to pursue my passions.

Meanwhile, bon voyage to myself. I find this incredibly apt to be typing this before I disappear from the face of the world for 5 days. That's the awesomeness of holidays. Hopefully I'll have an answer that satisfies me by the time I'm back :)

+ guaishou's! :D

end of week 3.

awesome but not-so-awesome week. 

just when i thought i'm finally getting used to work i got all stressed up again today o.O and yes i know, feeling all swamped up with work and feeling useless and stupid are all part of the process of ramping up... i've heard that over and over again but sometimes i really feel like packing up and leave.

like you know, i'm meant for other things. 

like playing the keyboard in a band in a pub. 

like training for a competition coming up in a month's time.

or maybe even operating some machine in an aerospace company or doing some experiments in a lab.

arghhhhhhhhhh. but one thing's for sure - even though i might not exactly like the work, i love the place i'm working at, and that includes the people i'm working with. :) and there are really cool aspects of the job, minus the client engagement, report writing, and business consulting, i get to do cool stuff like eating free awesome food with clients and going for all kinds of site visits in the aerospace companies. i'm really looking forward to my trip two weeks later at changi airport, on board an SQ to check out how the technicians conduct maintenance on the IFE systems. like helllloooo HOW COOL IS THAT. 

haha. still trying to find some time to visit the RR facility in seletar and perhaps STA to find some old friends! but all not within my portfolio ): gotta stick to my colleagues. roars. but it'll be so awesome to explore! really an eye opener especially after learning so much theory stuff in the past 4 years. finally can see them in action! :D :D

and so yeah, generally i'm pretty much excited about work still la. just that client engagement can really get very tiring (like thurs where i had THREE external meetings gosh including a networking session with all the aerospace/aviation peeps). i find it hard to say the correct things at the correct times, and sometimes i just have nothing to say at all which results in those awkward pauses. oh gosh totally HATE the awkwardness. and report writing is such a huge headache and i spend most of the time trying to word it a certain way instead of thinking of the actual content itself. pain in the neck i tell you. and i'm really not that a good writer you know. all those passive vs. active, business writing, quantitative vs. qualitative words etc. etc. omg omg omg.

and one conclusion i've made: SCGS girls are reallllyyyy good at writing. omg.

anyway, on a lighter note, social life's pretty awesome. tuesday's the ntu networking session (the very same one where the hr head tricked me into applying then with her description of the engine: "suck squeeze bang blow" haha) and it was funny how all those aero juniors came over to talk to me! and they had the exact same concerns as all of us last year heehee. i think i managed to look quite zai despite working for three weeks heehee. and you know, apparently natalie thought that i have been in edb for like 2 months plus already, so imagine how shocked she was when i told her i'm actually just 2.5 weeks old. -____- no wonder i was thinking why i so fast can go networking session alr. /faints.

but i was really glad i went (: ntu is such a homely place seriously. especially when i went back hall after the event! total loveeeeeeeee. heehee everyone was around! toh fw clem yuto germ wt miang! :D we were all talking outside fw's room and it was so awesomeeee :) yays. too bad we were all tired or had many things to do so we chatted for an hour plus then went back to our rooms / home. long enough actually :D warm and fuzzy all over!

thursday night was the SCRAPS event, some quarterly thingy meant for aviation professionals to network around, but the key thing was.... it's organised by EMBRAER! haha imagine the shock i had when i first heard about it :D and in the end i really got to know super a lot of the professionals (networking... gosh) plus the best part of it - got to catch up with my ex-colleagues at embraer! :) cervantes was really shocked to see me, but he was still super friendly nonetheless and even gave me a welcome hug o.O haha brazillians are really passionate people (marine hugged too!) haha. caught up with him for a long while and he even taught me a few networking tricks. hahaha. amazing guy i would have to say, and even until now i'm learning so much from him. have to vote him for the most awesome IA supervisor if there's such an award. and he really makes me feel guilty for not going back there... roars. 

yongren was around too and again he was pretty shocked! and wilson was even more omg! he came over to my group meaning to talk to the MD Av guy, andden when he turned around to introduce himself to us his eyes opened super widely and jaw dropped and exclaimed, "look who we have here!!!" andden we started catching up and i handed him my name card hahaha. a little sad that wilson's going back to brazil too :( he was so funny trying to speak in chinese during my internship! 

really miss internship days at embraer sometimes. but again, perhaps it was only the people that were truly awesome and not quite so for the work :/ fussy me.

and TGIF! today dated pam after work heehee. we had quite some fun in office after 7pm observing the race cars zooming past from the 26th floor of our building while chatting with mavis huiqing and jonyap haha. super awesome view! thinking of going down on sunday to watch the finals from above and drink some beer with jovin and some of the other TE peeps heehee. should be quite awesome!

after that pam and i ended up eating KFC at bugis then visiting some toy shop at iluma (25% off tin toys! all thanks to j woooooots) and by the time we went on our way home it was already 9.45. omg really super tired haha. but so thankful for the weekend, it has been quite a stressful week and to be frank i've so much things piled up already. pfft. think will have to do some work over the weekend. cannot be like last week and slack so much alr :( boooooo.

and uhhh. thinking whether should go polo tomorrow. i'm so tireddddddd. :O :O

+ guaishou's! :D

museum hopping + polo photoshoot!

18 August, Thursday

the beginning of an insanely tiring 4 days involving loads of walking. o.O

met wenxin for like ten minutes to pass her the dance pants and managed to catch up with her life a little! i miss the days we roomed together already ): it felt very natural to just talk about many random things whenever we see each other right now! too bad i didn't have time for lunch with her but i'll make it a point to organise one before i start work (:

went over to city hall to get lunch with pam and it was awesome (: spent an hour plus eating at the hongkong cafe in raffles city, talking about all the happenings and the people in my workplace-to-be and many other things, and then walking around the esplanade exchange and eventually bumping into my future colleagues derek janice and karen hahaha. they were like "hahaha enjoy your last two weeks" and "oh no no no it's going to be fun working" and "we're going to treat you very well *insert cheeky smile*" -____- super funny la! i was like "shit now i dread work even more". but anyway, i thank God for awesome colleagues! they look like people i can really get along with (: hehhhhh.

after lunch with pam, i met leen at the mrt and we walked to the peranakan museum :) went around the museum on the 1 hour free tour and explored the heritage of the peranakans. and i think i just realised then that aileen's actually one! o.O i always knew j was but not leen. hmm. i think that's cos j looks a lot like one compared to leen!

our tour guide who's a peranakan herself!

loves the portraits which are back-lighted!

a cross between traditions and newer religions

me as a peranakan male!

and me as a peranakan female! haha

uber cute stuff for kids!

the peranakan museum isn't very big, but definitely bigger than the first one i went to - the old ford factory. but i totally loved the design of the whole place and well as the exhibits. it was very nicely done and it was fun exploring the place! we spent about two hours before heading back to the mrt.

along the way we saw this very awesome camera shop near hill st. and it sold many awesome stuff! like the leather casing i've been looking so hard for my jeremiah (the olympus pen btw)! omg. and leather straps too! but it costs like 235 for the whole casing and 69 for the strap. which is simply insane! the most i'll do is to get the leather straps but then again it doesnt look very comfortable so i guess not ): but i do hope to get something awesome from there next time!

we took the train to buona vista after that since leen's got an interview there. i waited for her at the cafe andden at the end of it we headed to jp where j joined us :D we started queuing for swensons and it took us almost half an hour to get seats for 5 when we were right at the front! gosh. soon after we got a seat loi joined us, followed by fw and we all ate happily using toh's groupons haha.

went to ntuc express to get a fan for loi since he desperately needs it for his new home and we had much fun choosing the fans LOL. i was doing a quick analysis for loi using my engineering skills hahaha. but in the end they all chose the other one when we voted -___- angryyyyy. hahaha. after that fw left after a small little episode while the rest headed to wendy's for some dessert while we talked somemore.

after dessert-ing loi went back to his place while the three of us went back hall and slacked. andden the whole night was spent talking outside toh's room when he wasn't even around, with some angmoh called rasmus from denmark dropping by and chatting with us for like 2 hours (to be frank i wasn't exactly comfortable with it cos i wasn't in a socialising mood), andden me running to germ's new room (YAY), talking to the three of them, before heading back to them at the lounge only to get chased out by the guard, and finally talking at the stairway near the toilet before the two of them went to bed.

then i went back to germ's room only to find miang while the rest went to eat their supper -___- was so tired after that so i went to shan's room and sleep.


19 August, Thursday

woke up at 830 the next morning and had breakfast at cant 9 with j leen toh and yuto! loves breakfast at hall  9 :D after the breakfast, leen j and i embarked on our journey to our first museum - the asian civilisation museum! and dammit it was super big o.O the tour itself took an hour and a half and it skipped the majority of the exhibits. so at the end of it we had to walk all the 7 galleries again ourselves, and by the 4th one we were all so tired from the information overload and skipping many things altogether. oh and not to forget my legs were complaining already and so was my stomach. we actually stayed there for a full 4 hours and by the time we were out looking for food it was already 3.

and so you could imagine how tired we were already. but i have to admit, there's just so much awesome exhibits there! i think it's possibly the biggest museum out of the 7 already. the galleries were split according to the different regions in asia, and out of all i thought the south east asia one was the most boring. because the exhibits were just of the different tribes and most of the time i couldn't see much difference between them since they looked all the same. haha. there wasn't any exhibits on the koreans taiwanese and japs though, which were pretty disappointing, but then again i guess their history must be tied quite tightly to the chinese and so they didn't bother having a gallery specially for the east asia.

our korean tour guide!

the 8 immortals 

one of the 3 hindu gods

a smiling buddha

awesome funny looking things!

ACM's main lobby area

buddha and his 7 chakras

j says this seemed very emo.

attaining nirvana

the three of us!

point: to look like a tourist hahaha

well done, j, well done.

i decided to lock them up cos they were too irritating

finally forced leen to take a pic haha

oh there was this temporary exhibition on the terracotta warriors and that was pretty interesting! although i wouldn't spend 5 bucks on it to be frank (i entered in for free since it was free entry for students, and i still have my matric card haha). anyway i was quite amazed by the extent chinese emperors would go to for the sake of not dying "alone". hmmmm.

i love these things. they're just so cute!

wanna bring them home

we had lunch at the sandwich place called the mooba tuckshop. it had a few awards displayed so i was expecting it to be pretty awesome but it turned out only slightly above average ): had the turkey cold cut which i felt was the worst out of the three dishes, the other two being roasted beef and sugar cured salmon. sadddddddd. bought the one dollar ice cream from the ice cream man outside and it was pretty amusing watching tourists buying their ice creams from the english-poor ice cream man for their first time.

turkey cold cut!

sugar cured salmon

roast beef with mushrooms!

the interior

greeeeeedy j!

really exhausted :(

we took the train down to dhoby ghaut after that and headed to our next museum - the national museum of singapore. from the exterior the museum looks hugeeee and i was pretty worried it'll be another acm, especially since my legs were aching pretty badly already. turned out that it's slightly smaller, with the history gallery being the biggest of all and three other small living galleries. i loved the history gallery because when you enter the gallery itself, they pass you this electronic device where you can listen to the guide after you type in a few numbers. oh they didn't have any text around the galleries too since you can easily read it on the device by pressing the numbers next to the exhibit! this gave the whole viewing area a much cleaner look :)

the history gallery is split into two different paths - the personal path and the event path. i followed the personal path all the way and it was mainly about the people and their lifestyles throughout the years. it was a longgggg path and i found myself skipping many things because of the lack of time (we had 1.5 hours for it before it closed) and i couldn't finish it, let alone head back for the events path. oh well. i told myself i'd come back and visit it once again to finish the rest!

as for the exhibits, it was mainly on the different things used by the people of the past, some important documents, and different paintings and photos. along the way you could watch some interesting videos as well, and i found myself sitting down watching this video on an interview with a couple who worked as a performer during the new world days and eventually moving on to ge tais. it was pretty interesting!

those red lanterns were swinging!

:D :D :D

photos by j from here on!

our awesome companion

and so after we got chased out of the gallery when time is up, we rested for a while before heading to the  three living galleries - fashion, film and food. we visited them in this order, and to be frank, while i liked the exhibits in the film gallery as well as the overall design of the place (loved the triple screens area with the red curtains!) i loved the food gallery best :D and it was for obvious reasons - we were quite hungry already, and singaporean food is undoubtedly the best imho. plus the gallery was playing sounds of woks frying, tok tok mee, satay sizzling, etc etc. and the videos were awesome too!

at the film gallery

at the food gallery!

and i think food really connects singaporeans together. no matter where you are, whenever you meet singaporeans, the best thing to talk about is the sucky weather and the awesome food. it can never go wrong! haha.

and so at about 7.30pm we left the museum, and took a bus to 313 for some authentic singaporean food at food republic haha. ordered laksa (thanks to the laksa video which kept replaying in the food gallery) and some rather sucky bbq chicken wings and rested my pair of legs well before heading to new look to look for some shoess for j and city chain for a watch for leen. but in the end, we failed terribly and went out of the two places empty handed o.O

we went forever21 at that's where we all finally bought some stuff - mostly accessories! haha. hopeless us. leen left earlier while j and i continued to walk around the whole store and j got a skirt. didn't manage to find anything (especially since i've got no motivation to spend) and by the time we were done it was already 10. o.O went home after that and slept really well that night after all the walking :D


20 August, Saturday

rested at home for the bulk of the time, before heading out to cck where ying2 picked me up on her car! :D haha i never imagined this to happen to us you know, so it was pretty surreal haha. ying2 then picked cy up at bp and kim and timo at plaza sing before we drove to ecp and got lost along the way haha.

after we finally found a parking space somewhere near macs, we headed to the hongkong cafe next to it since cy kim and timo were highly against macs while ying2 and i were craving for some haha. but thinking that the three of them would be eating western food for the next year or so, we decided to compromise haha.

pam and grace joined us soon after. the hongkong cafe (called C. Nai) served really awesome authentic hk food! :D it was not ex considering the location as well (the rest of the restaurants were like 10 plus ish) and we generally loved what we ordered :) will definitely go back next time! i had claypot rice which was not bad though i thought pam's beef stew noodles were really delicious haha.

my favourite girls :D

DOUBLE-YOLKED EGG! 

after staying at the hk cafe for a while, we went out and decided to head to macs for dessert and forsaking our original plans - blading. haha. kim timo and cy were really lazy plus grace told us that the shop's closed, and so we didn't have much of a choice haha. macs was really full though, thanks to the liverpool vs. arsenal match, and we had to sit at the mac cafe area o.O haha. so basically over there we talked a bit (especially about kim's emo story which we laughed till we choked earlier at the hk cafe hahaha thanks to timo and his awesome summary!) and played opera king where the 4 of us each played as some opera singer and bouncing each other off the stage to get the spotlight. awesome stuff! haha.

the 7 of us!

after macs, we headed to the beach, placed ying's beach mat on the ground and talked :) ying timo and i were talking about how the realities of life set in upon graduation and how many things could possibly change in the coming years. we talked about timo's girlfriend (the first time i've heard from him personally in a year since it began, as it's probably the first time i met timo in a year plus), his life in edinburg, zongyi, etc. etc. it's quite funny how we're all forced to grow up but yet every time we get together we try to be young again.

we lighted up some sparklers we had, had a little accident when parts of the sparkler flew to pam, andden started some light drawing with the light sticks i brought :) then we observed many kong ming lanterns flying into the sky and disappearing eventually and considered buying one until we realised how each of them costs 10 bucks. eventually the few of us were just lying on the mat watching the lanterns lit up the sky.

the very nice kong ming lantern!

yayyyy to my favouritest class!

it was almost 1 when we left the beach. ying2 drove kim cy and i back home while pam's zy drove the rest back. after dropping kim, ying2 cy and i went to bt timah for some supper and we saw old rvians there too! cejin aaron and two others. what a small world actually, especially when it was already 2! had some prata and milo there!

ying2 then sent us home and after washing up i was on the bed, with only 4 hours of sleep before i head up to the pool the next morning.


21 August, Sunday

arrived at the pool at about 9.10am and yh and jx were already there! the rest of the polo peeps reached about 9.40am and soon we were discussing how to take our photos with our equipment and gowns :D

and then the rest of the morning was spent taking many awesome shots! :D haha. i think i'll let the photos do the talking. but to keep it short it was damn fun :) :) i love my polo batchmates! 4 years of awesomeness together, learning all the skills and picking up the sport from scratch, going from nothing to champions at the end of the 4 years! wooooots. and our photoshoot was a huge success since everyone could make it in the end! heehee. super difficult to gather 9 of us together especially when most of us are working already. o.O

presenting the awesomest canoepolo batch!

aero polo peeps!

the GIRLS.

what's grad photos without throwing the mortar board?

and of course, jump shots :D

thanks for the memories. :D

and so, this is my dearest polo teammates (: our next aim? a short trip together!

after the photoshoot, we headed to cant 2 for lunch then i went to suntec for church after claiming my free cup of eskimo haha. first time i joined in the queue in ages! usually i just go in late :/ haha. service was awesome! the worship team played a new song called sweeter than wine and i totally loved it (: you could sense the wealth of emotions in the whole audi when they played that!

Your love is better than life,
Sweeter than wine,
All that I can ever imagine.
Your love is all that I need,
Lord I receive
Your loving kindness and majesty.

(: it's easy to forget God, since He's always present. it's easy to take Him for granted, since He is always doing good in my life. but i thank daddy God for bringing me to an awesome church so that i could always be reminded of His awesome love.

met candy and shihwee up at one of the towers at suntec after walking around millenia walk and after walking around a bit we decided to have dinner at this new fastfood called chicking at marina bay. and it really sucks! gosh. nothing compared to KFC. plus the mash potatoes were obviously the instant maggi ones. omg.

but okay la, the good thing was there was barely anyone there (for a good reason) and so we had a comfortable place and environment to talk :) we talked till 8 plus then walked to muji to get some snacks before going the long way back to city hall. took the train to clementi with candy while shihwee headed back to hall ): jealous max! i wanna stay in hall again toooo.


22 August, Monday

i've finally reached here! omg. the day was spent nua-ing at home, and after dinner i headed back to ntu for some bball :D bball ibg today! hehh. and for the first time, there was actually girls present, and many of them! woahhhh. after talking to them for a while and psychoing them to join the hall bball team with jason and tanyin, we played a match together and it was super tiring gosh. i think i've really lost all my fitness haha. plus my legs were still aching badly from the heavy activities the past few days gosh haha.

but it was super fun! the freshies are really good this year and so i'm hoping at least a finals for this year's ihg :D too bad i can't be in the team to be part of it myself ): oh well. we played for an hour or so before packing up and leaving the place. yuto and i wanted to head to cant 2 to find fw and toh but they said there was barely anything left so we went to the sun instead to get some drinks. sat there for a while then walked back to hall together where i decided not to stayover heh. time to let go already! and plus not very nice to keep imposing on them heh.


23 August, Tuesday

the day i'm just going to slack at home! :D hohohoho. just another 12 days more before work begins. sigh.

+ guaishou's! :D