You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2007.
the neighbour in black had just sent me an email telling me the favourite sales engineer is now a new father! and i feel very happy for him, cos i know he’ll be a good father to his daughter, the kind he didn’t have when he was growing up.
wheeee! i love good news!
update: during labour, he kept telling his wife to relax and she asked him to keep quiet. bwahahahahaha! so typical of him to talk excessively during all occasions.
back in ntu, the libraries and tutorial rooms would always fill up a few weeks before the exams start. to get a good study room, people would have to reach school at 7am to get were not occupied overnight. thus the long queues outside the library before it’s even opened. not that i’ve witnessed those phenomenons before, it’s what the hardworking engineer and accountant told me. they choped study seats early in the morning while i’ll sleep till late morning before turning up in school leisurely. i know, i’m a bum by ntu standards.
but over here, i can stroll into school at 10.30am and there are a couple of the best tutorial rooms which are still vacant. either the campus is damn freaking big, or the students who live off campus can’t be bothered to travel here, or they are just plain slack.
by the way, i’m here again cos the bloody internet screwed up again and i have to use it for the next week or so.
because i had itchy fingers and changed some pictures in my flickr account from public to private, some of the pictures posted in this blog have outdated urls now. that’s why there are so many blank image spaces, damn it.
see how first lah, maybe i’ll correct the urls someday.
it’s raining quite heavily. rainy nights are so conducive for sleeping. 
oh yes, by the way, i’m three hours ahead of singapore time again, daylight savings has kicked in.
meet tau kua
there’s always people who see my fluff-friend for the first time and ask me why the hell i adopt a slab of gray tofu as a facebook pet.but…but but why not??
everything else is so common (or ugly). what’s wrong with a harmless little block of tofu? ok, perhaps the pink heart looks very wrong but generally, tofus make great pets!
right, i am so convincing.
i have very belatedly, found a widget that lets my blog without launching firefox, or any internet browser. this doesn’t allow me to post with pictures, but what the heck, it’s convenient!
i have secured two three distinctions out of my four courses this semester. it’ll be kind of impossible to push myself to attain high distinctions for these two courses, since i’ll have to score an average of 88% in the final paper/exam for that to happen. nevertheless, i’m pretty satisfied because distinctions are not that easy to come by.
one of my lecturers was going through the exam requirements and he whined about how some students can go on and on in exams without much purpose. so he has the habit of awarding four marks to every answer that does not exceed a page of writing. i was sitting there giggling silently cos i finally figured out how the hell i managed to do quite well (2 marks away from a high distinction!) in his course last semester.
right, back to a nice and early start. the beginning of the dark ages where i’ll coax myself to study like how any other crazed international student should.
spring weather here makes me feel like i’m in singapore again. the sweltering heat in the afternoons that makes it necessary to have a fan going at full blast.
especially during sunsets when it turns cooler and the birds come alive again before they roost for the night. for some unknown reasons such evenings just remind me of the times when i was a primary school student. school would have just ended and i’d be walking home from school with my mum and bro, along with some neighbours and kids.
those walks became part of my childhood and to date, when i take walks in the evenings, i’d be reminded of those days. when it was so easy to relax and observe everything around me. when school bags were the heaviest things on earth and nothing else would weigh me down like the school bag did. once my mum helped me with the school bag (i swear she insisted), i was free.
now i can take walks without carrying anything but still feel weighed down. i wish i can go for walks around here in the evening, but there’s nowhere to walk to except along the busy main roads. more walks for me when i return to singapore, i think.
sometime ago i visited floriade 2007, took a truckload of photos and uploaded the prettiest 20 to my photoblog.
surprisingly, it made it to the “front page” of photoblog and i’m still very yaya-papaya about it. front pages get updated daily but for that entire day, i kept logging in just to see my photo there.
this is how the workstation of a neat freak looks like.even the sight of my mobile phones resting on their red pouches on the table was too distracting. so they’re now sitting in a basket hidden behind ally.
if only macbooks shifted the ports to the back so i wouldn’t even see the power and usb cables. that woud be absolutely perfect. honestly, even the thick, yellowish usb cable is an eyesore.
love the pen holder-clock thing my landlady got for me from china. not because of its looks, but because it’s multi-functional and takes up minimal space. it comes with calendar, alarm and thermometer functions! i used to have a separate pen holder and clock, now they’re utilized in other ways.
this way, there’s almost nothing which can distract me while i work. except for the Internet.
the dress code for my group presentation today was smart casual. since i didn’t have any pants or skirts that was remotely smart casual, i had to wear my jeans with a black business jacket. and a black top, because i ran out of coloured stuff. black string-and-metal choker and black watch. with black heels. and finally, black sunnies. so i was kinda laughing at myself when i looked into the mirror.
four minutes into the class, my team leader asked if i could print the handouts for the class. so i went to the computer lab i frequent, 50 metres away. in the midst of printing, the printer had a paper jammed. when there are printer screw ups, we have to call the IT people and wait for 5 to 10 minutes for them to come save us.
so i just ran off to the next nearest computer lab and it took at least 5 minutes to log in. “unable to connect to printer. printer error”. the bloody printer was out of paper.
i tried the next nearest computer lab (thankfully there’s a whole row of well-located computer labs in my faculty) and woe is me! out of toner!!
i only managed to print the handouts at the fourth computer lab and i took 25 minutes in all. i had to run like a lunatic back to the lecture theatre.
so much for being a cool mafia boss.
it takes a lot of self discipline to stop myself from overhauling ugly and untidy slides, especially if there’s a literature review due in 7 hours.
i’ve always felt that it’s basic courtesy to leave slide aesthetics alone if my team mates have volunteered to compile them, even if the slides look hideous. which is also why i usually volunteer to do compilations.
this time, the project leader is a bit of a hitler, the way i used to be when still in ntu. it’s amazing how seahyiyi and gang tolerated the way i had to have my way with things. i shudder to think of the how autocratic i can be at times. i’ve since changed for the better, really! mainly cos it’s exasperating fighting with project leaders who are from male-dominating cultures.
oh well, i’ll just close my eyes and ramble on during tomorrow’s presentation to save myself from the torture.
i have to submit a literature review for my project management course on monday. i have no idea why we’re doing a literature review cos it doesn’t exactly add a lot of value but well, i suppose a literature review isn’t too hard. so i’m kind of thankful for that.
the thing is, this course looks at everything from the perspective of information systems. everyone in the course is from that background except for me. it’s dumb cos the grounds the course covers is irrelevant to me but i still have to do it cos it’s my core.
the only solution i can complete the literature review and do it well is, to, do it from a HR perspective. or contemporary project management - meaning globalisation and outsourcing.
just like one of the many other papers i’ve been able to sidetrack from sneakily. it’s a matter of survival.
i’m coming back soon! i’ve just confirmed my flight and it’s (quite) early november!! looking forward to island food and meeting up with everyone. but damn, i’m sure gonna hate the weather back there.
oh well, i’m 80% done with my chinese new year clothes shopping. this is absolutely the first time it’s been done so early. usually i do a desperate last minute dash a couple of days before chinese new year. shopping’s here good, really! love the sales and the variety.
yesterday’s presentation was a blast and i thoroughly enjoyed it. that’s really hard to achieve, i think. besides, that was a presentation on bananas in pyjamas, licensing and stuff like that. i’m amazed my group mate and i pulled it off without putting the class to sleep.
right, another tough week left to go and my life’s gonna be easier. that is, until the exams hit me.
i love taking evening showers cos i end up smelling nice the entire night, yum.
my presentation partner is totally driving me crazy.
our presentation’s tomorrow and we only had a 5 minute meeting on saturday. why is that so? cos we were supposed to meet up last week and the night before, he claimed that something cropped up. so i told him to update me so that we can arrange for another meeting.
did he? of course not.
my sixth sense told me something was wrong, especially since the last drama. so i prepared the framework for the presentation and he went along with everything.
he just emailed me telling me he hasn’t got the case we’re presenting cos his book is somewhere around and he hasn’t been able to borrow one. he hasn’t even read the case yet.
as it was a public holiday last monday, the tutor instructed last week’s presenting group to present tomorrow. so the presentation partner wants to assume that we wouldn’t be presenting tomorrow.
i can’t believe such people exist! if we haven’t been given instructions on postponing the presentation, of course it’s better to prepare than to take the risk right? besides, the probability that we’ll be presenting tomorrow is a lot higher than not.
so far i’m the one who have been doing everything single bloody thing. he hasn’t contributed anything at all, except the 5 minutes meeting time during which nothing constructive came from him. and he wants to further shirk his responsibility? i’m tempted to present alone and leave him to die.
pain in the ass is what this person is!
don’t play play
them birds down under swoop and are fierce. i haven’t come across any birds that attack anyone on the streets. in fact, i haven’t even seen any bird along the road where this sign was placed. very scary, worse than muggers lurking in the dark shadows of the trees. i should take a cab to and fro the bus stop and my home.
why would i really care?
it’s a sad situation when i’m actually buying newspapers so that i can line the kitchen bin with them after i’m done reading the news. i consider it some form of functional recycling. after all, it’s better than having a stinky kitchen bin.
the credit for the stinky kitchen bin goes to the housemate and it drives me crazy when the smells waft through two doors to my room. the housemate has no qualms throwing wet or strong-smelling rubbish in the kitchen bin without tying them up in a separate plastic bag, which we have tonnes of.
it is a pleasure to read real newspapers, not off the computer screen. but i’m not exactly interested in australian news, that’s why.
or you’ll end up like this too.
while i was on the attempt to visit floriade, i got myself ridiculously lost and ended up around the parliament house area in canberra. there were truckloads of tourists but i still managed to take some pretty pictures. i love taking pictures when the sky is absolutely clear. it makes most pictures turn out pretty. shall upload the pictures to my photoblog if i survive next week.
i took a very, very long walk. yeah, approximately 6.6km according to the map. wow. it’s a little tiring but very satisfying. of course the takeaway dinner helped cos i skipped lunch and if i had to cook upon reaching home i’d be cranky, not happy.
the weather’s now warm enough to take two showers a day. yay! that is, when it isn’t windy in the evenings. the wind has been kind of strong lately and by strong, i mean 40km/h. i actually had to exert considerable force to stabilize myself when standing. i hope i burnt some fats when walking against the wind direction. try holding a camera steady against the wind, hurhur.
another assignment has gone through accreditation and i am happy with the grades. my contributions during class discussion are increasingly intelligent.
i think i need to celebrate by sleeping more.
i am on the verge of throwing my global marketing textbook off the table, stand on my desk and declare to the world that i will not condone nonsensical questions. not that anyone would react to that except for the housemate, perhaps. she might knock on the landlady’s door and tell her i’ve gone berserk.
as i have mentioned before, tuesdays can be very painful days for me. unfortunately tuesdays come very quickly and the weekly assignment hits me before i can say “monday blues are over!”
i’m facing a new problem today. the assigned textbook is particularly dumb at times and of course, the questions we have to answer can be totally duh. this week’s assignment belongs to the duh category and damn, i don’t even feel like answering them anymore.
i know the lecturer wouldn’t be collecting tomorrow’s assignments for grading and there is this voice in my head that is telling me to move on to other deadlines, ignore this. but very paiseh if i turn up with blank pages during class discussion right?
plague on the authors of the textbook!
spring is here and with it, flowers and blooms. everywhere! even along the streets where the grass can be very patchy, there are pretty seas of flowers of different colours and varieties. these are just photos i’ve taken when walking home from the bus stop. imagine flower galore on a wider scope. now i know why people in seasonal countries can be so crazy about spring.
this is like a preview to floriade, which i am still trying to fit in my schedule. on a non-weekend, non-deadline-eve, non-rainy day. it’s kind of tricky. i sure hope i make it there before the last day, 14th october.
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