A bad dream...

I had a weird dream last night. and it wasn't pleasant.

in the dream, i was a student. hundreds of us were sitting in a lecture room, listening to different lecturers. there was this "chief" of sorts who was sitting right in front of everybody, it was almost like he was a king on a throne.

anyway, it went pretty fine until one lady lecturer started speaking. she was in front, but she didn't face the audience when she spoke; she was facing the "chief". i couldn't hear a thing, so i put up my hand and said "i can't hear you".

she turned around and started speaking louder, and i could hear her now, loud and clear. so i said "yes, i can hear you now."

but the chief was quite pissed. he looked at me and said, "i can't believe you can't hear her just now. she was speaking at the same volume!"

the lecturer also said, "yes, you're obviously lying"

i was like *huh*? i started to wonder.. perhaps i wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying, so i didn't hear a thing. so i swallowed all that, kept quiet and listened till the end of her presentation.

all the while, i was wondering, how could it be that i'm lying? isn't it obvious that when the speaker faces the audience, the projection of the voice is louder and clearer?

so at the end of the presentation, i said, "excuse me, but i have to clarify this with you. if you have a loudspeaker and face it towards you, will the sound be louder than if you face it away?"

the chief and the lecturer didn't argue with that point, but said something like i was so rude to interrupt her presentation. then i said, "but you've always taught us to let you know when we can't hear". the argument went back and forth.. and obviously, i lost. i was called rude, arrogant, and all sorts of things. in my dream, i started crying.

and then i heard a shout "huang weijian!!!!". its my mum calling me to wake up.

what's with my dream? is it weird or what? anyway, i think it taught me a very valuable lesson. sometimes there's injustice around, but don't fight unecessarily.

Met my wilson house mates...

Wilson House is a student dorm. I stayed there in my first year while I was studying in the UK. Incidentally, its very close to Edgeware Road, which you might remember was one of the targets that got bombed on July 7th.

Back then, as a freshman, it was the first time I was abroad alone. a bit goondo, a bit geeky, and naturally, a bit out of place. so the natural thing to do was to find people like myself to bond together. Turns out there were a couple of singaporeans (all guys) also staying at Wilson House. and so we became friends pretty quick.

we had dinner together almost everyday. we were like a family away from home. because london is notoriously expensive, we cooked our meals ourselves. and we took turns to cook. we pooled our money together into a "cooking fund", and we had a cooking register, or timetable, so that everyone of us would be in charge of cooking a particular day. if someone wasn't eating, we'd let the cook know. it was almost like "ma, today not coming back for dinner".

The dinner times were our real social/recreation time. we would sit in the kitchen (a shared kitchen btw, but we sat there as though we owned it) after dinner and talk for 2 whole hours. everyday. all of us (except maybe one) didn't have girlfriends then, so we all had lots of time to spare.

we were all quite different. SC is a very hardworking guy, to the point of being a chao-mugger. strangely, he's pretty atheletic and some would say, good-looking. He's from a chinese speaking family. XP loves to play computer games, likes to slack, and his chinese sucks. ZX, the oldest of the group, nicknamed "laoda", cracks very funny jokes. he's also chinese speaking. HR is very athletic, and quite handsome. also chinese speaking. we were all quite different, and so its interesting how we bonded so strongly. i guess cus we were all good guys... (there was this other guy that we unceremoniously kicked out)

ok, back to the present... (or recent past)

i managed to meet up with only two of them, HR and ZX. We met at fish and co and had lots of food - fried calamari, grilled salmon, and seafood platter.

Recommendation: Forget the grilled salmon. Its nice yes. but nothing special. The seafood platter isn't too bad, but maybe not worth its price. the fried calamari is very good though. its crispy, tasty, fresh, and best of all, only $9!!!

After that we went to bakerzinn. i wanted this cheesecake dessert thingy that didn't have any cake. it was supposed to be cheese icecream with strawberries and biscuits. but they ran out of cheese icecream and so i had to substitute it with vanilla instead. sigh. *businesses please take note: it is VERY upsetting to customers to NOT have something you claim to have*

it was nice catching up with them. find out how they're living their lives, what their future plan is and all that.

and then i met agnes for roti prata. i wasn't hungry, as u may have realised, but thats not the point. i had a "dinosaur", which is iced milo drink with extra milo powder on the top. what's milo? its a choc malt drink. (haiz, i guess at some point in my blogging lifetime, i should define my target audience.. i can't just keep explaining every little term that might seem remotely unfamiliar...)

enough... this post is very long by now. and it doesn't have substance... hahaha.. sorry if you had to read thru all of it.

Comments

I hate to sound like a self-conscious blogger asking for feedback. i hate to sound like an attention seeker looking for attention. i hate to make it seem like i am an insecure individual looking for affirmation.

but, i have to let you know, i love comments. nice comments. please direct hateful comments to nonexistentemail@gmail.com

Teh ping

Teh ping, also known as Iced Milk Tea, is currently my favourite drink. its so simple, yet so lovely. the taste is just awesome.

I had four cups of it yesterday.

I went running on the track yesterday, to time my 2.4km run. won't reveal the time here, since a lot of you will start sniggering: "haha, slowcoach" or "wah, like dat still dare to post online".

Anyway, after the run i walked (more like dragged myself) to the nearby coffeeshop and had lunch, with a tehping. after lunch, i da-paoed (take-away) another tehping to have on the way home.

for dinner, i had another tehping. and again, i dapaoed another tehping to sip at my own leisure.

the tehpings caused me to visit the toilet at least 10 times yesterday (which is quite a lot, considering i don't really drink a lot of water usually), and also a slightly numb tongue...

and thus i have decided that i shall not consume more than 2 cups of tehpings a day.

This is sooo funny, I had to post it

I was reading Mr Brown, when I came across some funny IRC conversations from Bash.org. Here are more that I really like:

#98450 +(3955)- [X]

Jakefeb3: do you know a turtles only weakness?
AvatarOfSolusek: no
AvatarOfSolusek: well
AvatarOfSolusek: thier slowness
Jakefeb3: there weakness is they cant roll over when
they are on their backs
AvatarOfSolusek: lol
Jakefeb3: now i have a plan
Jakefeb3: if i duck tape 2 turtles together they are
unstoppable

#416857 +(3942)- [X]

<born1986> why the fuck isn't my disc drive working
<born1986> i fucking worked on that essay for three friggin' 
hours in school
<born1986> i now i cant finish it 'cos my fuckin drive ain't 
working
<Z00ass> you got the right drivers?

<born1986> hell yes
<born1986> it was working fine yesterday
<born1986> why does this shit always happen to me?
<Z00ass> maybe that little clip on the side is i nthe wrong 
position
<born1986> i havent touched it since school

<born1986> i'm growing impatient
<born1986> ANGRY even
<Z00ass> throw that shit out tha window

. . .

<born1986> OMG i fuckin did it!!!

<born1986> FUCK!!!!!
<Z00ass> it works?
<born1986> no, i threw it out the window
<Z00ass> the disk?
<born1986> NO the whole drive

<born1986> i live on the 6th floor, made a nice *smash*
<Z00ass> :D
<born1986> FUCK SHIT FUCK
<born1986> THE DISK WAS STILL INSIDE
<born1986> brb


. . .

<born1986> shit
<Z00ass> what? did ya break it?
<born1986> well i couldn't open the drive
<born1986> so i had to pound it against a rock

<Z00ass> :o
<born1986> quite HARD
<born1986> and you know what?
<born1986> that fucking disk wasnt even there
<Z00ass> ???

<born1986> i got so mad i threw the remaiders of the drive on 
to the freeway
<born1986> and when i got back upstairs i foud the disk inside 
my bag
<Z00ass> lol
<born1986> I NEVER EVEN PUT IT IN THE DRIVE
<born1986> i'm actually cryin right now


. . .

<born1986> wonder if i could make that drive work again
<born1986> brb

There are more treasures on that site, you should check it out: bash.org

Japanese develop female android

Oh my god.

Trust the Japanese to come up with this. The Japs have wonderful inventions, the famous lap-pillow, for example.

I remember watching a Jap animation movie about an android created to function as a sex toy. Seems like its becoming reality...

Seriously, why is it "important" to have a robot look human? It has "flexible silicone for skin, and a number of sensors and motors that make her react in a human-like manner." And, "It can respond to people touching it. It's very satisfying ..."

Here's more. Prof Ishiguru, who created the android, believes the android can pass off as a human, if only for a brief period:

An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes...

What situation? Pardon me if I'm thinking down the wrong path...

Wow. ten years down the road, blow-up dolls will be obsolete.

From BBC

Jia Jia Liang Teh?

Have you ever heard the Jia Jia Liang Teh advertisment? I heard it once only, and suspect it might have been my mistake... but I think I heard the words "Jia Jia Liang Teh".

What's wrong? Well, "Jia" and "Liang" are mandarin words, while "Teh" is a dialect word. They're not supposed to appear in the same sentence...

I once ordered, at a dim sum place, "Cha Shao Sou". It sounds alright to me, but actually its a mixture of mandarin "Cha Shao Su" and Cantonese "Cha Siew Sou". The waitress didn't understand me and I also didn't know what was wrong until Lu-En corrected me. hahaha..

and anyway, if Singapore is trying to teach good English/Mandarin, why would they allow an advertisement that mixes both Mandarin and dialect? hmm...

UK Visa Application

I had to get entry clearance into the UK if i'm planning to stay there for more than 6 months.. which I am.

Anyway, I think the British High Commission (BHC for short next time) outsourced the visa application to this company called VFS. Originally, I thought that VFS was just the name of the department in BHC that handled visa applications... but the fact that it was located in some small office at robinson road, instead of the high comm building along tanglin, sort of hinted that VFS was a separate entity (by small, i mean, REALLY small. there was this long table that sat three "counter" staff, and a small 2ft by 1 ft table that had another person sitting behind. besides the 20 or so chairs infront of the "counters", that's the entire office. small right?). The website was another giveaway: www.vfs.com.sg. ok, so it MUST be a singapore company (since only singapore registered companies can have .com.sg). The last giveaway was that all the staff at the office were singaporeans. by itself it meant nothing of course. but together with the other little things, i conclude that it must be a company handling the visa application process for BHC.

anyway, i was told to visit the website when i called to check on the price of the visa. "What's the website?" I asked. "Vietnam, France, Singapore dot com dot sg". So I wrote down: "VFS". And the first thing that sprang to mind was: Visa For Sale. Haha, seriously you know. It's just so natural. And not entirely false, given that it cost me 264 for the visa plus 20 service charge.

and i really got to complain about the inflexibility of the staff there, or perhaps singaporean office workers in general. the working hours were stated precisely on the signboard: 8.30-9.30, 10-12.30, 13.30-15.00. passport collection hours were from 1600-1700. yesterday, I went down to collect my passport. i arrived at 3.15 because my mum dropped me off.

i went in and one lady asked, "what are you doing here?"

i said, "passport collection"

"passport collection only from 4-5"

"can i wait here?"

"no, we have a backlog~" mumbles off

wtf? it was raining so heavily outside la, can't even let me sit around and wait? if you need your break go ahead la! i'll be sitting quietly. if you need to gossip to your friends go ahead la! i won't make any faces. I promise i'll maintain a stone-face.

i didn't argue, knowing that it was not worth it to risk my entry clearance. so i walked out of the building looking for something to do. the rain was so heavy i got wet even without leaving shelter. and the building had NOTHING for me to do. I spent a lot of time observing the rain. It doesn't rain so heavily in London or in California. The rain here can really be described as a "downpour". The rain is so heavy, it falls in sheets. With the wind, you can see the sheets of rain moving, shifting in shape, down the road. The rain got so heavy that every palm tree along that road dropped a leaf. eh.. leaf doesnt sound right.. each leaf was as big as a branch. So there was a thunderous "boom" when it dropped.

anyway, after some pacing outside the building, i paced inside the lobby, infront of the elevators. after deciding that i was attracting too much attention from other people who were also waiting for the rain to stop, i decided to go back to the seventh floor (where the office was located). and i paced around some more. sat on a ledge. went to the bathroom. paced around more. looked thru the messages in my phone. paced outside the office. went thru my wallet for receipts to throw. paced around more. at 3.50, another man came. he knocked on the door and was told, "4pm ah". another man came, this time this man knew the people working. he knocked on the door, was led inside, and i heard some casual talk. at 4, he left, the door was open, and i went in, together with about 3 others who have also arrived.

i took a seat. 2 minutes later, this filipino lady came in and strolled straight to a counter. the counter-person said "need to take ticket ah". wah, there was a mad rush to take a ticket number. i wasn't quick enough, and by the time i was going to stand up, there was already a crowd at the ticket machine. so i decided to act seh and calm and stayed seated.

wtf? i came first and now i'm last? anyhow, after the crowd had their tickets, i stood up and took a ticket.

finally, when the counters were ready, the buay paiseh guy that got the ticket first went straight to the counter. hahahaha, guess what, the lady at the counter said that i came first. see? seh counts la! also, not arguing the first time (when told that i can't wait inside) probably also gave the impression that i was a nice, guai, polite person, that deserves to be served first anyway.

*hooray*

My roof collasped

When I came back almost 2 weeks ago, I noticed the ceiling of my house was very dirty. It was brown and black... and I wanted to paint it back white. But my mum told me it was leaking. Uh huh. so we got to fix the leaking roof. but being the procrastinator (Remember kids, Don't do tomorrow what you can do today!) I didn't take any action.

Three or four days ago, the leaking was really bad. A bucket had to be placed under dripping water. So I looked up the classified and called three different contractors to come down and give me a quotation on how much to fix the leaking roof.

***

The first contractor that came was a 40-odd ah-beng, driving a white classic mercedes benz. he came in and spoke hokkien: "lao deng si mi dai ji ah" (what's happening upstairs?) wah, somebody, please say the roof is leaking in hokkien. I dunno lor, so I just lead him up: "lai, lu kua" (come, you see).

The moment he saw the ceiling he said "Wah, ani li hai ah" (so serious ah). and then he went outside the house to look at the roof. after a short while, he concluded that the gutter had some problem. what exactly the problem was i didn't know, because he spoke hokkien. i just caught the words "gutter" and "crooked" or something.

Then he quoted me a price. he said "chit gor". *huh?* i had no idea what chit gor meant.. "seventy five?" i asked him. "Bo la, wan tousund five" and went on explaining that it was a very difficult and major job. ok lor, i told him i'll get back to him later once i consulted my parents.

***

then the second contractor came. this time in a blue van. more appropriate, i thought. he was a skinny, small sized guy, in jeans and blue polo tee (dirty of course). so i assumed that he's the guy that actually does the work. he brought a torchlight with him, the big big kind. he spoke english, fortunately. i brought him to the ceiling, and he had the same response "wah, so serious ah".

but instead of going outside the house, he requested to see inside the ceiling. I suggested "Perhaps the gutter got some problem?" He said "no, not possible, the gutter is on the perimeter of the roof" Cool! this guy is serious and knows his stuff! so i brought a ladder for him to climb into the ceiling through a panel in the bathroom. now, see why being skinny and small sized is a good thing? he clambered up the ladder, into the ceiling like a nimble monkey. note, the ceiling is soft and you have to step on the walls (which protrude into the ceiling).

A few minutes later, he came back down and concluded that there's a small hole in the pipe to the water tank. Ah ha! i understood that. He quoted 400 for the pipe and 400 for the ceiling. Ok. I said i'll get back to him again.

I wanted to see the problem for myself. So after he left, I also climbed into the roof. wow, it was an experience man. it was like obstacle course. can only step on the walls; the ceiling was low, so you have to crouch; the walls are pretty narrow so you'll have to balance; there was no light, so you'll have to carry a torchlight in one hand, leaving only one hand for grapping stuff. anyway, after some effort, i managed to get to the water tank and i saw for myself the water spraying out of the tiny hole in the pipe. so, THAT's where the water was coming from.

***

The third contractor didn't turn up. So i called the second guy to come and fix the pipes.

two hours after the pipes were fixed, the ceiling came crashing down. luckily i wasn't under it. it must have been due to the water that soaked through the plaster, the paper and whatever else. it was like a time-bomb waiting to explode. So now, there's a big gaping hole in the ceiling. sigh...

i've called the guy to come and fix it though. I just wonder when he'll come.

Soccer, Shopping

So happy. CT called me yesterday to jio me to play soccer. He said "eh, do you want to play soccer?" of course my answer was "yes! of course!". oh, and there was a weird thing about the timing. tho he said its 4pm, he asked me to be there at 4.30 instead. so typical, the guys always come at least half hour later than the supposed time.

anyway, i finally got to play soccer, after at least 10 months of inactivity.

"wah, nobody play in US ah?" he asked when i told him that.

i said "i played once la. after that didn't play already. everybody was too disinterested".

actually, i didn't really say that. that's the politically correct version. with CT, i said "after i played once i didn't feel like playing with them already". you draw your own inferences...

CT didn't play though. he arrived like 5.30 or 6, after we had played quite long and i was damn tired already. haha, then he decided not to play already because he thought its not worth it to sweat and dirty his clothes for just another half hour of soccer. so practical...

after that i met with my mum for dinner. and i went shopping - alone. i haven't shopped with my mum for like 10 years. besides, her taste ah, never changed since 10 years ago...

there was this 50% sale at G2000. wah shiok ah. then i saw in 8 days got another 10% discount coupon. wah win already. so i bought a lot a lot of clothes. a blazer, 3 shirts, and one pair of pants. the blazer was 200 la, but after discount (50% plus 10%), it became less than 100. wah shiok. total was 188 (yat faht faht) - in otherwords, i'll just keep getting good fortune! haha..

quite happy with my purchases... the blazer i have is a bit too big.. just a little wide on the shoulders and a little long. but then i bought it in the UK mah, pple there quite big sized... but here, wow, got this "modern cut" blazer that was supposedly cut to be closer to the body, giving it a "modern" look. i tried it on and it was PERFECT. like they said, "modern". hahaha.. funny thing though, it says size 44... i thought i'm like a 38... ahh, sizes are just too confusing.

As for the shirts, i asked the salesman "i don't know my size"

he said "whut? size?"

i said "yah, shirt size" (eh, don't think too much into sizes ok..)

he gave me a look and said "15 half"

so i tried 15half. it was ok la, but just a little too loose. so in the end i settled for 15. dunno what that translates into la, but i think its S, because the smallest size i saw was 14...

then i also wanted to buy some ties.. but the ties at G2000 were too... ah... how shall i say... old? so i went to topman. wah, the clothes damn sui la. really fashionable man. no joke. the blazers/shirts/pants/ties section was really fashionable... like what you'll wear if you go for oscar awards or some private party/function. i'm not very good with description la. i tried going online to look for some pics.. but sorry, seems like they don't sell a lot of clothes online.

ok, my point anyway, is that its too fashionable for me la. comeon, i'm the conservative guy that wears conservative clothes. i can't wear pink. i can't wear those fashionable shoes that hunn wears. I'll like to though; i really like the clothes. just that they prob won't suit me and i'll prob not wear them to the office.

i liked this brown/ retro coloured diagonally striped tie.... but after consideration, realised that it'll prob only match 1 of my shirts. and for 29 dollars, i decided against buying it. so yeah, i walked out of topman empty handed.

lu-en, will you buy me some ties? hahaha...

Baggage allowance

Do you know that, if you're flying to/from US or Canada, you are entitled to check in 2 pieces of baggage, each piece not weighing more than 32kg? i.e., you can check in up to 64kg of luggage. This is the same for most airlines for all classes from first class to economy,

Do you know that, on economy class on most airlines, if you're travelling to ALL other parts of the world, you are only entitled to 20kg TOTAL? Business class you can check in 30kg. First class gets to check in 40.

Why? How am I going to bring my stuff over to the UK? HOW HOW HOW?

News...

London got hit by another series of blasts. The situation is still very unclear, but there were at least 4 explosions, and as of now, no casualties.

And xiaxue's blog and gmail account got hacked. wow.

people, please follow commonsense guidelines when choosing your password. You can read about some of them here:
University of Chicago
National Institute of Health
University of Maryland
Masachusetts Institute of Technology

I have one disagreement though... Do not change your passwords too often. Often, changing your passwords too often results in you forgetting your password. then you'll tend to write your password down somewhere and thus defeats the purpose of your password.

Friend's wedding

It was the first wedding I've attended in years. The last time I've been to a wedding, almost everyone were aunties/uncles. or people much older than me. This time, hahaha, a lot of people were of the same age as me. It felt kinda weird, actually, to be going to a wedding, giving hangbao and signing guestbook. My first experience.

I arrived early, because a few of my close friends were the jie-mei of the bride, helping out with the settling of the dinner. but they were busy and i didn't know how to help. Luckily TJ came early too... wait. he was on time. but 99% of the attendees were late, so he was considered early.

anyway, we talked quite a bit while we waited for the dinner to start. people were supposed to be coming was 7pm. the dinner started at 8.30. so we had like 1 and a half hour of drinking tea. which was fine, given the company.

and i forgot how funny tj can be. He told a joke, and I laughed. I don't know why, it wasn't really that good a joke, and it probably happened by accident (sorry TJ), but I can't stop laughing. really loudly btw. luckily the restaurant had only like another 5 pple in the other tables. i guess its the unspoken kind of jokes that really tickles.

and then i told a super corny joke myself. see, we were having this "ba bao cha", or eight treasure tea, which had like logans, dates, tea and rock sugar in the teacup. it didn't really taste that fantastic at first, but tj realised that you need to shake it a bit to mix it around and then it tastes nicer.

so i said "shake it like a polaroid picture"

he said "but polaroids are not shaken".

man, i couldn't help myself. I had to say "yeah, they're stirred".

and i burst out laughing again. TJ wasn't amused but JH was. and actually, you know joke tellers aren't supposed to laugh at their own jokes? man, i fail miserably at that. imagine la, you sitting down there, a guy tells you a joke. you aren't amused but the guy just keeps laughing at his own joke. wah, damn loser la. i'm ashamed... well, at least JH was laughing with me.

***

and then just as the dinner just started, just after the shark's fin i think, david appeared. he had eaten dinner already, just wanted to join us. so sweet hor? sorry la, attached liao.

anyway, after we had our dessert (some kind of sweet soup with logans), there were still some dessert left in the big bowl. and david helped himself to it. now, he didn't like scoop the dessert out onto his own bowl... he took the entire bowl. man, he hasn't changed one bit.

since we knew him in JC, he's always the guy that finishes the food on the table. you know, like soup that we can't finish. or fries. or carrot cake. whatever, u get the idea.

and here he is, 8 years later, still doing the thing he does. so endearing.. haha


sigh.. its nice to be around friends. maybe my friends should scatter their weddings, like one a year for the next 10 years. then we'll always have opportunities to meet up.

Words do matter...

When offering a ride
do not say, "I'm going xxx. If you want, i can give you a lift."
instead, say, "Do you want a lift to xxx?"

When offering food
do not say, "eh, there's some ice-cream in the fridge. You can help yourself if you want it".
instead, scoop out the ice-cream, bring it to them and say "nah, help me finish"

when organizing a party
dont say "eh your friends can come if they want".
Instead, say "bring your friends along too!"

when agreeing to meet up for something that you're not exactly happy to
dont say "ok, sure. i can make it on sun"
instead, say "excellent! lets meet on sun"

I've learned that words do matter a lot. especially when talking to women. Thank god Lu-En is exceptional =D

meeting with jc classmates, continued...

let me continue with the previous post...

As I was saying, we had a very enjoyable time. Had claypot curry crab, crispy fried tofu (that tasted really very good because it wasn't plain tofu..), sambal kangkong, and mongolian spare ribs. then we ordered another serving of butter stew crab and fried tofu. the food was good... a bit pity though, we didn't get the 20%.. apparently have to show the card before ordering. maybe so they can give you portions with are 20% smaller.

thats funny isn't it? next time restaurants should issue cards that give you half price, but only if you show it before you order. the restaurants don't lose anything because they can give you half of what they normally give, and you get a 50% discount! cool!

we proceeded to a roti-prata place after dinner. not that we were hungry, but I don't know any other places that serve nice cold drinks that don't close before 11. if you have a suggestion let me know.

that was when we started our kopi-shop talk. before that, over dinner, it was more catching up. like finding out how everyone was doing. the kopishop talk was what uncles/taxi drivers usually talk about at kopishops. one hot topic was the NKF la, obviously. for a brief moment, it also went to current tv shows and movies. but since cindy was a little "not current" in these affairs, we shifted the topic.

you know you and your friends are close when you can be so comfortable talking about anything that your remarks become so unpolitically correct.

Example 1.
when talking about how women in their 20s should make sure that they are not wasting time with a guy, because they are usually at the losing end if the relationship breaks, i said "... for a 30 year old woman to be single again, thats quite sad.."

cindy wailed... hurriedly, i tried to save the situation.. but sigh, damage done.

Example 2.
someone said: "I seriously think political science is a bit useless", not knowing that cindy did political science too.

She wailed again...

finally we got chased out of the coffeeshop by people smoking. somebody, please please please suggest a place where people like us can hang out - it must be cheap, music not important, but cannot be loud, AND people don't smoke.

***


The food at that seafood tze-chah.


Where we had roti prata. We didn't eat any roti prata.. we just had drinks.

Finally met my JC classmates

I finally met some of my JC classmates. Some of my other close friends couldn't make it. One was on-call (he's a doc), another one was stuck in the office, being slave to a very bad bad bad boss. The last one is the worst, go out with friends other than us. *bleah*

I really enjoyed myself. i hope the others did too. i haven't seen cindy for like 3/4 years, the others probably about 1 year. and we've known each other for like 7-8 years. yeah, do the math and you'll probably figure out how old we are. oh wait, you prob already know, cus its in my profile. haa..


we met somewhere in serangoon for tze-chah seafood. it was my idea. saw this 20% discount place on UOB's dining priviledges website. looked further, saw it was seafood, near my place. looked even further, discovered it was a tze-chah place. in other words (for non-singaporeans), its a non-airconditioned, almost-like-foodstall kind of place. its much cheaper than restaurants, yet the food is just as good, if not better. needless to say, being the miserly me, i thought it was just perfect. besides, i kind of miss eating at these "heartlander" places.

btw, "heartlander" is another singaporean word. checked the dictionary before, turned out that there wasn't this word. googled the entire net, couldn't find any definition either. my closest guess is that a "heartlander" is someone who lives in HDB flats, government subsidised housing.

ah.. its late, i gotta continue this post another time.

Stay hungry, stay foolish

Last month, I wrote about the speech that Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, gave on our commencement ceremony. About a week ago, Straits Times Interactive published the entire transcript of his speech.

Here's the speech in its entirety:

-----------------------------------

THANK you. I'm honoured to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.

Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever got to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

Connecting the dots

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.

So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.

She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.
So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: 'We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?'

They said: 'Of course.'

My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.

She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And 17 years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire lives.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms.

I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 11km across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.

I LOVED it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Let me give you one example. Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.

Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed.

Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.

I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.
It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.

But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac.

It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever - because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

Keep looking, don't settle

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz (Steve Wozniak) and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20.
We worked hard and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a US$2 billion (S$3.4 billion) company with over 4,000 employees.

We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned 30, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?
Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well.

But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling-out.

When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at 30, I was out, and very publicly out.

What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months.

I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.

I met David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologise for screwing up so badly.
I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley.
But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love.

And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.

It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.

Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.
It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

So keep looking. Don't settle.

Stay hungry, stay foolish

MY THIRD story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.'

It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?'

And whenever the answer has been 'no' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer.
I had a scan at 7.30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumour on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was.
The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.
My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for 'prepare to die'.

It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them, in just a few months.

It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.

IT MEANS to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day.

Later that evening, I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumour.

I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.

I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades.

Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share.

No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life.

It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you.

But some day, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.

Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.



Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation.

It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.

This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras.

It was sort of like Google in paperback form 35 years before Google came along.

I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.

It was the mid-1970s and I was your age.

On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.
Beneath were the words, 'Stay hungry, stay foolish.'
It was their farewell message as they signed off.

'Stay hungry, stay foolish.'

And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay hungry, stay foolish. Thank you all, very much.

Lu-En has a blog!

You can find it at http://luen.blogspot.com

She writes very well (at least better than me. haha) and she's quite funny so its worth a look.

NKF thoughts...

The NKF story has been splashed all over the newspapers for several days now, but i seem to be hearing views from only one side - that Mr Durai is very bad for earning 600K a year, and NKF is just as bad for deceiving the general public.

Here's my opinion: As CEO of a large organization, with almost 200 million in reserves, 600K a year is not a lot of money. Really, i have to agree, it is peanuts. investment bankers make hell-of-a-lot more money. Heard from a friend's friend that top i-bankers get 10% of the profits they make for the bank as bonuses. and most top i-bankers routinely make profits in the tens of millions. i.e., they receive bonuses in millions... and they are not even CEOs.

honestly, i wasn't suprised at all when i read that the CEO of NKF got paid 600K. i thought a couple of years ago it was hinted that NKF has been recruiting people from Harvard or other top universities... obviously they had to get paid comparable salaries. and i thought it was a couple of years ago that i read that something like 26 cents of every dollar donated gets spent on the patient... correct me if i'm wrong.

I agree fully that NKF should be run like a business, just like the government is run like a business. Ministers are paid very competitive salaries, because they are smart, capable people and would get paid very well also if they weren't in the public sector. both organizations are the same (NKF and the government): they are non profit organizations that seek to serve a group of people. the only difference is that one gets its money voluntarily.

anyway, back to the point. NKF should be run like a business because businesses are streamlined. they cut extraneous costs and they try to maximise profit and efficiency. businesses also try to attract top talent that can manage their assets better.

what i am peeved about though, is that NKF lied. instead of 3000 patients it said it had, it has 2000. instead of the reserves lasting 3 years, it would last 26 years (assuming little inflation and no change in the number of patients and cost of treatment).

we want all charitable organizations to be transparent. exactly where does their money go to? how much of what people donate actually help the patients?

perhaps if it was always known (instead of having it suddenly "exposed") that Mr Durai was paid that much, people wouldn't make such a hoo-ha. perhaps NKF should have conducted public surveys on how much the CEO should be paid, or hold conferences and discussions, and slowly let the information seep into the public - you know, like how Singapore handled the Integrated Resorts (Casino) issue. then maybe the public would have accepted it.

so, how much exactly should the CEO of NKF be paid? 150K? 60K? 30K? maybe straits times should carry out a poll.. hahaha.. it would be interesting.

update: just read the article "The People vs T.T. Durai". Wow, gold plated taps, first class flights, EIGHT chauffered cars... indeed, a bit too much. glad he resigned..

Random quote

Quote from a friend, who got it from a magazine quiz or something:

You know something is wrong when the number of boyfriends you have is more than your age

I dunno if you find it funny, but me and my other friends burst out laughing...