And the long CNY weekend had just passed. It was really tiring for me though. Maybe because I spent two days before the actual CNY helping out with spring cleaning and totally exhausted myself. On the plus side, I managed to lose a tiny bit of weight thanks to the exercise and could fit into my new clothes nicely. And I gained back all the weight during CNY.

Oh well. It doesn’t matter now.

I was suddenly seized by panic for no reason earlier this evening(?) and snapped at my sis (sorry!). Mainly because I couldn’t make up my mind about my job applications. Also, my plans to study and do some schoolwork got postponed, so I was feeling a bit anxious. Well. That’s okay. I still have sufficient time on Wednesday to sit down and do everything, and I’ve already made up my mind, which calmed me down significantly. Other than the fact that I’m going to be tired this week because I need to condition my body for school again. The four-day weekend (five for me, since I don’t have class on Wednesdays) made me forget that I’m still in school. Ah. It’s just going to get worse when I start working next year, huh?

And I’m done waiting for my water to boil so that I can drink something warm. (Yes, I’m typing this to pass the time while I wait for the water to boil.) Until next time!

Anyway, since it’s close to CNY, I was busy spring cleaning during the past two days. Even though I didn’t do anything vigorous, my muscles have been aching. Seriously, I think if anyone wants to stay healthy and not leave the house, just do some cleaning every day. Sweeping and mopping the floor will make you sweat a lot. And yes, I’m the couch potato who dislikes running, so this is a good way for me to exercise without running/getting out of the house just to exercise.

But too bad for me, after spending two days on spring cleaning, I still haven’t packed my table (and the boxes underneath, and the drawers) and cleaned my bed properly. On the bright side, I’m done with my huge shelf and my cupboard/wardrobe. My sis has concluded that we really need to get a new wardrobe and stop sharing one. Another thing I’ve learnt from this year’s spring cleaning is that the vacuum cleaner is truly a great invention.

Okay, so on Saturday, the girls decided to meet up, using Valentine’s day as an excuse. We went to Ikea Alexandra, which was in the west, and we all stayed in the east. It was fun walking around Ikea and getting tempted by the furniture! Just a pity that I didn’t need to buy anything that day. (The blinds were really pretty, though. And possibly easier to clean than the bamboo ones we got long ago from Ikea as well.) The ordering system was the cafe was really different from what we usually see in other cafes and restaurants, and I had to control myself. We bought a lot of food together! And we finished everything (except for two bits of the apple cake each)! Some people didn’t even finish their meatballs and chicken wings. What a waste of food. The ice-cream was fun to get. We paid $0.50 to get a token and a cone, which we then inserted into the machine outside the shop, and pressed a button to dispense. Lastly, watch the machine squeeze out the soft serve. One interesting fact I learnt from Zhi Yi: the different prices for ice-creams are actually due to the number of air bubbles in the ice-cream. So the more air bubbles there are, the cheaper it is! Please don’t quote me on this, though. I’m not sure if I’ve replicated the fact correctly. We took a taxi home after walking around the area, because all of us except Zhi Yi were late, and so we ended the gathering late too. Ah, and we all got roses, so that we didn’t feel so sad with all the couples wandering around Ikea (I really think that couples should go on dates at romantic places like a park so that the single people don’t feel lonely on such a day).

And Sunday was reunion dinner. It’s been a long while since we all met up, and the family (clan?) is expanding, with cousins-in-law and niece. A nice summary of the night would be that everyone’s attention was on the baby, who was kind of overwhelmed by all the adults who suddenly appeared in her environment. She looked stressed and confused. Oops. But it was cute how she kept calling for and running to her grandma (my aunt). And how she gets terrified by my cousin-in-law. Lots of laughter during the lo-hei, where the younger generation (us) wanted to put in the ingredients by sequence and the elders were all like, “just throw everything in already!”. Also, the chopsticks of one of the three cousins-in-law (so many of them) flew off right when the lo-hei started, and the tossing was done when he returned with clean chopsticks, so we had a round two. Everyone was more concerned about the fish dropping out of the plate than the well-wishes for the new year.

It went something like this:

“Huat ah!”

“Hey, the fish, the fish!” Fish slices get thrown back into the plate.

“Money-!” Fish slices (and other food) drop onto the table.

“No! Don’t drop the fish!” Pick up and throw the fish slices back into the plate, only for it to be tossed out of the plate in the next toss.

It was fun, though.

Okay, I’m really tired (and should be preparing for my interview tomorrow/later today) so I’ll just end abruptly here.

Let’s see. The weather has been really hot these days. It got to the point where the first thing I looked for right after waking up was a drink – and that has never happened before. Okay, technically, the drink was not the first thing I looked for. It was a scrunchie to tie up my hair so that I wouldn’t sweat so much.

A thought that just occurred to me: I’ll probably just finish this post and end up going to bed later, in the hopes that I’ll be able to wake up earlier to do work. That’s obviously just me deceiving myself, but I do feel kind of tired now… Which is a good thing, because I seem to have messed up my sleep schedule the past week. Okay, the aim for today shall be to sleep/be in bed by 2 am!

Back to today. Lessons as usual. And my attempt to print lecture notes in school failed again. This time, the server for Ihub was down, so no one could book the computers, which means that no one can print anything. Oh well. I guess the printers do deserve a break once in a while. But then I’ll need to print at home again! It’s troublesome to print at home as I don’t have a duplex printer, so it takes me much longer to print the notes if I want them to be double-sided.

So the printing was a lost cause. I think I’ll just print from home from now on so that I can justify the use of my printer – it doesn’t seem to be used that often any more.

Halfway through my class, my family decided to have dinner outside after my sis ends work. (Jing Ning insists that the term is to “have a meal” and not “eat a meal”, so I should attempt to remember it by using it as much as I can.) So we met up at Tampines for dinner, because it’s been a while since we last had a meal outside together. And I need to keep reminding myself to not neglect my family for schoolwork.

I reached earlier, so I got a cup of hot chocolate at Coffee Club while I attempted to do work. It didn’t go as well as I’d expected it to be, but at least I managed to get a few ideas illustrated on the laptop (read: drew shapes using Keynote). I knew I should have brought my sketches for the assignment out today. My mom appeared twenty minutes after I’d settled down, though it took her a while to find the shop. I think she wanted to walk around the malls, but since I had work to do (and she also ordered a cup of hot chocolate), she sat with me until my sis met up with us.

Dinner was punctuated with tales of our childhood, and the usual comments of how I chew my food a lot more times than necessary, which made me eat so much slower. In my defense, biting the food thrice is definitely not enough to swallow it and have it digest easily and properly! That probably explains why I’m hungry now, though.

My sis tried to get Black Ball for dessert, but the place was crowded and she was unwilling to buy some home to eat, so she ended up not eating it (again). We’ve lost track of the number of times she’s tried to eat it and failed. Irritated that she had failed to eat the dessert once again, my sis kind of gave up on walking around the area. She basically chased everyone around until we finally declared that we’re going home. Not much of an outing today.

So when we returned, I was totally unmotivated to do my work – something that has lasted until now (it’s 1.01 am). And I’m really tired, so I shall just stop here, and try to get at least a bit of work done before heading to bed.

Ignoring that, (and yes, I’m just trying to motivate myself to get started on one of my assignments – my motivation to work comes at midnight) the past week has been eventful… As compared to the previous weeks, anyway. My habit of doing schoolwork late at night usually ends up with me meeting a feared six-legged creature – the cockroach. I’d seen that one particular cockroach crawling on my bedroom floor at least twice when I was heading to bed, but I didn’t kill it. Mainly because I didn’t want it to run onto my bed, and also because I was afraid it might be a flying one. I tried waking my family up to kill it for me, but every time they woke up, the cockroach would have disappeared into a corner, and I’ll get scolded for not dealing with it myself. Sigh. It actually got to the point where I had this nightmare about a flying cockroach in the living room with my family, and my mom just stared at me and told me to kill it so that I can overcome my fear. I tried to kill it and it started flying around the room. Urghh. It was a good thing I woke up right after that. The nightmare gave me a deep impression (of how I should just kill that stupid cockroach before it breeds in the room and walks all over my things).

A few days ago, I went to bed late (again). Right before I opened the door, I was hoping that I wouldn’t see the six-legged creature, but once I opened the door, I saw it under my chair, near my school materials. I was a little upset that I had to see it, but since it decided to appear, I thought I should kill it before it touched my precious books. The cockroach ran pretty fast after I sprayed the insecticide at it, and I barely caught a glimpse of it before it ran under my table, near the box where I kept my school materials. Well, I couldn’t have that, so I kicked the box and forced it to run out – right onto my old laptop sleeve. I didn’t want the sleeve to smell of insecticide, so I had no choice but to wait and see where it would run to after that. Luckily, it ran upwards, so I managed to spray more insecticide on it before it could escape. It took a few more minutes before it dropped to the floor, which was close to my manga collection. Even though the books were in bags, I didn’t want to risk finding a cockroach in it when I opened them to read, so I continued my attempts to kill the cockroach. Two more sprays later, the cockroach finally died, and my books were safe! (Yes, my books were the priority.) That being said, I took a few days before I could bring myself to use the desk in the room again because I kept thinking of the cockroach walking all over them…

I just realised that I really don’t have a life, to be writing so much about killing a cockroach. In my defense, it was my first successful attempt, and ought to be recorded!

Back to the rest of the past week. Since it was the week right before recess week, we had a quiz and an assignment due. I called it “Hell Week 2”. The first one was in week 4, where there was a quiz and two projects due. Actually, the reason why I’m so busy this semester is because I miscalculated the number of projects in the modules I’m taking. I didn’t know that one of the modules would have a project! And the rest of the modules were project-based, so I can’t say that I didn’t take that into consideration when I chose these modules. In any case, this semester is bad. I don’t remember what some of my best friends look like anymore, because I haven’t gone out with them in a while. I only know what school and home look like…

Okay, I’m exaggerating. I do go out with my family, so it’s not like I’m being a total recluse. We bought a fridge (finally)! Time for the 24-year-old fridge to retire. It’s the oldest appliance in the house, other than the electric fan in my mom’s room. The process of buying was rather short, because we’d been to see the fridges so many times that we kind of got an idea of what we wanted (or rather, what my mom wanted and was in my sister’s budget – she passed her probation!). My mom was a little sad that we couldn’t get a coloured fridge, i.e. one that isn’t grey or black or stainless steel, but at least it’s going to save electricity as compared to the old (and battered) one.

In other news, I should be getting a haircut sometime this week! I’ll be growing it out, but since it’s still a bob cut (sort of), I need to cut it in preparation for growing it past my shoulders. Other than me being sick of short hair, my mom ordered me to grow it out so that I will look pretty (or maybe more feminine?) during my convocation next year. I guess the time is ripe for a change.

Okay, I’m done with procrastinating (it’s 2.35 a.m. now), so I should be getting back to my assignment before it gets too late. Until next time!

Oh. So I went to Sentosa with my family today! And as usual, it rained. It never fails to rain when my family goes to Sentosa. Even if it’s just my sis and I (when we went to SEA Aquarium a while ago). My memories of Sentosa outings with my family has always been in rain. Anyway, because of the rain, we didn’t feel like going to a lot of places. And it’s not like we can go to a lot of places in Sentosa without paying, and in the rain. So we only walked around Waterfront Station (that’s the USS area) and went to Imbiah Station to take pictures of the Merlion like tourists. Somehow, all that walking made me tired… Well, it’s been a while since I last walked around for a long time… We ended up walking around in Vivo more than Sentosa, and looked at all the mooncakes on sale. We didn’t buy any today because we decided that there was still some time before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and we already have a lot of food at home in any case.

I really should stop using song lyrics and titles as my post titles, but I’m running low on ideas recently because it has been a while since I wrote frequently. Okay, I just remembered that I have a list of titles I thought up long ago. Glad to use them now, especially since some of them still apply to my current state of mind. With this, I’ve just used up my last one. Time to accumulate more before posting!

And yes, as usual, I’m typing this though I’m supposed to be revising/catching up on my work from last week. I should get back to work now.

Anyway, it’s final year for me in university, which means that my happy life of four-day weeks is going to end soon. It’s quite a scary thought… Never mind, I should just focus my attention on studying for now, and enjoy what’s left of my school life! The only consolation is that I won’t have to travel so far to go to work in the future, unless I get a job in Joo Koon or something.

Okay, I’m out of things to say, so it’s time to end this post. Hopefully, I’ll be back sooner with an update… But I suppose I’m going to be squashed under projects this semester, which makes it difficult to update. More like, whether I’m going to put in the effort to update.

Okay, so it’s been a long while since I posted something new. I recently realised that I love taking pictures of the sky (especially during sunsets)… And my phone camera doesn’t do the sky justice. D: Getting a good camera just to take pictures of the sky doesn’t seem to be worth it too. Not unless I start bringing the camera around and becoming the designated photographer for all my gatherings… Nah, it’s too troublesome.

Also, the books I’ve accumulated since last year should really be read before I buy more books. I should find some space for the books as well. I’m running out of space on my shelves. Interestingly, the books are of three different languages, and a mix of fiction and non-fiction. The genres are mostly adventure and mystery for the fiction books, though.

Speaking of books and languages, I should pick up Japanese from where I left off. I decided to stop last semester because it was going to interfere with my studies, but I haven’t seen any new classes for N3 opening yet. Self-study sounds like a good idea, but I’ll have to get books to practice, which means that I need to clear more space on my shelves… D:

I’ve started my internship this semester. It’s been educational so far, and I can at least make use of skills I’ve learnt in my course. I’m learning quite a fair bit of new programming and scripting languages as well. (But that’s mainly because my colleagues were under the assumption that I’m in Computer Science.) I’ve somehow managed to make some time to meet my best friends during the weekends… And this is the only weekend where I didn’t have to meet my friends (yay for sleeping in until 12 at home!). I really should start sleeping earlier so that I’m not so tired during the weekdays. It got to the point where my brain couldn’t absorb what others were telling me, and I was nodding along without understanding what others told me to do.

As for my braces… I thought I could take them out yesterday, but my stubborn teeth decided that they wanted to be tied together by the brackets and wires for at least another three weeks, so I still have to live with them. Apart from having trouble with food stuck in my teeth, the joke about my stubborn teeth refusing to move is getting old. Sighhhhhh. Hopefully, I’ll be able to take them out during the next visit, and then I’ll finally be free to close my mouth properly when I sleep.

It’s been so long since I last wrote something that I can’t even write things properly and make sense of them. I should probably start a regular schedule for posting things so that I don’t forget how to write a coherent post. And yes, this is where I shall stop. Until next time!

I met a friend from my primary one class last Wednesday night at the interchange on my way home from class. At first, I’d thought that he would not remember me, and was prepared to ignore him (just as I’ve done to acquaintances and even friends all the time). However, he actually approached me and started up a conversation with him. Through this conversation, I’m once again reminded of how different lives can turn out for different people.

We started chatting about our education, and he revealed that he had just completed NS, and was considering if he should go back to his polytechnic and retake his exam so that he could get a diploma in EEE, or if he should just take a course in marketing instead. He told me that he realised that he was more interested in business and marketing than EEE, which he took up only because his father took EEE as well. I have no idea if his father has a diploma or a degree in it, but that’s not important. He then turned around and asked me what course my parents took when they were young. I replied that my parents didn’t make it to university.

That alone made me reflect. The education level that your parents have is not indicative of how far you will go in the future. And you will not always be interested in what your parents are interested in.

Another thing was how I once complained to my mother that my results were not good enough to study overseas, or a better course. She said that I was very fortunate to even get the chance to study in a university – not everyone gets the chance to (perhaps because of insufficient funds or their abilities), and that I was comparing with the wrong group of people. My schoolmates in Dunman High did not represent the majority of the cohort – we were the minority. She then asked me where my primary school classmates were. Then, I realised that not all of them made it into a JC, not to even mention university. And when we talk about university, there is also a difference between the local universities and the private universities. These two categories mean different things, and have different standards. After that, I thought that I had a lot to be thankful for, and comparing myself with the minority of the cohort is not accurate at all. (Although this manner of thinking will probably make me a lot less competitive – and I am not a very competitive person usually.)

But what was nice about the conversation was how my friend already knows the path that he wants to walk on. He has a clear direction of where and how he wants to go, and is taking steps to achieve his goals. And I thought, “Ah, we are already around the age where we have tried and failed, and now know where and what we want to be in the future.”

Yes, I am growing older. We are all growing older. And I have no idea where I am trying to head with this right now, so I should just end off, get a hot cup of Milo, and continue watching my lectures.

At first, everything appeared fine, until the tutor started talking and this person sitting at the table behind mine said in a rather rude tone, “Can’t hear you.”

I felt a flash of irritation at his words. That was totally uncalled for. The tutor had not done anything to incur his wrath, as far as I could see. Well, unless they had a run-in prior to the tutorial. I thought that would be the end of it, but it was just the beginning.

As soon as the tutor started going through the questions, the same person started to ask questions (in a challenging tone) about the workings shown on the slides. And he kept telling the tutor to return to the previous slide a few minutes after the tutor had already moved on to the next slide/question. Yes, in that same challenging, and rude tone. There was this one time when he could not understand a concept, and the tutor, who did not know how to operate the projector (and he did not bring a whiteboard marker either), asked if he could explain verbally.

That person’s answer? “No, I can’t understand if you don’t write it down.”

That sounded extremely rude to me. Couldn’t he have said, “No, I’m sorry, but it’s less confusing for me if you write it down.”

While I concede that the tutor was rather unprepared for the lesson (i.e. not having markers, and unable to answer certain questions clearly), that student was still being overly rude.

To top it off, he was sitting beside this other person, who was asking questions which were already answered in the lecture notes. I would not have any complaints about this normally, seeing as how I am not the type to read through the lecture notes before the tutorial, but this other person (let’s call him B, and the first student, A) asked questions with that same rude tone as A. Moreover, there was a quiz for the module earlier this morning, which meant that B should have read through the notes at least once, and should already know these information. From what I gather, A and B were just trying to make things difficult for the tutor and disrupt the class. B was just asking questions for the sake of asking. And this is not even a module that takes class participation into account of the grades! I shudder to think how B would be like in a module that takes class participation into account.

There were certain questions which they could have clarified with the tutor after class, but they chose not to, and stopped the tutor halfway through his explanation just so he could walk to their table and explain it to them one-on-one.

These two students gave me a really bad impression, and made me think. What use do you have in studying in university if you don’t even have basic respect for the tutor. There is a reason why the tutor is the one teaching the class, and you are the one sitting at your desk listening to his explanations. Perhaps it is my upbringing which makes me think like this, but basic courtesy and respect should be given to the one who is imparting knowledge to you, rather than subjecting that person to a bad attitude. There are times when I was asked to explain how to solve a problem on a subject which I had no knowledge of, and I was scolded because I was “so stupid and don’t even know how to do the question”. That really enraged me.

But back to the point. It was extremely rude of A and B, and just because they managed to get into university does not give them the right to be so rude to others, as though they were the kings of the world and the rest were just their slaves. (And not even kings would be rude usually – they would lose their people’s love and trust if they were.)

There is a difference between being educated and holding a degree.

And this semester is going to be a wild ride. Although there is only one project due from each of the three modules (out of the seven that I’m taking), I’m starting to feel a little stressed, though this is only the second week of school.

Yeah, so that’s why I turned off FB messenger on my phone. It’s too irritating to be found easily by people, and the “seen at” function is even more irritating, since I can’t pretend that I didn’t see the message. At least I can sign out of it, I suppose. That’s a small consolation.

I’m grateful for recorded lectures. They really speeded up my learning (in a sense) since I can put the lecture on fast-forward and finish the lecture earlier (and awake) as compared to if I had spent my time travelling to school and sitting in for just an hour of lecture. Seems like it really does make sense to turn towards recorded lectures for me.

Even with the recorded lectures… My timetable is still quite bad. I don’t like having to stay in school for more than twelve hours, but it’s the only way to ensure that I have a (self-declared) day off. Sigh. Well. One good thing is, since all my core and elective modules are from the same faculty, I get to stay at home for the whole week on E-Learning week! \o/

One last random thought: I like the new font in WP. Feels comfortable reading it. Or maybe that’s just because I like typing my reports in this font?