Monday, March 24, 2003

Just saw a email that Nicole sent today, and it's not the first time I've seen this mail. When I saw the mail, I remember that Thong Wee sent it to me before in January 2002, hmm...*thoughtful* At that time, I forwarded to some friends and recently when I saw Giam's Hotmail Inbox, it was still there after such a long time. It's a really nice way to explain love..with the ending rather unexpecting but really touching.


Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived;
happiness, sadness, knowledge, and all the others, including love.
One day, it was announced to all of the feelings, that the island
was going to sink to the bottom of the ocean. So all of the
feelings prepared their boats to leave. Love was the only one that
stayed.
She wanted to preserve the island until the last possible moment.
When the island was almost totally under water, love decided it was
time to leave. She began looking for someone to ask for help.

Just then, 'Richness' was passing by in a grand boat. Love asked,
"Richness, can I come with you on your boat?" Richness answered,
"I'm sorry, but there is a lot of silver and gold on my boat and
there would be no room for you anywhere."

Then Love decided to ask 'Vanity' for help, who was passing in a
beautiful vessel. Love cried out, "Vanity, help me please." "I
can't help you", Vanity said, "You are all wet, and will damage my
beautiful boat."

Next, Love saw 'Sadness' passing by. Love said, " Sadness, please
let me go with you." Sadness answered, "Love, I'm sorry, but, I
just need to be alone now."

Then, Love saw 'Happiness'. Love cried out, "Happiness, please take
me with you." But Happiness was so overjoyed, that he didn't hear
Love calling to him.

>>Love began to cry. Then, she heard a voice saying, "Come Love, I
will take you with me." It was an old man. Love felt so blessed and
overjoyed, that she forgot to ask the old man his name.

When they arrived on land, the old man went on his way. Love
realized how much she owed the old man.

Love then found 'Knowledge' and asked, "Who was it that helped me?"

"It was Time", Knowledge answered. "But why did Time help me when
no one else would?", Love asked. Knowledge smiled and with deep
wisdom and sincerity, answered, "Because only Time is capable of
understanding how great Love is."


Yep, I guess it's true.. Only time knows.. Hopefully, I can pass the test of time!! =)
Hi blog..I'm back
Yo, it's Monday and also my favourite time for blogging..so here I am now. Not really having monday blues although I had a really hectic weekend with minimum sleep and maximum tuitions! Arghh...anyway I just finished my project meeting and that's really the only official work I have today, I have the rest of the day free on my hand!!! However, I was behind with my academic work during the weekend as I didn't touch anything at all, think I'm staying in school for quite a long while today to catch up with all work that I have in hand, especially since the Lit assignment deadline is only a week away.


Night cycling
Was rather happy to see many people in the events e.g like clinton and his gang and even others like qiming and shadiq who do not frequent HQ so often now. Even Tuck Hong was there to give his buddy Insp Han his support. It's the most organised night cycling I had seen so far (with 2 police vans as the escort), quite impressed that we could pull off with it, but in fact I wasn't in the planning at all. It's really a test of endurance and also the longest night cycling event I've been, we covered 80km in ten hours of cycling, from HQ to Changi and back!! Sad to say, I took the returning path as I was alternating with Shumin and the return trip only covered 2.5hours, after she cycled for 7 hours to make it to Changi. Hee hee..Shumin was complaining as my butt didn't even start to get painful, while the rest were super super exhuasted. Was impressed that most of them could make it back, as everyone seemed like dying when we were at Changi and ECP. I was still really tired when we were back in the HQ the next morning, still have to bear with Teck Kwong with his 'discussion' with us about losing some of the equipment. Was really tired then, my limps couldn't follow what my brain was commanding. Tired.

Tuitioning..
Was greatly impressed with myself yesterday as I had only 3 hours of sleep before I went to Leon's then Joel's place for tuitioning from 2pm - 6pm. Throughout the whole time I was actually in a blackout mentally and all I could think of was sleep and bed... zzZZ But pulled it off all the same, had a really marathon weekend with Night cycling and Tuitions taking up all my time. Had 6 hours of tuition before I went HQ for night cycling =P. So...that's about it for the weekend. Except for the last part when I met up with Hock Sui for dinner, then Zhihao, San San and Shufen for a gathering. After the gathering, I was wide awake again and forgot about catching up with sleep till 4am last night.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

I think I'll be having a very busy weekend this week ..with course briefing for J03, junior NCO camp at my unit, night cycling event in HQ and my tutioning sessions!! Now, I'm in school trying to get a headstart in my lit essay and waiting for time to pass before I meet the rest to discuss about J03. Hm..all these are not exactly related to my academic work, so thinking of giving up one or two things (probably the night cycling or my unit camp), but I'm still very appalled by the idea that all lecturers have the impression that their module is the only module I'm taking this semester, sigh.. Why do all of them have to give out their essay topics less than a mth (some even two weeks) away from the deadline and expect me to be able to research and generate out a 2000 words essay within the short time frame?? Worse part is that, all of them are telepathic and expecting the essays to be due in the same one week. Argghh, I just can't help lamenting.. although it's not going to help me much.
Main Entry: overwhelm
Pronunciation: "O-v&r-'hwelm, -'welm
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from 1over + whelmen to turn over, cover up
Date: 14th century
1 : UPSET, OVERTHROW
2 a : to cover over completely : SUBMERGE b : to overcome by superior force or numbers c : to overpower in thought or feeling




Yeah..that's it, upset and overthrown by the deadlines which I just received in the short duration of two days since the week had started. Still in a state of shock, luckily I'm checking the IVLE everyday, if not it will come as a greater shock if I missed out on all the announcements.

Just got this from my email:

EN1101E/GEM1000K (YWW)
Second Assignment -
Word length: between 1500 and 2000 words
Deadline: 31 March 2003 before 5 pm

For this module, there's still the presentation of Citizen Kane next Friday.

And got this on Monday:

IF 3202: Group Research Project of 20%
2500 words Report Due on 8th April 2003


IF3204: 10-12 pages Group Project Final Report- 25%
Due on 7th April 2003


This is really quite terrible.. And when I was looking up for the above defination, happened to find out that the online oxford dictionary that I've been using can no longer be used without paying a subscription fee. So went to webster.com instead, and found out in suprise that they even provide the actual pronounciation of very word that's searched! Well, quite useful after all, but it's only limited to those words found in the dictionary so can't make it try to pronounce any singlish or hokkien words like what we always do to our electronic dictionary when we were young.

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Well...today my laptop had finally stopped the anti-blog campaign and while I'm playing truant to stay at home to reply emails and blog at this hour..Viola! My blog page finally turned up, updated.


Traunt
Yah, I know shouldn't do this.. Both days I've packed my stuff and mentally prepared to go for lessons, even with my tutorials done. Today is a worse case, as I had tutorial and I had even changed my clothes to get out of the house after having lunch at home, but I was filling up this MCDS survey and there's a long long list of qns to be done before I can leave.. and Oops! After completing it, I realised I was going to be late, so decided not to go for lesson after all. Mum was surprised to see my back in my sleep-wear as I was still rushing to go off a few minutes before. Quite a absurd and lame excuse.. But.. As for yesterday, was having some extra time before lesson and figuring out how to download the midis to my phone..when I get carried away. Another lame excuse.. Luckily later my friend left a msg in my ICQ:


"Hi yurong!!
TOday's turn out for lec was reali pathetic...
Anyway, he said tt the assignment qtn will b posted on the IVLE by the end of this week... so take care and cya on thurs for lit yah ?
;-)" Heng ah! I didn't go all the way to school just for that pathetic two hours of lecture with pathetic turnout. And I have to spend another two hours traveling there and back anyway.


Jobs job..again
Okay okay, enough said, I've decided to buck up from now on for my exam revision..planning out the revision schedule these few days and trying hard to follow it.. for a few days at least..=) Yesterday was having dinner with Cheryl and Casey at Mos burger after our swim and they revealed to me how grim the life when working will become, the few hours you treasure after work each day will be gone before you realised, and very soon when you wake up the next morning it's work time again. When I tell them it's going to be my last four/five weeks of lessons left, I realised on my own that I have to really treasure the time when I can have lessons for just 2 hours for 2 days in a row and then spend the rest of the days in whatever way I want. Read from the forum last night that we can't expect to work just from 9-5 nowadays, in the first few years it's going to be even more than that, provided that you can find a job. Somebody also said that graduating a CAP score of 2.0-3.0 is as good as not having it as there's just too many graduates running around with lousy results. Well, sounds true to me and I guess I'm somewhere in this category..maybe a bit better off only. Everyone around me is graduating and quite stressed about employment and discussing it all the time, even though I really intend to relax and take my time in looking into it. I'm wondering if people are more stressed about exams or looking for a job. Everywhere I go, people will ask me if I had send out any resumes or not..Well, I guess I must start learning how to compose one, I think it'll come into use soon. It's a cruel world out there. Luckily, I'm not going to be the solebreadwinner of the family or something like this, both parents are in pink of health and Sis is earning enough to make them happy.. I asked Mum if she have any opinions if I carry on my studies for a few more years, and she only said that it's all up to me. =) Will think about that..


Dying?
This week's discussion for health psycho is about death.. and it's really sad and grim as well, how people deal with death and what they'll be going through when faced with death. I just finished my part for it, and quite shocking when the idealogy of death is being revealed to me. It's really far off, but when relating it to my life events, having a ideal job is better than having just any job, having just any job is better off then Unemployed.. and being Umemployed is still better off then being dead or diagnosed with teminal disease. So overall, I'm still lucky and should be happy.. as I'm alive! hahahahah..

Monday, March 10, 2003

Somehow, my laptop at home is having a anti-blog campaign and I can't view my updated blog from there, although I can still blog.. So now can only see the beautiful pages that I've written from school. Had a really wonderful weekend, went for interview, concert, KTV..etc, other than the usual tuitions and weekend burnt in club. The gathering with Wendy was really short but she did seem to be the same as she was before she went working in Bintan, quite glad for her that she didn't change much. Was surprised that she remembered to get a present for me from club med, didn't expect her to bring back anything really...=) This year, I didn't expect to receive presents which I suddenly don't value anymore, but somehow I got quite a lot of presents from people, I'm wondering if I really did a better job in my social relationships in the past one year as compared to before.. Anyway, my birthday is finally over. Got a new handphone, a bag, a watch, a bracelet from Hock Sui, a nice T-shirt from Sae Kiat, a necklace from the rest of my thai trip gang and lots of wishes!! Maybe there's really a higher chance of getting things when you don't expect it.. Hmm, so probably I don't have to worry so much about job hunting, and it'll come by luck sooner or later when I'm not trying that hard anymore. Yeah.. a new theory developed today. Somehow, now I am also planning to slack for a longer while after exams, hoping to go for a few trips and see more places before I decide what to do next. There'll still be another 30 years ahead for me to work all I want, afterall..

Friday, March 07, 2003

Was very happy last night after the meeting as I had a pleasant surprise by celebrating birthday and cutting the cake at the bus stop. Danping and Qiming turned up from nowhere too.. surprise surprise. Initially thought that meeting will be a serious one and was in the mood for CI course, expecting it not to be too fun as even Giam didn't turn up for the meeting, was very touched that the younger pple actually took the effort to get birthday present for me..=) Today wearing the new watch to school and thought that it really looks very nice, dressy and more girlish than my digital watches.. Yesterday morning also took one hour before school to wrap the goodies that I prepared to give out..reminded me of the time when I was in Pri 4 and proudly gave out rocher to my classmates on my birthday. Doing such things was quite popular back then.

Just received Wendy's sms and was very happy that she's finally back!! That day, when saw her email after the trip was glad that she wasn't back when I was diving. This time she's back for two nights, the previous time intended to stay over with her a week before CNY when she was back but didn't manage to do it. Hoping to really spend some time with her this time since she's back for a day more... Hmm, my weekend programme is quite planned but it's all fun activities so quite looking forward to it. This afternoon Joel's tuition is also canceled, that makes my tuitioning go down to only 3 slots for this week, suddenly really feel so free and happy! Tonight will be meeting Hock Sui to go career fair and intending to treat him dinner. Got a small wind chime for him cos the other time didn't any present for him and feel quite bad about it.. Then tmr early morning will be meeting Aileen around 7am for the Airforce interview, having tuition at noon and in the afternoon Sunset Bay for beach volleyball!! At night, promised Shijian to go and watch a concert with him and Pui Mun. And Sunday will be celebrating birthday with my NUS thai trip friends. All these was planned quite early so hopefully can slot in some time to meet up with Wendy too..

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Something wrong with the blogger server.. $%@! I still do not get to view my updated dive and birthday logs ABC after publishing them last night..hmm.. wondering if it's something wrong with my comp or the server. The last blog i see on the webpage is only the previous one written on the afternoon of my birthday.. but nmind, I've decided to carry on blogging and see if they will turn up later on. Just cleared away my history and temp folders as it keep on logging the old blog pages without reflecting the new ones on them, suddenly saw Danping had done a lot of blogging during her chix pox days! Somehow that's the only blog page that can load, the rest of my friends' blog pages also disappear... By the way, I can't resist cutting and pasting the following from DP's page:

Rong's going diving today. Wish her well and fun and maybe love and marriage too! If I am not wrong, most prob her highest-rating admirer will be there too... Hmm.. It will be a good chance for them to get together without all the unnecessary lightings (light bulbs, get it?). Hmm... Yar... Maybe after this Sunday, another of the girls will be in the attached category... Maybe not... Will see.


Hmm...wondering who she meant?? could it be Aloysius???!! *gasp* Then she really have strong predictive power to know that I will get a da shuai ge as my admirer during the dive trip..hahhahahha. That day, was cutting cake at home and as usual, make a wish and blew off the candles before that, and my mum was saying out loud that she wish that I can get a boyfriend soon. Among my 19 sms and 10 icq messages of birthday wishes, there were also quite a few that suggested to me it's a ripe time to get myself a bf. Why is everyone so concern about my 'zhong sheng da shi'... Well.. no comments from me, it's usually best to maintain silent over this issue.

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Birthday and Dive Logs....ABC...

A for Aloysius
haha..have to mention about this 'shuai-ge' from my advanced dive group, he's a fourth year law student. A really cute and nice person to get acquainted with during the trip. Well.. I hope he don't subscribe to blogger and surf into my website by mistake!

B for Boat rides
Its incredible, but I think I had the longest boat rides I ever remembered!! But luckily, I was knocked out for most of the journey, just that we took 6 hours traveling on the boat there and 7 hours back. It's also our dive boat for the advanced course, there's two whole row of double decked mats inside for us..a good way to cure motion sickness as we could lay down and sleep! It's air conditioned actually, but on the way back, the air con broke down during one of my dreams and I really felt so out of air!! Didn't have a problem with air supply during the dives, but ironically it was on land that I felt suffocated..

C for celebration
I was still on my way home when it was my birthday. Really low profile this year..but enjoyed it a lot. Had a peaceful birthday and was glad that I didn't plan for any gathering as I was still quite tired from the trip. At the end of the day, went Danping's house and had a really nice chat with her and Giam. Was very happy.. Celebrated at home too, ever since I was one year old till now, I didn't have a cake every year. But this year Sister generously bought one..

D for doughnuts
They had the best doughnuts that I ever had in my whole life!! We had it during our breaks in between dives, so the first day didn't dare to eat that much, but the 2nd day it was after my last dive for the trip so ate 10 or more!! Hee hee.. now still craving for the crispy yummy doughnuts

E for energy
This is really a test of endurance as we had 8 dives altogether, the first 5 dives were compulsory and the rest optional.. I did 7 out of the 8, the first day I did all the 4 dives and really felt like dying. Knocked out immediately that night. 2nd day was better as I saw many exciting things in the water, actually had a lot more energy than the first day too..

F for Fun
fun..fun..do I still need to elaborate about this?

G for group
It was a big group of 60 pple, even bigger than the last dive I went to. And even though they are just acquaintances who do not know much about my life and I wouldn't share many things with them, still glad to know more pple from NUS during the trip. Great Experience!

H for hunks
saw lots of them during the trip, but actually half of them are just poseurs, wannabes.. didn't really qualify into the hunk category.. pathetic..

I for Instructors
For our dive group our dive instructor is Richard, a guy in his forties or fifties.. a typical DOM-dirty old man!! And another divemaster who followed us was Simei, was quite impressed as so far she's the only female divemaster I've seen.. although I didn't go for that many diving trips yet.

K for Kelvin
The 2nd year civil engine guy from my own dive group... he's quite a funny person to be with, as he's really helpful. There was one dive when he tickled me underwater and caused water to get into my face mask..also, another incident happened when I needed someone to unzip my wet suit for me, intended to find a girl but as he was just around, he came up immediately and helped me enthusiastically..although I think unzipping a wetsuit is quite a personal act, but was too late to stop him..oh well.. ..

L for log dives
Quite glad that my logged dives went up to 12 after the trip..and now quite motivated to go diving at least twice a year!! Every single dive is actually quite unique to me.. fond memories indeed. =)

M for Money
Needless to say, spent a bomb on it.. But I'm glad that I could afford it and the $$ was well spent..=)

N for night dive
Went for my first night dive.. it was supposed to be quite an exciting experience but my buddy clinged on to me the whole time and from the whole time I descended till I went back to shore, I was having a terrible headache.. Sigh.. they told me that it might be due to the compressed oxygen that I had used the whole day as I had 3 dives before that, and was in a state of fatigue during that night dive. So I skipped the 2nd night dive.. although really tempted to go for it as night dives are quite rare... but I was just too lazy.

O for orange
Simei actually brought an orange 15m down during one of the dives, I was quite amazed to see her peeling it and taking out the regulator to eat the orange underwater, think it must be really saltish!! I was careful not to get any salt water into my mouth as it was really yucky.. but I guess she must be used to it. Some of the orange she actually chew on it and took out to feed it to the fishes.. the blue fishes named rashes will actually come rushing at her to get the remains of the fruit... quite fun...

P for present
Guess I've really grown up.. as presents are really not that important to me anymore. I remember that quite some years ago, there was this phrase when I strongly felt that presents meant a lot to me, to show how much pple really care. But now somehow felt quite happy yesterday spending time with friends and family, so thought that it was even happier than having presents!.. Got a suncatcher from my older sis, who bought the cake and helped my parents get a new HP for me.. First time she's being so nice, and I sort of feel quite guilty as the phone really cost a bomb. Must nver lose it or will surely get hantam!

Q for queasy
What stressed me the most was motion sickness.. and I was low on the pills for this trip. But luckily it didn't hit me that much except for the first dive which caused me headache after I boarded the boat. Even the long boat ride was fine as I slept throughout..=P

R for Rosalind
That's my buddy for the whole dive trip, she's quite a nice girl just that she got quite uptight about diving as she was not too confident. Was more comfortable when I was with Aichin. Felt that during such trips, you can really get to know your buddy very well. I did for both trips, it was the dive trip that made me know Aichin really well. But for this trip, during the night dive Ros really clinged on to me the whole time, and made me quite stressed and felt so confined.

S for sweet secrets
That's where the birthday cake was from.. it's a very nice one, guess was quite costly too. Both my sisters were waiting for me anxiously to cut the cake not because it was close to midnight, but they really wanted to eat the cake themselves..

S for suncatcher
That's the present that sis gave me.. it's a star-shaped crystal that will form a brilliant coloured rainbow when suspended in direct sunlight.. It's a unique and nice piece of gift, but sad to say a small part of it chipped off as I dropped it on the floor while eating the cake and opening the present. She mentioned that it's not that cheap to get another one, but luckily sis didn't get too angry with me for dropping it. It's now hanging next to my dream catcher at the window..

T for turtles!
Finally get to see turtles..two of them chit chatting away in the deep water, and it's our very last dive! Was quite disappointed didn't get to see much things during the first day, but the 2nd day was much better and we saw eel, stingray, cuttle fish.. etc.. Really enjoyable..=)

U for Underwater
Of course, that's why diving is all about. The first trip I went to, really felt moments of panic and discomfort underwater, felt like shooting up to get the fresh air from the water surface any moment. During the first few dives, still had the same feeling, lucky for me that I didn't have a problem with air supply as it's quite scary to surface on your own with your buddy. But eventually..felt so relaxed in the sea, and there's really so much to see underneath....it's another world.

W for wonderful holiday!
Really treasured this term break a lot, think it was a well spent one.. Studied for the first part, then went for a great trip. Hmm.. wondering when I'll be going for another trip again and who I'll be with the next time?

Y for Yummy food
Food was great at the resort.. it's western type of buffet but most of the times we didn't dare to eat much in between dives, really had to restrict myself by taking a very small portion of the delicious food waiting there for us.

Z for zzzZZZ
Everyone was really amazed by me by how much I can sleep, esp during the boat ride there everyone was excited and had lots of energy, but I knocked out the earliest and only woke up one or two times in between the 6 hours. They thought that I must be very refreshed and couldn't sleep anymore when I reached the resort, but once my head touched the pillow I was knocked out again. I was also amazed at myself as the last day on the journey back I also had a lot of sleep.. think there's really no limit at how much I can zzzZZZ!

Monday, March 03, 2003

It's end of term break! It's end of term break!! sigh.. last term break for me too...=P

Just got back from the dive trip really late last night, only reached NUS around 11 plus and I'm feeling like I'm having a "hang-over" today, walking around campus in a really dazed mode. Slept throughout the 7 hours boat ride and also the 3 hours of bus journey, but still felt really drained by the time I reached home. Knocked out almost immediately after clearing my mails and sending out an update to the babes.. as I was supposed to have a presentation during lecture at 10am this morning, so woke up at 7am and reached school at 9am to meet up with my project mates. And for once, I can be in school early!! But just now during the lecture, there was a guest speaker so we ran out of time and our presentation was postponed to next week!! arggghh.. I wouldn't be in school as this is my only lesson, not to mention that it's a monday after term break and my dive trip and more imptly.. it's 030303!!! Haiz.... thinking back of going home to carry on sleeping now... *grinz*