December updates

Things seem to always slow down towards the end of the year. I'm glad that I had this opportunity to spend most of my December with my loved ones. Just some thoughts running through my mind,

1) I never knew how much I missed home.
Despite my trickling shower head at home and the ever out of shaped pillows and bolster of my bed, I'm always reminded how blessed I am when I'm home. Mum always never fails to prepare a cup of Milo despite her being so busy in the morning. Dad's more than willing to drive me around and get the car/bike in good condition for me to use. Marck is still my personal maid at home. I'll always pretend to be lazy to buy lunch and he'll do the running for me. Sparky whereas always welcomes me when I'm back.

2) I've been eating too healthily in Singapore.
Back in Singapore I only eat 3 meals, back home I'm the king. Mum always contradicts herself. On good days she buys my favourite food for me, on other days she goes on an extreme nutritious diet.

More home cooked food please!

Till then, whee!

Monday Rest

Came across this notice at the chicken rice stall in canteen 14. Just two words but it stuck me quite hard. As I was taking a picture of this, a few kids were around me and they were laughing at this notice, "Eh look, Monday Rest. haha! "

Serves as a reminder to me to remember to take breaks, be it long or short. We always need to find that balance in everything we do.

If you take life more slowly than your energy level is capable of, you become lazy.
If you continually run at a pace faster than you are capable of, you burn out.
You need to find that balance.

Finnish-ed Snowflakes

Semester is over and I will probably have my last break before the whole work cycle starts again. Looking back at my photos from Finland especially on the snowflakes makes me wish I could see snow again. I wonder when will be that day again. Oh well, just want to share some pretty pictures :)

Pictures are from my hk friend. hoho. i think i posted them before though 

Victim of Kindness

Today I was a victim of kindness.

1) It all started when I withdrew 150 dollars, 3 fifty dollar notes, to pay the dentist. My scaling and teeth polishing costed my 110 bucks and I paid it soon after i withdrew my cash because they didn't accept nets/credit card. Excited with my new set of cleaned teeth, I went to the library to get some work done. Little did I know that I actually overpaid the dentist by 50 bucks as I remembered only giving them 2 notes of fifty and a ten dollar note. So I called up the clinic and thankfully they were wondering where did the extra 50 bucks came from :D I hurried back to the clinic, almost 5pm, and we thankful that they waited for me before closing the clinic.

2) Headed back to my room to get ready but it was raining heavily. Thankful for this kind man who offered to share his umbrella with me as I was just about to dash off to cross the street. It went like this ," Sir, do you want to share my umbrella? " with a sincere smile. I thanked him for his kindness and that made my day :)

3) This happened in the past few days when I was back in KL. Knowing that I would be gone for 5 days, I intentionally left my pot of chillies in front of my room to hopefully get some water from the rain as I will not be around to water them. Thankfully for a kind neighbour and a mere acquaintance I met in summer, he helped me water my chillies while I was gone :)

Simple joys in life. My 6th seedling growing :D 

Crossing over to the dark side

Today I embraced change and I prayed the serenity prayer.

God grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Goodbye my faithful one,
Be good to me o new phone,

Oh how I miss you so dear nokia,

Value of time

To know the value of one year, ask the student who failed the final exam

To know the value of one month, ask the mother of a premature baby

To know the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly news magazine

To know the value of one day, ask the wage earner who has six children

To know the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet

To know the value of one minute, ask the person who missed the plane

To know the value of one second, ask the person who survived the accident

To know the value of one millisecond, ask the Olympic silver medallist

For myself, I've only experienced the value of time in terms of weeks, days, hour and minute. Ask yourself, how much do you value your time?

Timely Reminders

This is a story of an independent ninety two year old lady who was moving into a nursing home. Since she was legally blind and her husband of seventy years had passes away, the move was her only option. She waited in the lobby of the facility for a long time before finally being told that her room was ready. As she was escorted down the corridor, her attendant described the room, down to the curtain hung on the windows.

" I love it," the elderly enthused.
"But you haven't seen the room yet. Just wait," the attendant responded.

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied.

"Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged. It's how I arrange my mind. "

Appreciation isn't a matter of taste or sophistication. It's a matter of perspective. Things turn out the best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. The place to start is with the little things.

If you can learn to appreciate and be grateful for them, you'll appreciate the big things as well as everything in between.

Yaya papaya

Collected another tomato plant from my prof this week.I think i'm going to kill it because i accidentally plucked out one of the roots of the plant @.@

Tomato plant

 Look at the papaya seeds before i dried them under the sun

 After a few days

And only a few was totally dried. The seeds really look wet but actually they are not. It's some protective layer on them. Yum Yum papayaa!

My new job - Hall Farmer

Nobody seems to be excited when i told them I started a new farm at my place. Even e seems to ignore my request when i ask her to visit my farm even though it is just behind my room :( I was even stared like a burglar when I was arranging my plants behind my room by 4 girls. Oh well, a farmer got to do what a farmer got to do. Keep planting!! :D 

Let me share with you some pictures. 

Tadaa!! my little farm :D 

 Chilli plant in pokeball

Papaya plant

Truth is I didn't really plant them, someone else did. All i've got to do now is to keep them alive. I'll probably add more chilli plants on my own if they are a success. Going to add some of my super organic worm castings too to get huge fruits from them. yum yum. 

Training myself to be a future farmer and feed the world. On second thoughts, maybe feed myself first :)

One inch wide, One mile deep

I bombed my last weekend attending the Asia Internet Conference (AIC) together with my friend. What struck me throughout the conference was probably this, one inch wide, one mile deep.

We probably don't need to be a guru in everything but just one thing. It applies to every athlete in the Olympics. Just look at Usian Bolt, he just focuses on short distance sprints. In his case, he's a little special because he's currently the 100m and 200m world record holder.

Let's take it down to a smaller scale. For the past 4 years, i've been working as a sai kang warrior in the library. All that i needed to do was just operate the counter, loan and borrowing books, and i think today i can do it even with my eyes close. hehe,  of course i'm lazy and i sleep on the job as always.

Maybe diversifying and finding alternative resources could distract us of our prized assets.

Oh well, back to books.

Ant trail gone?

Remember a while ago i wrote something on the invincible ant trail? If you couldn't remember, here's the link to it. So back to the story, weeks passed without me noticing that there weren't any ant trails in my room anymore and I only realized it because the ants didn't attack my chipsmore biscuit in the container.

So want to know my secret how I got rid of them?

 I built a gun and shot everyone of the ants :D Nah, i kid.

 I found that spiderman helped me eliminate the ants in my room :) Guess there's perks not cleaning up your room so often. yahooo!

Bak kata pepatah, "Dimana ada gula, disitu ada semut" , where got sugar, there got ants or in this case, where got ants, there got spider. 

So tell me,  Why stand when you can sit? And why sit when you can lie down?

When Hup Seng meets Ritz

I can't recall when was the last time my mother scolded me for playing with my food. Guess old habits die hard, I started stacking my Hup Seng biscuit and Ritz with peanut butter to form some sort of spring suspension.

I can use this for my math class, asking my students to calculate the height of the Hup Seng biscuit using trigonometry. -.-''

Prepaid Electricity

I found this at one of the rental flats in Singapore. Never knew such thing existed!

Sometime I still do take for granted of many things that I have. An eye opener for me

First Nuffnang Cheque

Guess what i found in my mailbox today, my first nuffnang cheque after 4 years.

$65.25 dollars after 4 years @.@

Oh yea oh yea!~~ which means I earned 4 cents a day for the last 4 years :D Long-long eventually become mountain. 

Frogger

Remember the game frogger when we were younger? If you forgot how it looks like, it looks like this

Basically the objective of the game was to maneuver the frog across a series of oncoming vehicles.

So here's where the adventure began. I spotted a frog/toad just outside my room. I started to use my poking skills (had a lot of exchanges of this with Chin Leng on facebook) to get the frog moving but sadly it didnt respond to me. I then increased the intensity of my pokes, prodding it harder from the back of the leg to its nose. Still doesn't work.

Got me thinking, what if there were predators around, will the frog still stay put? Brushing aside that thought, I picked up a stick and started poking it even harder. Yet the frog didn't budge. Next I took my apple core and started rocking it in front of the frog, thinking that it might be hungry. At this point, there were some girls walking by and I quickly pretended to look away. Probably thought I was some crazy kid waving my apple in the air.

When they left, I continued my adventure. This time I said to myself, " Why not feed the frog one worm?" Guess what?

I finally got it to move :D But I lost a blue worm of mine :( 

Another angle.

Moral of the story : Stand firm on your ground despite the many distractions but do always remember to react when needed!  

Or Even frogs succumb to delicious food, what more us? :D  

And oh yes, the thing that they say that frogs have long tongues, I didn't see its tongue rolling out to eat my poor worm. 

Invincible Ant Trail

As you have noticed my recent blog post has been about random fascination of ants. Well, here's the problem i'm facing right now. Currently my room have zero food. Even if there is, it's either zip locked or in packets which makes it impossible to have ants. (that's what i thought)

So just now when I was bored, I decided to go on an adventure. I managed to identify the sources of ants i.e starts from outside my room and they seem to always take the same old path.

I even tried to spray some insecticide along the path, destroy it and to a certain extend lure it with sweet things but they still seem unfazed by my attempts.

I googled up on ant trails and this was a picture I found. Crazily, it can actually be related to optimization or shortest path distance. @.@ 

Well, that's not the main point. After trying all the above methods, I finally concluded that I should follow them all the way until I find their food source. Guess what i found,

Nothing. 

Guess E's right, maybe I should just leave them alone. After all they are just probably wondering around aimlessly looking for their 'food'. :D

Moral of the story (Although I think there's nothing much to learn) :

Do we have an invincible ant trail in our lives where we follow the rest thinking there's food at the end of the trail?

That tiny cube of sugar

Yesterday as I was surfing the net while munching some sugar biscuits, something small caught my attention. Not being the tidiest eater around, some crumbs and sugar cubes actually fell on my table. This caused some ants to start to congregate around their loot.

I think I have this weird fascination for insects since my kindergarten days. ( Oh yes, I've actually inspired my whole class to eat blacks ants in the toilet, convincing them that it was rather salty which my teacher was shocked because the whole class actually gather at the toilet to look for black ants to munch on.)

Okay back to the topic, as these ants were busy with their loot, I actually tried an experiment. I plucked out a bigger cube of sugar from my biscuit and gently placed it beside their loot. What do you think actually happened? Honestly i thought that the ants will go for the bigger cube but instead they were so focused on their current loot.

It got me thinking a little bit. How many times do we easily get distracted when something better is placed in front of us? Do we leave our current treasures and go for the bigger fish? Or do we stick to it until it is complete?

Sugar sugar!~Sugar lips

I don't have the answer :) but one thing I can say is that,

Back to work!

Haircuts

I'm not a big fan of getting a haircut or a new look. This is because most of the time, what I want my hair to turn out to will always, I emphasize always, just look bad.

Let me share with you what I always tell the auntie that cuts my hair.

Me: Aunty, I want to cut my sides very short. like this short *shows the length with my pinky* 

Aunty: *nods

Me: I also want my top to be thin because when my hair grow long, it will just grow straight up and of course look good.

Aunty: *nods. Okay no problem.

Feeling good because I thought I explained how I want it to be and I'll let the aunty do her 'magic'. I always have high hopes that it will turn out ok but it never does. @.@

I'll just stick to my primary 3 hairstyle. simple, neat and cute @.@

 Ah Wong hairstyle

Anyone knows how to get a good haircut? or is it just me T.T nom nom nom nommm! 

Captain Obvious

Found this notice when i was wandering around hall 7, ntu. 

@.@

Thought I should start blogging again after a long time away from it due to new commitments and hobbies :) Will post more funny/interesting things if i come across any. Till then, enjoy :D 

Hanger Day

Was too bored just now when I decided to make my room more 'complete'. Shifted in over the weekend and i found out that my shoe rack was missing a metal bar across. 

Found a solution to it. I used the YOG hangers which fitted perfectly

 Now i can place my shoes, mini worm bin on top of it :D

Through this incident, it reminded me of a poem shared in class a few weeks back.

Things money can't buy

You can buy a big house, but not a home.

You can buy a clock, but not time.

You can buy a bed, but not sleep. 

You can buy a book, but not knowledge.

You can  buy a doctor, but not good health.

You can buy a position, but not respect. 

Coke

My tutee goes crazy when I talk about Coca-Cola. Apparently it's her favourite drink so I decided to try to give her some math problems relating to Coke. We're currently on the topic of money.

" A bottle of Coke costs $4.20. Everyday Mary gives May 30 cents. How many days must May save to buy two bottles of Coke? "


Let's hope this will spark her interest in math.

"Bad teachers distance themselves from the subject they are teaching - and in the process from their students. Good teachers join self, subject and students in the fabric of life " - The courage to teach

Fear

Graduation looms around the corner as i muster all my efforts to overcome my final paper next Wednesday. Yet, i'm so reluctant to open my notes as there's this huge cloud of fear in my mind.

We fear not because of failure but because it's the first step to the working world,


Fear because we look forward to the weekends and dread Mondays,


Fear because we update our status on Facebook and twitter about work rants,


Fear because we won't be able to take time to stop and smell the roses,


Fear because we look forward for our pay day to finally treat ourselves to something nice for our 'hardwork'


Fear because we only need that 6-7 hours of sleep everyday


Fear because we have to set aside for our housing loans and debts


Fear because we need to pre-book our vacation getaways


Fear because we only have that hour of lunch break.


Fear because we need to constantly impress our bosses to be in their 'good books'

"After all, there are thousands and thousands of people out there living lives of quiet, screaming desperation who work long, hard hours, at jobs they hate, to enable them to buy the things they don't need to impress people they don't like " Nigel Martin.

Ask ourselves today, is it necessary to work like a slave to live like a millionaire?

Boy who said graduation was a joyous ceremony? (:

Ps: will appreciate comments on graduation, working life, and other random things ;)

Slow Dance

Took this of a book i was reading. I have reread on  portion of it many times and I hope you will do the same. Here it is.

Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?


Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?


Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?


You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast


Times is short.
The music won't last.


Do you run through each day
On the fly?


When you ask: How are you?
Do hear the reply?


When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed


With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?


You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.


Time is short.
The music won't last.


Ever told your child
We'll do it tomorrow?


And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?


Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die


Cause you never had time
To call and say "Hi"?


You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.


Time is short.
The music won't last.


When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.


When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift thrown away.


Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.


Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Visitors

Guess who came and visit my room while I was studying with my door closed. I have no idea how it came in my room, maybe it was in my room hiding in my clothes. Who knows.

 Monitor lizard

Trying to play hide and seek with me

Seen too many creatures in my campus already. From projectile pooping owls in Terry's room to lizards mating in the hall 8 toilet i think i can't ask for more. 

100 Bucks

Scene: Lee Wee Nam Level 4

Cleaner Aunty (C): Eh, boy, ada berita baik lar!
Eh, boy, got good news

Me: Oh, apa sal?
Oh, what's up?

C: Sekarang gaji cleaner semua naik. Semalam mereka baru beritahu kita. 100 dollar lebih. banyak bagus!
Now our salary has increased. Yesterday they just told us. 100 dollars more. Very good!

Me: Wow! bagus bagus! Gembira untuk mu mak cik
Wow! Goog good! Very happy for you aunty

C: Yala banyak bagus. Dulu hanya 700 dollar, sekarang lebih 100dollar boleh ambik bas naik pergi kerja.
Ya, very good news. Last time only 700 dollars, now with the extra 100 I can take the bus to work.

Me: @.@ Maknanya sekarang jalan kaki pulang rumah?
@.@ Means now you walk back home?

C: No choice la adik, You ingat tujuh ratus boleh makan banyak a? Banyak bagus untuk makcik. Sekarang tak payah peluh-peluh bila balik rumah. bestnya.
No choice la boy, You think seven hundred dollars can eat a lot? It's very good for aunty. Now i won't sweat when i reach home. Best!

Me: haha! bagus bagus!! :D
haha! Good good! :D


And I spent my whole day today thinking of how happy will I be if i got a 100 dollar increment in the future. What say you?

Classic Sweets

My blog probably lack pictures and here they are, wahlaahh!!

 

I haven't seen the Horlicks and Overtine sweets for a very long time already! The last time i ate them was probably 10 years ago. 

 Breakfast deluxe from Macs. A rare moment because I always never wake up on time for Macbreakfast. (Y)

E

"I gt E 4 my common test.. I have improved..omg!"

My tutee dropped me a text this morning. She's been always failing last year. Best feeling ever :D

Retire

On another typical day in the library, I decided to ask aunty some questions again.

Me: Aunty, 如果你'毕业'你要做什么?

Aunty, if you 'graduate' what are you going to do?

Aunty: 什么毕业？我没有去大学阿!

What graduate? I never go to university!

Me:不是！不是！'retire'

No! No! 'retire'

Aunty: Oh, 退休! 不知道。我没有想过。

Oh, retire.I don't know. Never thought it before

Me:为什么没有想过？

Why never thought of it?

Aunty: 不知道。在家 zhuo bo lo.

Don't know. Stay at home and do nothing

Me: @.@ Not boring?

Aunty: Boring la. Bo bian. kua poh cua, tv, lim kopi, zhuo bo lo.*laughs*

Boring la. No choice, read newspapers, tv, drink coffee and do nothing *laughs*

Me: Song boh!

Nice!

"The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.  ~Abe Lemons"

McDonald

This conversation took place a few weeks ago while i was in the library.

Scene: Me arranging the newspapers while aunty was next to me.

Me: Wah, auntie, mcdonald oo promotion. Gor kor puat. Ani pi o.
       Wah, auntie, macdonald got promotion. $5.50 only, very cheap


Aunty: simi lai mcdonald? wa be hiao! 
            What is mcdonald? i don't know


Me: *@.@!* Huh? Auntie lu bo chiak mcdonald a? 楼下。 在 Subway  那边!
        Auntie, you never eat mcdonald before? downstairs, next to subway.


Aunty: 这个东西我没有吃过！很贵啊! 
           I don't eat this kind of things. It's very expensive


Me: Aiyor, Wa chia lu la. ho chiak leh! 
       Aiyor, I treat you a meal. It's nice!


Aunty: 不要啦。 我喜欢吃菜饭
            No thank you. I like my mix vegetable rice. 


Me: Ohh. *stuns!


Never met someone who has not eaten mcdonalds!! Legendary!!

Ps: correct my grammar if it's wrong. thanks ;)

Tower Blocks

Been quite busy over the weekend and mum was asking me what i was busy with. I told her i was playing tower blocks over the weekend ;D

Making full use of my 'office space'  xD

Silent Generation

My four years in the library has definitely taught me to appreciate the silent generation more. The next few posts will be occasions and conversations which i'll try to recall over the past years. Probably won't mean much to people but i sure did gained a lot from it.

On the side note, today i a chance to talk to a bangladeshi worker regarding some worms. Trust me it was tough.

Me: Hello Krabic? Do you sell the Can-O-Worms?

Krabic: Hi. I, I no sell. Call boss.

Me: Okay. Can you tell me your boss number?

Krabic: Now night. No work, call tomorrow.

Me: Ah, can call now? I need it urgently.

Krabic: ok ok.

I knew he understood what i was saying but he tried his best to answer me. It struck me that I was probably like him if i did converse in chinese.

After i texted him to pass me his boss' contact and this was his reply.

Hi, 8XXXXXXXX. this can countuc. 


We are truly blessed.

Pray

Psalm 23

   A psalm of David.¹ The LORD is our shepherd, we shall not be in want.

    ² He makes us lie down in green pastures, he leads us beside quiet waters,

    ³ he restores our soul. He guides us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

    ⁴ Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for you are with us; your rod and your staff, they comfort us.

   

 ⁵You prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies. You anoint our head with oil; our cup overflows.

    ⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow us all the days of our life, and we will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Amen.

Lord, in You we trust. 

Triple Kill

Today was really an unusual day. I had the privilledge to be a Good Samaritan three times. haha!

1) I helped an old lady to carry her heavy luggage up and down the bus

2) I swapped seats with some random lady on the bus back to Singapore. She said that she can't sit right at the back if it's a long bus ride. I now understand why, there's barely leg room at the back of the bus although your seat is elevated higher than the others.

3) Some random lady dropped her wallet while I was waiting for 199 back to my hostel. Alerted her and passed her wallet back to her.

My Moral teacher should award me with three stars today :D Ironically on the 3rd of Jan last year, i bumped into two good samaritans as well! You see how blessed I was here.

Blessed 2012

Blessed 2012 to all my friends ;)

Randomness is when you decide to drive up to Genting just to get some fresh and cool air after a long and tiring day.

Perseverance is shown when,
your friend is willing to wait in the toilet for 20minutes pant-less just to get you in the casino,
all just because I wasn't properly attired.

Self control is knowing when to stop after doubling your capital in less than an hour.

Generosity is shared over a cup of Starbucks coffee under the cold and misty weather ;)

"Epic events; only occur once in a very blue blue moon" quoted from Legend Lee