all about ME

6-week update!

2005-06-19T20:21:00.000+08:00

Wow, ages since I last posted a new entry. Time sure felt like it's flown by, looking back at it. But looking forward, the next 6 weeks seem to stretch to eternity...

So much has happened lately. I'll only write about the major events, plus some of the latest events I can remember off the top of my head.

I separated from my girlfriend of 4+ years some weeks back. It was inevitable - we'd been drifting apart more and more as time went by. We aren't as compatible and comfortable with each other as we would like, and we're basically looking for something else in a life partner. We had many good times, and we parted as good friends. Still keeping in close touch, which was the best case scenario :) No regrets starting this relationship, and no regrets ending it. Time to move on...

On the work front, all us rotators were told of our permanent postings last Tue. I'm supposed to stay in the same place, but a girl who was told she'd be going to inpatients really can't bear the place, so I might swap with her. This is supposed to be our last week in our current centres, before we move on for good. For me, I must say I dislike my current place the most, so I might not mind the swap.

Thanks to my hard work in the committee I joined, a couple of other options have suddenly opened up before me. Once our consultants leave in July, a small group of us (3-4ppl) are supposed to form a full-time team for at least a year and carry on their good work. I've been shortlisted to be in this team, but they've been quiet about this all week so I dunno what the plan is. Still hopeful, but at the same time, I don't want to get my hopes up too high. I reckon if they disregard my relative lack of work experience, I'm a shoo-in. It's gonna be one hell of a challenge though, and sometimes I wonder if I'm up to it. But if I'm given the chance, I'm going to go for it, no regrets.

At the same time, I've applied for a management traineeship post. Interview with COO (who happens to be in charge of both the committee I'm in and this traineeship programme, lucky me) on Sat morning. Less likely for me to get this post, since it's open to the entire hospital. But if I get in, I'm pretty confident of my ability to make myself a success. So we'll see how.

Haven't salsa'd at all since my last lesson last month. Always coming up with excuses and reasons not to go. I guess I'm in a slacking mood at the moment. Promise myself to dance this week onwards tho! Planning to go for pre-intermediate classes, and int1 after that. Hope to start with those of you who've professed interest in going for int1 with me :D

One more lesson to go and i'm done with my first term of french at AF. Gonna take a break for now, and go for the 2nd term in 2 or 4 months' time. I should be able to gauge how busy I am then and how many evening/weekend activities I can afford.

Arts Fest outreach programmes all over the island. i went to watch Circle of Rhythm at SGH on Fri evening. Cool percussion trio from Australia. They play the tabla, the hang (tradiotional Swiss percussion instrument looking like 2 cast iron woks glued together, played by hitting small divots all along the circumference), drums and cymbals, tambourines, and even cups of water :) On Sat, watched jjsalsarengue. Wish I could dance like those guys. Wish I didn't need months/years of practice to do it :p

Pretty warm few days, I hope the rains come back and chase the mugginess and patients away :p

Ok, enough from me for now. Too lazy to write more. Might post about more stuff in next couple of days, if I feel up to it. Going for a dinner at Brewerkz with my committee team members and consultants on Monday. Should be fun, I'm gonna try all their house beers if possible :p For now, gonna bum away the little that remains of my weekend :D

Salsa Slump

2005-05-06T00:20:00.000+08:00

Still haven't recovered from the one-week break from salsa. I've lost a bit of confidence in myself, stemming from lack of practice, which in itself was prob caused by a bit of complacency and lack of time/energy. Sorry mf, gonna up it a notch from now on. Still got a long way to go before I feel I'm ready to start Int 1.

Grace, we're gonna practice whenever we get the opportunity, ok? Let's improve together and have a blast on the dance floor!

Ok, gonna sleep now. Gdnite!

Busy...

2005-05-04T19:11:00.000+08:00

Haven't updated in almost 2 weeks! Can't rem much of the past week. Think every night was spent doing work. I did go down to Union Sq on Thu with mf and her friend, Christine (am I correct? my memory for names is porous). After lack of of practice for 2 weeks, I couldn't dance for nuts! So disappointed, wanted to show mf how much I've progressed since she last taught me the basic step 2 months ago in union sq, but let her down. Nevermind, I will practice hard when I can and improve. Looking forward to dancing with you again! ;)

Went to Bintan on Sat/Sun. Fun, but everything's there costly. Tried out archery and air rifle. I seem to be a natural at them, so might pursue them further when the opportunity comes along. Had a manicure/pedicure for the heck of it. Shiny smooth nails now :p

Society chalet on Sun evening after I came back from Bintan. Along with grace, taught some of the rads a bit of salsa. A few of them joining or joined up already. Our rad salsa community is blossoming! Salsa nite event for SSR, anyone? :p

French phonics lesson last nite. Good stuff! But already forgetting what I learnt. Basic lessons start on Sat, hope to apply what I learnt to good use. I can already sorta enunciate the l'alphabet francaise now :)

Nursing inflamed gums atm. Bleah. Hope antiseptic gargle and panadol are enough to cure. Sigh.

Big meeting today. Our team presentation stank, honestly. My consultants want me to present for our team next month. Got big expectations to fill. Hope I'm up to it!

Might write more about past events if I feel like it. Later!

This week in my life...

2005-04-24T10:51:00.000+08:00

The past week, I've been spending most of my evenings, usually to the
wee hours of the morning, doing analysis for my hospital committee.
Analysing 180 days of data in raw text files is no joke! Even after
importing to excel and using all the functions I could think of to
help, it still took ages and I had progressively less sleep as the week
wore on. Thankfully finished it by Fri morning and emailed it to my
team so it's their problem for the weekend ;)

Had to do the duty I really hated this week, but looking back, it wasn't so bad after all. Still hated it, but didn't really dread going to work every day to do it. Guess those bad memories of doing it, all those months ago, when I was new and my mentor called in sick for first couple of days and I had to figure out almost everything on my own, was worse than the reality. And I've gained a lot in confidence since then, so I was positively buzzing by Fri, even with just 3 hrs of sleep the night before. The work seems a lot easier these days. But still feel very bored and demotivated to do it.

Salsa on Mon as usual. Did pretty well for this lesson, could execute the turn pattern we learnt fairly smoothly. Legs felt a bit leaden so I must have dragged my feet that evening, but still was fun. Learnt CBL right - not much for the guys to do anyway. Basically same as CBL :)

Went down to union sq the same night. Managed to dance with Liz, Mag and Grace this time. Also asked who I thought was a fellow B2 student, but she turned out to be intermediate lvl already. Oops. My lousy memory for names and faces strikes again! Felt a bit awkward leading her, our timings and reactions seem to be slightly off. I must be too used to dancing with my fellow salsa classmates. Need to dance with others so I can adapt and solidify my lead. Any takers out there? :D

On tue nite, we accompanied our friend to Suman's free salsa appreciation lesson. It was free for zo card holders, so I rushed down to Orchard the evening before to get some. Silly me, she already had like 4-5 of the cards herself! No need for me to get any. Should have asked. :p

We thought it would be similar to the first lesson he normally gives for basic 1, where he teaches us the fundamental of the music, and maybe the basic step. But he taught us the basic, simple r turn and CBL, and got everyone to partner up. I must admit, fun to dance with absolute beginners. They usually seemed so surprised when they can execute the simple turn patterns and walk away with a smile on their face :) There were a few other non-beginners there, prob to accompany their friends, like we did. Ade signed up for the next basic 1, so we have at least 2 friends learning it not. Yeah!

Played badminton on Sat for the first time in 2months! Had a solid 1.5hr session. Now my butt and legs are aching madly! Can squeeze them and feel the tightness. Lol. Watched American Pie 3 afterwards, pretty fun and lol movie, gotta catch AP 1 and 2 soon. Dinner at Seoul Garden. Thought it was pretty cheap, at 17.99+++ for Sat nite, but they now charge for the soup to cook food in, the towels, and the drinks. Bloody heck, paid 57 bucks for everything. I'm not gonna eat there again unless I'm really hungry and I've starved myself for a day. Quite liked the beef bulgogi tho. Gonna have more beef than chicken next time. Starting to develop a fondness for cooked quality beef :)

And now it's Sun. Gotta clean up place a bit, mum coming over in the late afternoon for inspection :p Ciao!

Students...

2005-04-24T10:28:00.000+08:00

Wow, been a while since I last posted. Past couple of weeks have been hectic. Managed to finish the website project last Thu, and took Fri-Sun to recover from lack of sleep. Can't recall doing much outside of work.

Had 3 first-yr students with me in the room, sometimes 4 or even 5! The new batch is really large, almost 3 times bigger than previous batches, so it must be difficult finding places for all of them to be attached to. The 3 I worked with - C, H and S, were all smart and hardworking individuals so I didn't have much trouble with them. C in particularly was very proactive, while H and S were slightly shy. They did warm up by the end of the week, though :) Pretty happy to work with all 3.

Had our last basic 1 salsa lesson on Sat. I did pretty ok, but he taught us 2 turn patterns and by the end of the lesson, I couldn't recall the exact sequence of the patterns anymore :p Oh darn, can't try them out on the dancefloor. Only a vague recollection of the beginning, the end, but can't figure out what we did in between :p

Can't rem Sun. Must have bummed the whole day away...

Celebrity patient

2005-04-13T20:17:00.000+08:00

Guess who I irradiated today? Denise Lorraine Keller :D Yeah, MTV Asia VJ, former model and current Eye For A Guy 2 babe. She's quite pretty in person :) One of my students told me that it came out in the papers she's suffering from dengue fever atm. 2nd time's she gotten it too. Poor girl. Ok, cannot say any more, gotta respect patient confidentiality and what-not.

Back to my website project. Deadline now 1 month 1 day past :p

Deadlines...

2005-04-12T22:02:00.000+08:00

Trying to finish a website project I volunteered for ages ago....Kinda overdue by a month (though it was a deadline I set myself). Will blog again after I safely submit it for vetting and it becomes someone else's problem ;)

Quick update - Started salsa basic 2 lessons this week. Yeah, even before I finished basic 1. Kinda impatient I know, but if I don't do this now, I won't be able to go for fixed lessons for another few months at least. Doing shifts again come late-May.

Trying to negotitate for a particular centre in my next rotation. 1 in 2 chance. It has a slightly more flexible rostering arrangement. If I get it, I'll start French lessons in May. Will know by the end of the week, hopefully!

Team America..f*** yeah!

2005-04-08T00:36:00.000+08:00

Ok, Blogger decided to eat my post after I clicked on the publish button, so I'm gonna try to type from memory, and I'm not gonna bother thinking so hard about how to phrase my words. Sorry about the rushed feel of this post :(

Had Liz over for tea on Tue afternoon. It's cool that there's a direct bus from her place to mine, and vice-versa. Must drop by one day, while I still live here ;) Cooked some chicken sausage spaghetti (I don't agree that onions and peppers enhance the flavour :p) and we watched Team America World Police. Not a movie for the humour-deficient. The movie's full of cr** and LOL moments. Produced by the same people who made South Park, it's not surprising that they poked fun at everything and everyone. I wonder how many people put a jihad on Matt Stone and Trey Parker after this movie came out :p

Some highlights:

* Susan (the oriental team member) calling out for Gary in her sweet voice, mowing everyone in the tavern down with a chaingun, then calling for Gary again in the same voice.

* The puppet sex scene (was this uncensored in the local cinemas?).

* Gary's speech at the end.

* Kim Jong Il singing.

Too bad Liz had to leave shortly after. Yeah, it was a nice rainy day, soothing and a welcome break from the sweltering heat of March.

Watched Bowling from Columbine later that evening. The Michael Moore 'documentary' about gun murders in the US, and a couple of tragic events in a high school and an elementary school. Initially I thought he wanted to put the point across that lax gun controls was mainly responsible for the violence, but the movie soon focused on the media and politicians' roles in fanning the flames of hatred and fear in the states. Yeah, if everytime you turned on the news and listened to yet another murder or violent crime happening to ordinary folks like you and me, and perpetrated by say, a racial stereotype, wouldn't you be locking your doors and clutching that loaded gun too? Of course, the answer isn't that simple either. Showing positive news and having leaders come out with messages of peace won't solve the problem. And of course, we all know which sells better - good news or bad news.

Blogger better not lose this post too. Grr...

Salsa Nite

2005-04-05T12:51:00.000+08:00

Mon was unusually quiet in the dept. My supervisor remarked that it could be due to the report on an infection that was spreading in the hosp. Perhaps most ppl feared sars v2.0 and decided to keep away. Well, good news for me.

Helped to orientate a 'temp'. Hard work, I always find supervising and teaching very taxing. Figuring out the level of knowledge and expertise of the person, deciding how much to say/show and when to step back, treading a fine line between making an impression and commanding respect, and showing off, etc.

Short salsa practice with Grace went pretty well, though our supervisor walked in halfway through. LOL. Grace was oblivious to him at first, lucky for her she wasn't dancing at the time, or she might have died from embarrassment :p He seemed quite shocked. Again, lucky we hadn't started partner work. Anyway he was pretty cool about it after we explained that we were learning and practicing. Bound to happen eventually, after all. Anyway, I've gotten used to Grace as a dance partner, we seem to move fairly in tandem now.

Dancing in Union Sq was a different ball game. Met Liz before going in. She was with Jelin and Aaron, 2 of the Mon students. There were a few other students already in Union but I didn't get to ask their names cos music was too loud. Maggie also came. Good to see her again, it's been a few weeks since we had dinner as a group before Mon class 2. Suman, of course, was there, dancing with the girls and looking calm and relaxed on the dancefloor. Man, he's great at looking good, and just as importantly, making his partner look good :) That's gonna be something that will take me months to grasp and maybe years to attain.

The gin and tonic tonight was way more potent. Could taste the ethanol rushing into my mouth the moment I sipped it. At $6.30 a glass, I might go down to Union just to drink. LOL.

Jelin got me to dance for a few songs. As she put it, "I came here to dance". So yeah, we danced with my limited repertoire of basic, simple R turn and CBL :p She looked real good with Suman, I must say. Quite tolerant of my mistakes and bumbling lead too, thankfully :) Felt awkward dancing that night. Prob cos I'm too used to dancing with just Grace, and in a controlled environment. Must make myself dance in the club more, and with different partners.

Got to dance with Maggie too. Slipped while doing a simple R and almost fell, till my ass collided with the corner of the pool table. thank god i have a fat ass. barely aches anymore :D

Basic 2 starts next Mon. I'd have finished lesson 4 of basic 1 by then, so I'm confident I can join. Will ask around and prob sign up after Sat's lesson.

Woke up at 11 today. Bliss. Gonna put off some errands and take it easy today. Tea at Gelare cafe later, and dinner at Chinatown. Gonna book Bintan trip for the May Day weekend. Seems so far away!

Ok, maybe I don't have 2 left feet after all...part 3

2005-04-03T00:29:00.000+08:00

Holiday mood on Fri. Didn't feel like working at all. Gonna be on leave for most of next week. Was supposed to be all week, but 2IC told me he needed the leave for a family matter and was hoping I could give it to him. Being the nice guy that I was, I said yes. Bummed about it. He came back a couple of hours later to tell me he didn't need it, so I got my leave reinstated. But another guy needed to go on leave urgently on Mon, so I gave that up. Not like I planned anything. Was gonna bum around and recharge my batteries till my next leave.

Asked my AM and 2IC if we could have some air freshener for the barium room. When patients are incontinent, the smell is really awful sometimes. The nurse there told me there was no air freshener in the centre and asked me to check with the AM. Anyway AM and 2IC told me that the nurse shld liaise with our storekeeper for it. Wow, I'm amazed. Even for something as small as getting hold of air freshener, I get bounced about. Well, guess what? I hate to play pinball. Hardly anyone wants to just get up and get stuff done around here. Ppl are obsessed about only doing their small duties and will go to great lengths to avoid other ppl's tasks, maybe for fear of having that task heaped on them in future? So sad. So old-fashioned. So small-minded. Urgh. I feel like I have to move mountains sometimes just to do something simple and 'common-sensical'.

Met Mel for lunch on Sat. She's one amazing person, she's talented in so many things. First time we met in 3 years, had lots to catch up with. Promised to meet each other again regularly, hope we can stick to it. Once I'm more confident in my lead, I'll ask her along for our salsa nites. She's a natural dancer, so I gotta work hard to maximise her potential :)

Had a silly misunderstanding in the afternoon, kinda ruined my mood for the rest of the day and seemed to drain away all my energy. Had to drag my feet for salsa, feared that I'd be lead-footed and mess things up.

Thankfully, once we got there, I seemed to get a burst of adrenaline and concentration level shot through the roof. Ser brought her friend, Bryan, over. He learnt salsa while studying overseas and I figured he was prob approaching intermediate lvl at least, so I expected him to get bored. There was another guy there, but I think he missed a previous lesson and he seemed lost. Couldn't even do the basic step. Suman almost pulled his hair out trying to teach the poor guy. Thank god he had me, I reckon. Cos at least he could look at me and see someone who was sorta able to follow :p He spent most of his time looking at me throughout the lesson when he was addressing the guys. Guess his blood pressure went up a few notches whenever he looked at the poor lost guy lol.

We learnt the CBL today, and thanks to lost guy, we guys had to repeat it like a million times. Blessing in disguise, cos when our instructor finally gave up and taught the gals their part, it felt quite natural to me. Once we started partner work, I was definitely less stiff than last lesson. Didn't have to think so much and I could enjoy myself a bit. Think the gals I danced with felt it too, and they'd likewise improved, so we were smiling and having a good time, I reckon. Yeah! Now motivated to work hard at this. If things continue in this vein, I'm signing up for Basic 2 classes. Or Int 1, will ask Suman's opinion on this when the time comes.

Time to sleep. Really need to catch up on sleep in this coming week, I suspect life is just gonna get busier from now on. Finally feeling a sense that my life is moving forward again, after being stuck in a rut for a while.

Gdnite folks!

Ok, maybe I don't have 2 left feet after all...part 2

2005-04-03T00:01:00.000+08:00

Found out on Mon that I was gonna have a 3rd year student work with me for the whole week. Yeah! Love it when these students have their attachments here, they're usually very enthusiastic and helpful. Furthermore, this student will be working here in the near future, so I guess there's more incentive for him to impress us. Heh, so I did my best to teach him about the local processes and techniques, in the hope that he'll have a shorter learning curve when he eventually joins us. Pretty fun to supervise him, though it was more tiring than I thought. Phew, a good supervisor's job is hard.

Went with Liz to Union Sq to salsa after her lesson on Mon night. Though we had to pay cover charge after 9pm, it was only 6 bucks and included one house pour! Other drinks were about 6 bucks too so we could keep our glasses wet all night! Danced with her here and there but I wasn't very confidence and I only knew a couple of steps. We were very stiff and I could tell she wasn't having too much fun. Sorry Liz! I WILL get better as time progresses. We'll do it again real soon, I think you're gonna be pleasantly surprised ;)

Tue was pretty uneventful I think. Can't remember anything of note.

Come to think of me, Wed was much the same. Oh yeah, afternoon at work, volume of patients was unusually low. Could be cos it was the last Wed of the month, when a lot of doctors seem to have meetings.

Went for my first team meeting on Thu. Didn't go too well, turned out the data one of our members had obtained for us was not what we wanted. Couldn't do much but talk. Would you believe that we can easily obtain complex data and lists but not something as simple as calculating how many inpatients each medical/surgical dept has on any particular day? Unbelievable!

Prior to that meeting, overheard the previous meeting, cos it overran a bit and I was waiting in the next section. One NM was damn insistent that she couldn't be easily contactable and that even email was an unreliable way of getting hold of her. She said she didn't carry a pager, had no handphone and no one in her ward would know where she was at any particular time. To me, that's damn unprofessional and silly. What happens in an emergency? Get the nurses to run around like headless chickens looking for her? She could actually say all that direcly to our COO. I can't believe ppl like this manage to rise to such a senior level in our hospital. So sad. I know a couple of such ppl in my own dept, so I think it's fairly prevalent. Things gotta change, we seem to be stuck in the dark ages here.

TBC...

Ok, maybe I don't have 2 left feet after all...

2005-04-02T23:20:00.000+08:00

It's been a long week for me. My hospital committee kicked into gear late last week, and there was plenty of analysis for me to do, as well as a couple of meetings. On top of that, I had to work my full shifts and helped out various ppl do various things. Hmm, lemme see if I can recap my week :)

I had to work on Sat. It was really slack, as usual, but for quite a high proportion of cases, the details were just not in the system. Which meant I had to key in manually. This has been happening for months, why oh why can't they fix it? Friend mentioned that IT told her it's a problem inherent to the system. Come on, it's really slowing us down and there's a higher chance of making mistakes.

Can't rem what I did Sat afternoon, prob bummed it away as usual.

Dropped by Grace's place to help her pimp her PC (yeah, been watching too much 'Pimp My Ride' on MTV Asia). Was gonna resurrect the sound card, change the graphics card, add more memory, put in a dvd-rom and clean up the hard drive.

Also brought over some drinks for us to celebrate her souped-up desktop afterwards. But things didn't quite turn out as planned. Bloody PC couldn't start up again after I fiddled with the memory chips inside. Which by the way were incompatible witht the chips I brought, so I couldn't help her clear her memory bottleneck. And buying new chips wasn't practical, cos hers was 4x more expensive than normal. Oh well.

Anyway after some desperate disconnecting and connecting of cables, we still couldn't make it work. So I decided to take the CPU back to my place to crack this annoying mystery. Got treated to Fish and Co. Yum!

Finally figured out what happened at home, when I surfed the net looking for computer forums. Turned out the memory chips were at fault. Thankfully it wasn't damaged, merely not pushed properly in place. Also had a heck of a time getting the drives configured properly. But managed to fix the hardware by around 2am. Then couldn't quite figure out how to reformat the hard drive properly. Finally got it down after 3am and finished installing winxp at 4.30am.

Slept for a few hrs, then woke up to have breakfast with a friend. She was all inspired and motivated now, what a chance a few months makes. Glad to see her all fired up about the future. I'm sure you'll do great and lead a fulfilling life ;)

Saw her off and went to Grace's place to return her CPU. It seemed to have grown heavier overnight lol, even though I took out half the things in there. But it was great to see it start up properly once we plugged it in her room. Had a drink and chatted while updating software. Too bad I had to leave around 5 to see my former jc classmates for dinner.

My jc classmate from hk was in sg for a few days and so a bunch of us were gonna have dinner and catch up with her and each other. Surprised to see one of our former tutors there. He's retired now, enjoying his days and his pension payout :p

It was good to see everyone again. I was a bit of a hermit in jc, didn't really interact with my classmates. Got to know some of them better only after we went our separate ways. We settled on Fish and Co for dinner so I had exactly the same thing I ate on Sat. Burp.

Rushed back to catch my salsa instructor perform on tv in a short segment on Destination Dance on CNA. Corny scripting aside, it was amazing to see some of the moves and choreography they pulled off. Figured I could never reach that level, seemd light years away from where I am today. A bit harsh of me, yes, since I'd only had 1 practical lesson so far, but hey, I'm a perfectionist who sets very high standards for myself.

TBC...

Ok, now for work madness

2005-03-25T21:29:00.000+08:00

Thu...

Started badly. Got a call from my supervisor to inform me that the OT person was seeing a doctor and I had to cover OT if there are any cases. Now I had a important training session 2-5pm that day. So I was crossing my fingers that either the OT person would not get MC (fat chance) or that cases would end by 2pm (decent chance).

Was halfway through an xray when OT paged for me. Rushed to finish it, then supervisor offered to help me print the images while I rushed up for the OT case. OT paged a 2nd time, and when I called to tell them I was on my way, the nurse sounded pissed. I found out later that they had called the usual OT person first (they always call him directly cos he's usually the one doing OT. They don't bother with paging when he's on) but could not get through. Then they paged the OT pager. By then, everyone was waiting for me. Well, thaty's too bad cos they really should have paged for me earlier. The world doesn't revolve around them :) Of course, I was too nice to point that out and I felt both sides were to blame. Us, for not informing them that the usual guy was not available and to page if there are any cases.

I was my usual helpful self around the theatre and before long, I won them over. They even told me that I was the best they'd worked with. Hell yeah! That's the way to stoke my Hindenburg-sized ego to even greater heights!

Anyway due to rescheduling of cases and overruns, my training session went up in flames. Only finished the cases around 5pm. Couldn't get hold of the Mckenzie consultant either, so I can't get started on one of my assignments.

Realised that we could really use a couple of items up in OT. These items are cheap and we prob have stock of them. Wonder why nobody's asked for it all this while. Come on people, why make your work any harder than it already is? Just open your mouth and ask for things you need! Or have they asked before and got a wall of silence? Umm, anyway I'm going to ask for these things and a few other minor additions and changes that I think will make life a little bit easier for us. Also got some major issues to grind out but I'm don't know where to even start with these. I don't like to point out deficiencies when I can't come up with a solution myself. Gonna chew on it a bit more before I speak out.

This centre I'm in is CRYING out for improvement. Sigh. Feels like everyone's so busy in day-to-day firefighting that they're letting things slowly deteriorate around them. And it's been deterorating for a long time, it seems.

Lazed the evening away in bed. Too tired to do much...

Nothing much to say about Fri, so not gonna dedicate a post to it.

Sushi madness, work madness

2005-03-25T21:05:00.000+08:00

On Wed...

I went back to work. Had to drop by the staff clinic for a final review so I only started around 11am :D It was another fairly busy day, with no time to rest tired feet.

After my shift ended, I dropped by to see the Mckenzie consulttant to get up to speed with the progress made in the lean committee meetings i missed over the past couple of weeks. I received 2 pieces of homework, both of which I can't start on till Mon. Then it might be a mad rush to get them ready by Wed's meeting. One of them requires a bit of legwork, not that keen on it. The other assignment is analysing some compiled statistics. That one should be cake. I'm quite excited over where this project is heading, I feel like I can make use of my strengths to contribute and hopefully that'll be noticed by the consultants and the bigwigs sponsoring the project ;)

Went back to dept after the short meeting to make use of one of the empty rooms for a bit of salsa practice. It was a little weird dancing in there with my gd friend and budding salsera, esp without music, but I'll rectify that with my brand new SE K700i next time ;)

(Oh yeah, now I have 2 phones and 2 lines. You can contact me on either, but I prefer you calling me at my new number cos I have free incoming there. If you don't have it, then that means I don't prefer you calling me at all :p)

Anyway I was really stiff but we managed to pull off the steps we learnt and managed to partner each other decently (for rank beginners). Another couple of sessions and we should be able to impress Suman at our next lesson (or at least not frustrate him).

Went to Sakae Sushi for dinner. Had some plates, a teriyaki don and beef ramen. But the cashier only charged for the plates and don. Free beef ramen! Talk about promotions :p That's the second time it's happened. First time round, I got a free bowl of soba. Yeah, next time I'll have udon on the house! :p There must be something about me and noodles that causes the counter staff to lose concentration when they look at my order slip...

Bought some Merba choc chip cookies from Cold Storage. They're oh so chocolatey! And full of butter too. Finished 2/3 of the pack before I realised it and had to stop myself. Gonna save the rest for when I get an attack of the munchies late at night.

Random thoughts

2005-03-22T21:01:00.000+08:00

Ok, saw my doc on Wed and test came back negative for mumps. By then, the swelling was practically gone anyway. But I had to wait over 3 hrs just to see her! Unbelieveable! I know it's a Mon morning and all but this was crazy. If I were feeling unwell, I'd prob pass out from all that waiting. Took a peek at my card when I was in the consultation room and it said I was registered ard 9.30. Funny, I'm sure I got there ard 8.30. Guess a 2.5hr wait on paper doesn't look as bad as 3.5hr huh?

Anyway doc told me to get an appt with the ENT (earnosethroat) docs soon. She even mentioned that they may suggest a sialogram (nasty procedure which sticks a tube into the salivary duct through the mouth to inject some dye in there to look for stones/blockages) but I doubt it'll come to that. I'm young, healthy, mobile and don't smoke. Not a single risk factor there :)

Today's prob my last day on MC. Enjoyed myself, heh. Didn't get as much work done as I'd like but it was great to get some time off work. I was starting to feel more bored than usual at work. Thank goodness Fri's a holiday! Though I have to work on Sat, it's usually quiet and now that I live a walk away from work, I don't mind as much.

Decided not to go for Mon's salsa lesson cos it was a full group and I didn't want to risk infecting anyone with this (though I did go for Sat's session but I really had to cos if I missed that one too, it'd be 70 bucks wasted - anyway there were only like 4 students and I kept my mouth shut). But there's no corresponding class on Sat! Totally forgot about that till I saw the reminder email. So from here on, Sat's session will lag behind Mon's by 1 week. So guess I'm stuck with Sat's session from now on...oh well, not a bad thing since there're fewer of us and the instructor will have more time for each of us.

The Mon session is going down to UE after class next week and I'll prob drop by, cos 2 of my friends are still in that session. Feel bad at having to leave them but it's only 2 more classes and impt thing is, we'll go down to the club together. And that's the whole purpose of going for the classes, after all ;)

I've been trying the short trial of Everquest 2 and it's looking a LOT more fun than EQ1. The interface looks like a game made in 2004, whereas EQ1 was seriously dated. Graphics and gameplay are much smoother too, and surprisingly seem to consume less system resources. Must be optimised for modern systems. Heard very good things about World of Warcraft too.

Too bad EQ2 is $85 and WoW is $115 at Sim Lim. not to mention monthly fees. And they're both still very buggy and are enormous time sinks. Might try one or both in a couple months' time, but I'll have to say no for now.

Felt a bit intimidated while watching a clip of ppl performing salsa at an event. I can't imagine myself ever pulling those moves off. I can tell that salsa's not one of those things I'm naturally talented at, so it's gonna take a good bit of resolve and motivation to keep at it. I'll give myself around 6 months of consistent practice. If I can dance decently by then and I'm having fun, I'll keep at it :)

One of motherboard fans seems to be spoilt. Not spinning anymore. Maybe it never spun. Not sure, only noticed it after I opened up my CPU on Sun to install more RAM. And it got so hot in there on Mon that PC actually shut itself off suddenly. Thought it'd died on me. Thankfully I could switch it on again after it cooled down. Seems to be cooler no that i've taken the side of the casing off permanently. Maybe air flow in there is bad.

Been burning some of CDs to DVD to save space. But already got 3 unreadable DVDs out of around 12. Not sure why, since I'm using a top-rated DVD-writer and good quality DVD+Rs. But no more unreadable DVDs since I stopped opening so many windows while writing DVDs. Gonna keep doing that just in case.

Did some overdue chores today. Food stores running low, must do some grocery shopping tomorrow. Get some more plastic cutlery and plates/cups, basic stuff and ice cream. :)

Will write again another time. More interesting topics, I promise ;)

Puff Daddy

2005-03-17T23:18:00.000+08:00

Guess what? I *might* be suffering from mumps!

Felt a pain in my left cheek when I woke up on Mon. Thought it was jaw ache, the sort you might get after chewing too much. Figured I'd dreamt of eating muesli or something, heh.

Then I woke up on Wged to find a frigging big lump in my left cheek, just under the ear! It felt quite hard, and movin my jaw hurt quite a bit. Looked like half a puffer fish!

Rushed straight to the staff clinic, but had to wait over an hr to see a doc. Gosh they're slow in clearing cases. The doc I finally saw must have seen like only 2 patients in that hour.

Anyway after examining me, she said I might be having mumps! Even though I've had my MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination. So I got jabbed back then for nothing?

Had my blood sent to the lab for a couple of tests. In the meantime, I had to stay in their 'isolation' room. Freezing cold place with just a couple of chairs and a 'Germinator' (erm, filters germs out of the air i guess).

thankfully result of first test came back in like an hour. White blood cell count was a bit high, which suggested a bacterial infection. Still, they can't rule out mumps without the result of the second test, which would take 3-4 days. So I'm in 'isolation' at home for the next few days...

Pain got bad at one point, but it was easily managed with paracetamol. But the worst thing is, I've missed my 2nd meeting for this major project I joined (missed last wk's meeting too), and I have no idea what's going on at the moment. Better schedule a meeting with the consultant to catch up and volunteer for some tasks.

Also in danger of missing my salsa classes. Postponed Mon's lesson to go for Sat's, to accompany my friend. Will miss it if swelling doesn't go down or if I'm diagnosed with mumps. And if it IS mumps, I'll miss next week's lesson too, cos it takes about 2 weeks to recover.

Gotta miss out on a couple of other events on Fri and Sat too. And being on mc all this time means my collegaues have to work that much harder. As if they weren't already working their socks off everyday. Feel sorry for them.

Past couple of days have flown by. Better get some long overdue work done over the weekend. Next Fri is Gd Friday. Looking forward to the short week ahead. That is, if I'm no longer Puff Daddy :p

1st salsa lesson

2005-03-08T12:12:00.000+08:00

Went for my 1st salsa basic lesson yesterday. Had a good instructor who impressed upon us the important of getting the count and the beats right. In fact, he spent the entire 1-hr (+extra 15 mins) session playing salsa tracks and making us identify where the counts start. Though we didn't learn any steps, it was good fun and didn't feel like a waste of time/money.

It was a full class, around 20 people. Around 7 guys only, though. Heh, my fault for bringing myself and 4 other girls. Oh well, guess that means I get to dance with twice as many girls now :p

Looking forward to my next lesson. Hope to drop by Union Sq after 3rd lesson or so to practice on the dance floor. In the meantime, will be listening to some salsa music to get used to the rhythm.

Having Koka's chicken satay no msg instant noodles now. Not very nice, think I'll stick to traditional flavours next...

A washing machine is not a dining table

2005-03-06T23:24:00.000+08:00

Placed plate of omelette and bread on top of washing machine while cooking/doing laundry.

Left briefly to sweep bedroom floor while sausages were frying in the pan and machine was spin-drying.

Came back to find said plate of supper on the floor, apparently vibrated off the washer.

'nuff said.

Aches and Pains

2005-03-06T09:55:00.000+08:00

Work was alright this past week. Was shuffled around different duties for Mon and Tue to cover ppl who went on course, including doing something I hadn't touched in over 2 months. A couple of things went wrong in the beginning, cos some things had changed since I last did it, but the day was over soon enough.

Major project kicked off on Wed and I'm involved. No work yet - it should begin in earnest this coming Wed. Gonna be busy, but knowing myself, I'll still find time to relax and bum around :p

Took my reservist fitness test on Fri. I did much better than expected (5 chin-ups with ZERO training!) but failed the run so I gotta retake everything at a later date.

And today my WHOLE body is so stiff and aching I can barely move! To top it off, I've got a really bad sore throat and a slight infection in my right eye (which seems to be clearing up now). All I want to do today is lie in bed and be served. Sigh. Too bad nobody's around, so I'll still have to force myself up to get some food.

I have lots of work to do, but I doubt I can do anything at the moment. Might take a nap in the afternoon and finally get started if I feel a bit better.

Later!

salsa classes

2005-02-26T21:22:00.000+08:00

Signed up for salsa classes, starting in mar. should be a blast. now what shall i learn next? :)

what shall i learn today?

2005-02-26T01:59:00.000+08:00

I've decided to list all the things I want to learn. Maybe in a year or so, if I still remember, I'll revisit this topic to see how many I managed to learn and whether it was any fun :)

1) Salsa
2) Japanese
3) French
4) Mandarin
5) Swimming
6) Archery
7) Driving
8) Squash
9) Table-tennis
10) Skiing
11) Wakeboarding
12) Piano
13) Violin

Wouldn't life be great if we could just jack ourselves into the matrix and have a whole bunch of info uploaded into our craniums? As Neo says, " Whoa, I know kungfu."

boredom

2005-02-25T00:51:00.000+08:00

Was reading an entry on boredom on a friend's blog (yeah, i didn't understand parts of it) and it got me thinking. I have a short attention and interest span and I get bored of things really easily and quickly. All my life, I've started things, sometimes quite passionately, only to gradually and completely lose interest after a while because I found it too easy/too hard/not what i expected/takes too long/etc.

I used to live a very sheltered childhood. Always stayed at home, behaved myself, didn't really interact with the other kids or with the outside world much cos I was quite happy in my own little world.

When I grew a little older and started to experience more, I realised that I'd been missing out on so much by keeping to myself. I yearned to try new things and learn almost everything under the sun. I wanted to travel, learn languages, play instruments, pick up sports, appreciate the arts, master the sciences. I felt like I had to make up for lost time.

But when the opportunities came, and I took some of them, they didn't quite live up to my dreams and expectations.

Travelling when i was abroad was fun at first. I got to experience the art and history of a country, sample local delicacies, and learn from the culture of the place. But after a while, things started to look the same no matter where I went and I lost my appetite for vacations.

Used to love amusement parks. Water slides, Viking, roller coaster, you name it. I wanted to get on it. When i got the chance, it was fun. First time round. Then the thrill kinda wore off and all I felt was...nothing. I took the best ride first at Alton Towers - an inverted roller-coaster which at times skimmed just above the ground. It was a blast! I could feel my heart beating fast and a adrenaline rush. So I tried it again and this time, it was about as exciting as a bus ride. Tried half the rides that day and through all, I just felt...bored. Now I won't settle for anything less than bungee jumping and skydiving ;)

Work's boring. I have a lot of things to entertain me at home but sometimes I get so bored of them, all I do is surf the net aimlessly instead. I think my procrastinatory nature is at least partially linked to boredom. Boredom does play a significant role in my life, sad to say.

Got a bunch of things I wanna learn - gonna list them out in another entry. Hope I can enjoy learning them and not let boredom take control of me.

Otherwise, I might just run out of things to do and get really bored :p

Salsa!

2005-02-25T00:31:00.000+08:00

mf brought me to a salsa club tonight. Told her I was interested in learning salsa so she kindly suggested I check it out first to see if salsa's for me.

Had a fun time there! Music was good and most of the ppl who danced looked quite good too, to my untrained eyes. mf showed me a couple of basic steps which were really easy in theory but not so easy to execute. Thanks for complimenting me a few times but I think I'm ultra crap and quite stiff, so prob have to put in extra practice sessions in front of the mirror at home while I'm learning :)

After an hour of looking out for different moves/steps on the dancefloor and trying to catch the beat of the songs played, I had sensory overload and my mind shut down. So we headed home.

Yes mf, I think I'm gonna enjoy salsa quite a bit :D

Looking forward to getting some lessons and practice under my belt. Promise to spin you on the dancefloor once I'm confident enough ;)

Gonna get me a new mobile 2

2005-02-25T00:28:00.000+08:00

Starhub replied to my email and have sent me a list of phone prices, corporate plans and application forms. Will be signing up real soon. Only question is, which phone will I get? Still haven't decided yet...need something with large, vibrant, high-quality TFT screen, ergonomic keypad and speedy menu/smsing, good reception and call clarity, speakerphone. Everything else is secondary. Any suggestions?

Weird dream

2005-02-25T00:06:00.000+08:00

I went for a CPR course on Fri. Felt really zonked out cos I only had 3-4 hrs of sleep the night before, but somehow managed to hold together till I finished the day and passed both the theory and practical tests.

Didn't really think about it anymore till I went to bed on Monday night and had one of my weirdest dreams in recent memory. This is also one of the few dreams I could remember having, cos most of my dream memories disappear shortly after waking up.

When the dream started, I was in a room filled with beds, kinda like a room in a mock ward. I was giving CPR, but instead of a dummy, there was an actual guy lying on the bed! And I remember giving him the compressions and the ventilations. Strangely enough, he just laid there nonchalantly while I was shocking his heart and blowing air into his lungs!

After a while, I remember looking around and seeing 4 other pairs of ppl giving CPR to each other. There were 3 guy-girl pairs and a girl-girl pair. So I thought to myself, "Damn! Why do I have to get a guy as my partner? Why can't I lock lips with any of those girls instead?" :p

But the I thought to myself, oh what the heck. And continued to give CPR to my partner. I vaguely recall not minding it, maybe even enjoying it. Erm. Vaguely homo-erotic I guess, though thankfully all we did in the dream was CPR :p

I woke up that morning feeling very amused over the dream. Put a smile on my face, it did. I just hope next time I dream like that again, I'm with a girl. Otherwise, I'd be very disturbed :p

Missing post?

2005-02-21T00:02:00.000+08:00

Ok, I spent 20 mins writing abt why I needed a new phone and listed out the features of my dream phone. And then I clicked on the 'Publish Post' icon, only to see that the only part published was the title :(

Not gonna type out the whole thing again. Suffice to say, I'm getting a new mobile phone. Real soon. Cos I need it ;)

Gonna get me a new mobile

2005-02-20T23:40:00.000+08:00

Quality Nation? Sure, without such jokers around.

2005-02-19T15:28:00.000+08:00

Came across Quality Nation (I'm not gonna even gonna bother giving you a link) through a similarly disgusted friend. Here is a website which proposes that all the ills in our society (and the entire world) are caused by the 'undesirable' influence of Western (specifically 'white') culture and invites readers to contribute articles to trash everything 'white' and 'defend' our 'Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures'.

Quick quote from the site:- "Singapore since 1965 is and has always been represented by three races - Malays, Chinese, and Indians - and should always remain that way"

So....I just happen to not be from any of the 3 major races in Singapore. Does that make me any less Singaporean? Just because I state 'Others' as my race in all the forms I fill in, I don't belong here? That's what this site is saying.

(And there's another pet peeve of mine. Here, everyone and everything seems to want to know what my race is. When I was studying in London, not once did I encounter a form which required me to fill in my race. And why should I? Race is skin-deep. Expose someone to a particular society from young and give him/her the same set of experiences, and he will behave like anybody else from that society. Unless the parents intentionally shield him/her from interacting with the society and coops him/her up in their home/community, of course. Next time someone asks me what race I am, I'll say I'm HUMAN ;)

Well, it's true that I don't exhibit many of the stereotypical traits of a Singaporean. I'm laid-back, I don't really use Singlish, I don't care about the 5Cs, etc. But I feel Singaporean. This is the only place I see myself in long-term, cos I believe in the relatively safe streets, the relatively efficient public and private services. the relatively meritocratic society. Yeah, this place is not without its flaws, but I care about it and if anything, I'm gonna work within the system to do what I can about those flaws.

So, back to the site. Many of the readers writing in advocate Singaporeans (I guess only the Malay, Chinese and Indian ones :p) to 'retaliate' against 'whites' by being racist towards them. Well then, if these jokers hate the 'whites' so much cos of their racist attitude towards them, wouldn't this make them as bad? Dsicriminate against a stranger just based on his skin colour? Fine, don't expect me to treat you fairly either when I find out. I've had enough of patients who're rude to me when they think I'm a foreigner but start to act all buddy-like when they find out I'm Singaporean. Well, 'buddy', expect to get the cold shoulder from me.

Bigotry and discrimination, sadly, is almost everywhere. I've seen it in the pantry, the office, on the streets, basically wherever there are more than 2 people with tangible differences.

I have the utmost respect for those who respect others. For everyone else, as my friend said, I don't have the time or space for you in my world.

Superpower of the Day: Hyperspeed

2005-02-16T23:55:00.000+08:00

Had a busy day at work today. Had fun working with a student, and a 2nd joined us in the afternoon for a while, so it was quite a challenge overseeing everything and making sure we were working fast enough while giving time to explain and instruct. think i did alright.

Was about to do my last case when someone I really didn't like (let's call him K) told me he had to talk to me. That usually means he needs me to do something for him. Luckily, he was distracted by someone else.

K dropped by again but I was in the middle of my case, so he left me alone, thankfully.

I didn't give him a 3rd chance. As soon as I setttled everything, I switched the room off in record time, grabbed my bag from my locker and flew out of the dept, eyes fixed on the exit :p

Boy was it hot outside. Started sweating while waiting for the bus, sweated INSIDE the air-con bus, sweated on my way to my old flat to grab my mail and spare stuff, sweated in the flat, sweated waiting for a cab, sweated while going up to my flat.

Shower and a/c sorted me out. Cup of cold diet coke providing the icing on the cake as I write this :)

Gonna crash now. Will try to reach work on time for a change tomorrow :p Gdnite everyone!

Sleepy...

2005-02-13T12:37:00.000+08:00

Got out of bed today at 12. Had one busy day yesterday even though I had the day off work.

Woke up at 8am on Sat cos my friends were coming over for our 2nd PS2 gaming session, to finish Champions of Norrath, an action RPG which reminded me of Diablo (PC) or Baldur's Gate (PS2). We started playing it in June or July last year, but couldn't finish it then. After 7 months, we resumed last week but still had 2 acts to go. So we were determined to complete it yesterday and finally lay the game to rest :p

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, they were delayed and only arrived around 11. Glad to see them, cos they were holding on to my breakfast! :p One sausage mcmuffin and one sausage and egg mcmuffin later, we got down to business :) By now, I was quite sick of the game but we weren't about to give up. By 5pm, we'd killed Innoruuk 3 times and in 2 different ways. Yay us! If anyone had suggested playing through the game again on a harder difficulty, I'd have thrown my controller at them :p

Went to Thai Village for gf's bday dinner. There were 10 of us but 1 was terribly late. When he came, he had the cheek to say my gf should have invited someone who liked seafood instead of him, cos he doesn't like seafood. Honesty is good, but come on! Spare a thought for her feelings! She went to the trouble of inviting him and saving food for him even though he was over an hr late. I made it a point to pretty much ignore him for the rest of the night :)

Food was good. I wanted to treat everyone to shark's fin cos it's like their specialty but there were 10 of us and waiter told me we really needed to order the xtra large shark's fin if everyone were to get a portion. Problem is, this version costs 200-300 bucks! So I decided I'd come back to the place some other time with a smaller group to try it ;) I feel it's a pity to go to a great restaurant and not try their specialties, even if it costs a little bit more.

After dinner, we went to Wine Network along Dempsey Rd for, well, wine :) Pretty quiet, cosy place. Pretty inaccesible except by car.Mr I-don't-like-seafood actually started falling asleep 15 min after we got there so we suggested he go back and rest. Glad to see him go. Won't want to see him again anytime soon :p

After a couple of glasses, we went to Ritz Carlton for coffee, but they had closed 5 mins earlier. 15 mins parking there was 4 bucks! After that, it was to Queenstown for pool. Man I sucked after not playing for a year. Feeling half-zonked didn't help. It was still good fun.

It was great to know everyone a bit better. I'm not very close to this bunch cos they meet up almost every week while I only join them now and then. Perhaps I'll put in more effort from now on :)

By around 3am, we decided to head home. Managed to save cab fare cos I got a ride back. Only slept around 5am though. Not really sure what I did for over an hr. But got woken up twice by phone calls. Once at 7.30 and again at 11. Think I'll take a nap in the evening.

Gotta back up my files and format my PC today. Net connection's a bit weird and PC has slowed down a lot since I bought it. Hope I won't have any problems with the reinstallation. Wish me luck!

spring cleaning

2005-02-09T17:13:00.000+08:00

ripping all my audio CDs into mp3 and saving them on my ipod mini. just did 2, another 20 or so to go. wonder how much cash converters will pay for them? will be glad to see them go - i used to be such a packrat but after having to move my stuff around a few times, i've learnt the beauty of minimalist living :D

gonna put up some of my unwanted things on yahoo auctions later, then clear my wardrobe of all those never-gonna-wear-again clothes. say goodbye to badly-dressed days! :p

Something to occupy 5 mins of your time...

2005-02-08T16:24:00.000+08:00

Dropped by okcupid.com last night. Took the test once, was told that I was a Billy Goat. Tried it again, got The Slow Dancer this time. 3rd time, round, I was the Mixed Messenger.

Honestly, I see a part of myself in each of these caricatures. Guess few of us can be conveniently pigeon-holed into a discrete category, huh? ;)

why am i still awake?

2005-02-07T22:33:00.000+08:00

Man, am I sleepy! Been sleeping real late and waking up early since I got my broadband activated a few days ago. Could barely concentrate at work today. At least I didn't make any mistakes, though I was a little slow to react. Gonna sleep after writing this. Thankfully I only have to go in at 9.30am tomorrow, though I finish later than most.

Bought myself a Nike tee and a NB polo tee for 60 bucks. Was tempted by a black Billabong short-sleeved shirt for 70 bucks, but it was nett price and I guess there's no hurry. I'll shop around a bit first. Got a lot of never-gonna-wear-again clothes in my wardrobe. Will clear it over the next few days and then go on a shopping spree to fill the gaps. Anyone wanna join me? :D

Stubborn

2005-02-07T01:31:00.000+08:00

Just had a frustrating conversation. How do you help a person who really needs a lot of help but refuses to acknowledge that they need it? Someone who actually says they'd rather bottle it all in till they mentally break?

I'm too tired to figure it out. I've got a long day tomorrow and I need to sleep.

Tennis Critters

2005-02-06T21:25:00.000+08:00

Hit the tennis courts today to practice and get a bit of exercise. Improved slightly, about half my serves went in, but can't rally for nuts :p Did produce a couple of blistering serves that whistled past my partner, pretty happy about that :)

Pity she developed a pain in her wrist after an hour, we had to conclude early. That and a few other things left me feeling a bit bummed right now. Gonna watch some Initial D to relax.

Short week ahead, can't wait!

Gaming Saturday

2005-02-06T13:13:00.000+08:00

Had A & B over on saturday for a gaming session. They complimented me on my clean floors. Well guys, here's a secret - I mopped them just before you came :p

The heady combination of soft drinks, pizza, crisps, chocs and PS2 kept us glued to our seats till 2am. Couldn't last any longer, heh. Canadian Pizza forgot to put the sachets of cheese in our pizza boxes :( and the pizzas seemed to be lacking a bit in the base sauce, but it was good nonetheless.

Loved having you guys over! You're welcome anytime I'm in and free. Same invitation extended to all my good friends! Come take advantage of the fact that I have no parents around, no restrictions, no rules, and a fully-stocked fridge ;p

Darn, lunchtime already. Just finished my breakfast too. Guess it's time to reheat the rest of the pizza. Later!

Big Purchase of the Month - Feb

2005-02-04T21:38:00.000+08:00

After moving out of my parents' place and renting a flat of my own, money's a little tight. I can only afford one big-ticket purchase each month, if at all. But there're just so many things I want to get, and the list grows longer all the time!

So here's your chance to help me decide what to get. I still have final say of course, but if I'm undecided, you might just tip the scales ;)

Feb Wishlist

a) Mobile phone
b) Remote-controlled race car
c) Xbox
d) DVD player/recorder (for recording and then watching all those good shows on cable)

Leaning towards the mobile phone cos my T610 is breaking down, but haven't found any good offers.

Your thoughts?

All About Me

2005-02-04T20:38:00.000+08:00

Ahh, after suffering from internet withdrawal, I'm back and ready to make up for all the lost time!

Old blog died so I'll start afresh with this one. It's gonna be a bit edgier, more open and visceral. You might see a side of me you never expected. I won't hold back so much anymore for fear of offending someone. But I'll still use some common sense and read what I write before I hit that 'send' button.

Enjoy the ride, folks!