sick II, auctioning for modules

have been sick since Friday night, and today has been the worst. Luckily Choo was available to do my afternoon helpdesk duty, otherwise i'm dead meat for sure.

the crazy bidding for modules have started - round 1A from 9am just now till 5pm tomorrow. After a round of discussions on the table, decided on this basket of modules:

- CS2250 (Core - Fundamentals of IS)
Bidders:45/180, Bid:1, Lowest:1, Highest:1234 <----- SIAO!

- CS3214 (Core - IS Development Project)
Bidders:81/140, Bid:1, Lowest:1, Highest:1909 <----- SIAO SIAO!

- MA1505 (Breadth - Mathematics I)
Bidders: ? Advance Bid:1

- GEK1531 (GEM - Introduction to Cybercrime)
Bidders: ? Advance Bid:1

as usual we have some trigger happy fellow mates who decided to wack their fortunes on modules they diedie must take. RAH!

i couldn't clear MA1505 last semester. Something must happen this semester. Either through acts of God or acts of myself to pass this.

NUS CORS - Auctioneering comes to a world class institution near you.

JJ & 金莎 - 发现爱, 被风吹过的夏天

发现爱


被风吹过的夏天

the girl is 金莎 (Cream). Whom appeared in Jean Yip's commercial.

and she's born in Shanghai!

the following songs are dedicated to 2 gals i know...


空气


委屈

finally, something to lighten up moods.


不可思议

ndp preview

although i was sick, i went to city to look for a keyboard replacement.

my old keyboard had the same problem for the 2nd time. Gave up...!

The ENTER key gave way again.zzzz

my shortlisted replacement is Microsoft Reclusa, which is a gaming keyboard. However i'm more interested in the backlit keys...

Expensive pricetag of $119

nope, i was not very convinced to buy due to the pricetag. Wait for a few more days before deciding.

had a quick dinner at Food Junction (Funan), then walked to Esplanade hoping to catch the fireworks.

That's the best view i can get

The starfishes floating in from Clifford area

Fireworks atop buildings! UOB, NTUC Income and one more

Began at around 8.08pm

Too smoky la.

I thought it was over. 2 minutes later, another boom!

it's odd that the fireworks were fired from the same spot (it seemed). There wasn't any variation, such as lower tiered shoots across the landscape. The end result was a very smoky sky, which even obscured some portions of the fireworks.

then i planned to take 960 home, to test out on the frequency. As expected, it took 27 minutes for a bus to appear. This is unacceptable... so i wrote in to feedback. If SMRT Buses don't improve the frequency, it's time to suggest SBST take over key trunk routes such as 61, 106, 190 and 960.

even the train frequency sucks because they want to save cost. Vote PAP next season? Over my dead body unless MOT restructures SMRT Corp.

sick :(

the stupid flu on thursday was a warning sign. Heck, i didn't really care about it. When i woke up with a coarse throat on friday, that was it.

although i enjoyed the tomyam soup, fried wings and chilli kangkong from ThaiExpress yesterday, i was a dead man after that. Even HK say i pua beh liao =x

enjoying my new diet - strepsils, painkiller for my headache, flu meddy. SONG BO!!!

ps: Reyas, thanks for being my colleague and classmate for the past year and 8 months. What you told me may be quite a heartpain to hear, but you've made the first move to be truly marketable in the working society. Sure, the civil service might be paying you nicely, but there is a dependency on it after some time. One of the strategic HRM quotes - focus on your employability, not employment security in the new paradigm.

Cheers and take care in your new job.

new blogskin, and omg. Hebe!

spent 2hrs on finding a new blogskin, because the simple black one has been with me for close to 3 months. Not that i'm tired of it (maybe i am, because my iRiver and U600 are Mr Whites), but someone's blog is also using the same thing. NooOooo!!!

as i started blogging with Blogger 2.0, i'm in touch with the concept with the xml based widgets (and their powerful functionality). However that meant i have no knowledge of how the old Blogger templates worked, thus i tried to use older templates for my blog. Nearly lost my beloved widgets =x

luckily Google helped me out, and found a couple of widget/xml skins from FinalSense and BlogCrowds. I liked the fleur background more than the butterflies, thus adapted it into the FinalSense template. Some fellow blogger advice also gave me some preparation for the transition. However, the toughest part is changing the fonts and their sizes to suit me. 1.5hrs on that - 4am!

so as a result, i woke up late even for lunch. Luckily Jac was quite easy on it. I'm behind you, hope you get your necklace (or $24) back! :)

and JY! Too soft hearted la. Vicky, hold more confiding sessions for her! =x


now, some pictures of my deeds yesterday.

after 5-7 years on the Helpdesk counter, it's time to make way for...

this! A spanking new IBM 19 incher complete with a P4 3.0GHz lean and mean ThinkCentre!

i've changed the Epson printer's PC too. Named it "Publication", because it's supposed to print out nice stuff.

the Helpdesk PC for students' use is also gone. Swapped in a faster P4, hope the problem of looooong logins will be gone for good. I'm going to name it "Consultation" tomorrow. muahahaa.

my office's desktop is called "Ambition". What should i name my laptop as? Hmm.... Motion? Unstationary? Progression? lolz.

here's a parting shot of my favourite song, and Hebe. She really rocks. I'm in love with her.

ps: however, i'm sad for the ending. How can the guy do that.... reminded of my past. It's over anyway, zm =)

i'm featured!

tuesday was the day where i FINALLY treated some of my colleagues to a simple KFC/PizzaHut delivery meal. If you're not aware why i used FINALLY, i was thinking of the treat since November 2006 =x

was sian 0.5 as i had to buy the drinks myself, plus the ice. It's alright now :)

after the meal, i helped Sabrina out with building a master clone for the Fortify training on wednesday. Like what she said, i'm feeling pretty high from building clones for almost everything i can reach my hands on since Oracle training.

wednesday was the day where my manager treated all of us to a meal @ Sakura (Northpoint's Vietnam cuisine). Besides a goodwill gesture for the amount of help rendered during the Oracle training, it was also to treat Reyas as he is leaving NYP soon.

after the meal, i've started building another base clone for the workstation model (Compaq D510 convertible) that's going to be installed in my lab soon (december 07). Have changed the helpdesk workstation, since it has been there since god knows when (it was a archaic P3-800MHz) to a rather new-old IBM ThinkCentre. Also, started to prepare a HP xw4200 for the tok-kong Epson printer since even a Pentium 4 2.4GHz can't handle a simple A1 print job.

by now, you may find that both days seemed similar. My manager hinted me to give another treat (!!!). Will the same scenario happen on Friday? Will my pocket suffer another good squeeze?

some auxiliary matters; i also had the odd luck of seeing odd couples in the train. Tuesday was a gay couple arguing until Admiralty. Just now was a normal couple, except that the lady looked very much like a male. Her chest was almost flat, facial features more like a man. Aw...... =x

so what is the main topic for today? I'm featured by one of the Oracle guests in his photoblog!

Me acting in front of my digital DVR, plus San San from Vcampus

i want to reclaim my stationary items from San San. Paying a visit to CPF Building soon. rawrrrrrrr.

stay at nyp apartment

so i "checked in" to my temporary home at blk 170 on sunday morning.

however i had to make trips back to office to retrieve stuff like paper, facial cleanser etc. There was another China visit in my block, thus the lighting etc were turned on by Mervyn. I accidentally bumped into Principal on my 2nd trip to office =x i was as timid as a mouse, opened the door and scurried off.

This is the living room. BIG!

ONE of the bedrooms. There are 2 bedrooms in each 2nd floor unit, 3 otherwise

Bathtub!

2nd floor, but view is already good

besides handling checkouts for my Oracle guests, sunday was the day i watched television the most. it's probably the amount of time spent in a typical month! Other than that, i completed updating my Portfolio's CPU database. Lunch was a quick one at Blk 505.

dinner was with SI platoon mates, at Yuki Yaki. It's fairly nice, except i overpaid because i didn't really eat much. The DIY ice cream was ok too, but $5 more per pax! Anyway it was a good opportunity to catch up with friends such as Dan, Daniel, Nelson, Jason, etc.

decided to return to the apartment to stay for the night, since it's almost functional as a typical hotel room. It ended up quite bad as i slept on the sofa, which was sooo hard. I watched a creepy show on Ch 8 too, which added on to the eerie feeling in the unit.

but the overall experience was great, minus the self scare.

monday was spent on clearing the function hall used for the Saturday's closing ceremony, restoring the NYP Lounge, movement of furniture, etc. Bought a mobile processor at $260, for my server upgrade. Heartpain arr.....

The newest processor i'm adding into my stable of chips

with this addition, i have a Celeron M 350J (1.3GHz), Pentium M 725 (1.6GHz), 730 (1.6GHz), Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHz). When overclocked, these demons eat many older processors, including Pentium 4s, for lunch and dinner.

i'm on my way to running a Intel museum with many more Pentium 3 keychains in my store. However, no Pentium 4 chips as it's crap. I'm selling off the P4 2.8C chip i got earlier.

JY, jiayou ba! :)

oracle's closing ceremony

the event finally ended few hours ago. The constant network congestion didn't manifest today because of the lower traffic.... however the aircon was terrible. As usual the campus is very aggressive in energy conservation.

however there is a problem - no one was assigned to handle checkouts for the participants, even the organisers tried to shirk their responsibility off. So manager spent a great deal of time trying to persuade the organisers, Oracle, security guards to provide a personnel to do it. No deal! So i suggested myself to do the job, with a sum requested though. Another reason was i wanted to try out the apartments, since i've not seen it before.

so, i'm reporting for work tomorrow. At the apartments, blk 170.

Morning's teabreak - what a spread

Donuts too

YUM! Look at the strawberries!

The closing ceremony at Theatre for the Arts

More wonders here

Satay!

FONDUE! *.*

Manager drove me down town, then i took a train to VivoCity's Citibank to collect my Clear Card. By now, most of the young would have heard of this.

The Citi Clear Card

The amount of vouchers - i can get my SE-DS980 soon!

Ocean's 14 - Premiere

There is no synopsis or spoiler for the premiere. It's all in the picture! However, no jackpot prizes for correct guesses.

oracle's finale, dining @ xin wang

the Oracle training is finally coming to a close soon! NYP has been a really good host because of staff that have been filling up all the *gaps*! Such as sourcing tables, chairs and even flowers when we weren't the organisers; just a host! *ahem ahem* i should not comment anymore.

but hey, all in all it has been an excellent experience for me. Besides dabbling in real technical support (the participants are trainers from China, India, HK, etc- Oracle is training the trainers), i've tried my hand at event coordination between my manager and Vcampus, the actual event manager.

friday afternoon was largely spent on pulling my manager around to help me tie up some deals; such as asking other departments to open doors and such. Then i guided the movers around to carry whatever were needed. Sabrina was alone at the helpdesk, thus things were kinda tough for her. JY called to inform about a printer jam, so went back to fix it.

so everything was done within a few finger snaps (not my fingers). Vcampus staff didn't really look very eager to complete the stuff though... argh.

washed my face, and oh the pimple is getting larger and larger!!!! Went for dinner with gay friends, at Xin Wang!

Marina Square's Xin Wang.
The queue system is rather bad. They PICK a suitable customer from the queue that fits THEIR tables nicely.
Then what's the queue for!?

The manual. Note the chinese characters are traditional chars. Quite the same.
However a typical HK menu is written in complete Chinese, no ang moh at all

Their recommendations... hmmz

I won't leave the place without trying their noodles

Some of their drinks are placed in metal tins, unique.
But they can try the HK concept of having a cup of hot tea to rinse chopsticks.. heh

Jam and peanut butter toast - sorry, i was too slow to snap

The siew mai and har kow - the shrimp is bad... at least not comparable with HK's

Grilled char siew with egg and rice - char siew was so so only

Baked rice, forgot which flavour.
Simon stopped eating at 50% after seeing the mango snow ice =x

This was the $1 deal - buy 2 main dishes, get this or another soup at $1

Kailan with oyster - ok for me

I was so disappointed with the wanton.
It's so tiny and can be worse than some hawker stalls. MINUS marks!

When i called iced red bean in Shanghai, i got a shock.
This sight gave me the same level of shock too

Argument on session vs cookies. I was more interested with sights around. lol

what's the verdict on Xin Wang? Good for normal meals, however i'd skip it and head to HK for a better meal. A bowl of wanton mee is only HKD20 vs HKD35 here, and the quality is standard almost everywhere - thumbs up.

fattening day, and night safari!

tuesday was rather off key, because i'm quite tired. Also, there were free breakfast, morning tea-break, afternoon tea-break to keep me full (and sleepy) the whole day. Shifted yet another item down to my new shelter; my favourite set of Creative Soundworks FPS1800. Otherwise the new room is so big and quiet.

The food was great, but 5 free meals a day is not a joke

so i thought this was a less busy day. Oh man, i was nearly right. SS (the organizer) dropped a bomb on my manager, whom called me at 5.30pm to look for people to carry chairs. I was going to leave at 6pm for Night Safari!

how to carry 15 chairs from my block to the staff apartment block (200-300m away) in 30mins, when only me and the helpdesk officer (Reyas) were available? LLST, got to get the job done. I told my manager; we would carry them if and only if someone else carries them back. Sorry in case i sounded blunt, but the organizers could have sent the red alert earlier, not when everyone is going home. A good host can only be good when everyone tries to expedite matters, not by the last minute!

anyway the job was done, and i missed the dinner at $4.80 zichar. Thanks wenqun, he eventually came by at around 7pm.

am i that gullible? Tricked and tricked over and over! Should know what i meant right? *bish*

the photos are not yet ready, however the post safari photos are.

What is the name of these pratas again? Paper?

The bugger beside me had an intellectual dialogue on MOLES
Someone explain the concept of MOLES to him please.
CHEMICAL MOLES!!!

please, guys who understand what i'm talking - an Ocean's 14 premiere is going to be shown later. When i get the necessary photos (gal email me the stuff!), k!

WARNING: Ocean's 14 can be potentially hilarious or downright revolting for some. The visual effects might be so stunning to digest at the beginning, yet it's a happy ending for the characters in the movie. Don't understand? It's ok, just be prepared.

packed monday, with blues

usually a monday is normally called monday blues, but today i had no time to even call it blue.

reached NYP at 7am, then proceeded to get the Lounge equipment fully charged. Ran up to 2 labs and finished up the cloning work i left over last Saturday. Got abit panicky when the clock read 7.35am, then ran down to my temporary room, picked up my equipment and ran to the Lounge at Blk A. And gee, my manager was already there. oops.

the AV setup was fine, in fact no hiccups occurred. The opening ceremony went on successfully, and the participants (many from India, China) walked over to Blk L for their lab-based lessons. The workstation requirement was pretty simple, thus there wasn't any trouble. More trouble came from the administrative office, where the pretty ladies kept coming over to print this, print that, photocopy this and that -.-"

lunch was also at the Lounge, and i had to accompany one of the ladies, SS to turn on the lights etc. Afternoon was pretty ok, except that the Internet was rather slow. Guest wireless access was also rushed through by Sunny, and this is a potential AAR topic!

evening was darn hectic. I was juggling my helpdesk duty with the banquet dinner at the Lounge. The bigwigs such as Oracle's boss and our school's Director also came. Luckily Choo was at the helpdesk to help me out till 7pm, thereafter i rushed like mad to close all unused rooms. Why? In case my Director comes in and ask why the lights, aircon, workstations are all on. I don't want to be answering for that given my clean record =x

some guys were smoking in the Level 5 handicap toilet. And one of them is related to Jac =x

i also saw that someone in a lecture room! Really... not bad. Can i get to know you?... haha

everything ended so late. And, no time to even shit or wash my face until 11pm. It's 7-11, 7am to 11pm... argh. On the way out i met some participants, and wow they went shopping at Mustafa! Really on for first time visitors... hehe.

hope tuesday will be better. I want to hide in my room.

shopping at simlim, dinner

after sat's half day work, i rushed home to wash up and be ready before 2pm. So Wenqun can pick me up in time to go down simlim. However he was at someone's place, and needed 20 mins more. So i waited and spent my time logging into Blogger, and typed out the previous post! However, they called me only when they reached my kopitiam and finished eating.... 20+15 mins later. Don't worry dudes! I'm very forgiving! =x

and his good friend wanted to buy a brand-name desktop, which I readily suggested Acer Aspire L320. The other choice was HP Pavilion s3100, but the specifications were poorer at the same price, except for the additional discrete graphics processor. Great; i helped to haggle for an additional AIO inkjet and after a round of checking, the deal was done at PA Mart.

dessert was at Ice Monster! However it wasn't as good as HK's 许留山. I've not tried the latter, but it has already been earmarked in my itinerary as a daily dessert :D

Wenqun being the really nice guy, drove his good friend to Vivo for the latter's class gathering, and we went for our guy talk at HBF's Sakae. Then chitchat at 211, plus some quick introduction to the kopi gang.

That loli costs $25 for the record

Ocean's 14 may be released earlier. Watch this space as this is the definitive broadcast center.


sometimes people were too absorbed into something, such as a paper or career ladder chase, that everything else is superficial. I have been there, and is unlikely to make such a sacrifice again.

too much of anything is always not healthy.

drinking is never a tool to solve problems. Stare at yourself in the mirror. Drink for what fuck? The problems become even deeply entrenched that it murders your good old self, and affects one's ability to tell right or wrong. I've been there too, and the cost of the drinks were already excruciating at 211 kopitiam, more so if i add any cover charges.

nothing to comment on asking for perfection, since it's not my life too. However, why try to run others' lives the same way you run yours? Satisfaction from keeping yourself happy, while happiness of others wrecked?

not sure. I'm not in a position to say too much since i'm already being judged in a negative light since that painful mistake.

there's one thing i'm sure though. Time will tell everything.

hectic week

finally, the week is coming to a close!

let me recap internally, what happened since monday. My manager tasked me to technically support an Oracle training from 16-21 July. Reason being, it was a commercial deal so she got a part-timer to support, instead of a full-time staff.

So i was working overtime to build master clones for 2 labs, which has 75 workstations, spread over 3 HP workstation models. Also cleared off the furniture and workstations in a meeting room, since the organisers wanted that for tea breaks.

finally i had the opportunity to learn the operation of the NYP Lounge with excellent support from Estate Mgmt plus the young men from my side... lolz. Not to mention the pretty gal from the organising company, Melissa who went around hanging signages while we carried the 1-ton cast iron signage holders... grrr.

the labs are almost ready for action! Even the LCD screens were carefully wiped to remove finger prints. Good customer service and got to make it my best since i'm doing it the first time =)


i also took out 3 tiles from my office for burnishing, since it was sooooo dirty. The cleaners kindly helped me with it, thanks to them!

See the dirt. awww

Clean! And shiny!

however, i'm already shifting 50% of my stuff out to another room in the staff area, since it's more conducive for working (and maybe studying). Friday evening was spent on stacking up the mess.

i nearly got hurt while stacking 5 LCD monitors up on a shelf. The metal shelf collapsed, causing all of them to rain downwards on me. Ouch. Hope i didn't sustain internal brain damage... and i should get an extra SAF helmet just in case =x


celeste has some problems with her team, hope she can focus on her portion and finish them. No point fighting fire or burning bridges when the term is coming to a close. Jac is busy with her Flash... figuring out how to do. Sorry i can't help, since i learnt only Flash 4. I still remember her words, 咚一块就有答案. I didn't know i became a toy machine sia, wah lau -.-

it's time to relaxx!

work, work and work

i have to apologise for the lack of any new entries, because i'm simply too entrenched in work.

oracle training is held next week, and i'm put in charge of such an event for the first time. Although it sounds simple to some (just clone, sit by and relax? ya right), i actually had the first try on building my own clone images. Along with the need to learn additional stuff such as the AV equipment, print posters, check cleanliness, hunt down faulty computers, my time is now quite very constricted.

and it doesn't help when i have to shift my helpdesk duties next week away, causing some mayhem now.

the amount of extra time put in is now enough to pay myself another month of allowance! Incredible! How to clear them?!

Minteck and Michelle came to talk to students to advertise SMU, and the turnout was good. I personally found the etiquette training interesting, and apart from that opportunities are brighter, since the intake is smaller.

for NUS, it's hard looking for some prestigious companies to do internship in, since the pie is fought by so many people. The same goes for overseas learning, under the NUS SEP and NOC programmes.

what's more important is the drive (which i'm seriously lacking), plus a bit of skill and luck (to avoid being crushed by the infamous bell curve). Of course, the x-factor to make friends and Profs like YOU!

congrats, pansy!

... and your hubby Yeng Hwee! It was my pleasure to attend your wedding dinner at Sheraton. We enjoyed the multimedia presentation!

i acquired the title of the great eater for the table, as my appetite was really good. Strangely, i don't really eat that much outside (i hate buffets =x)

Please, 早生贵子!

apart from Yuqin, Teck and Teddy, Reyas also came by! However, the muslim food wasn't really that great for him.

Reyas and Teddy

Yuqin and Teck

The star of the night!

nypians, there will be a further education talk by my old classmate Jeff Hong (Teck) this coming 11 July. He is from SMU's School of Information Systems, and is speaking to current SIT students to advertise his school and bachelor programmes. Time and place? 3pm at LTL-3. Please attend if you are interested in further studies!

i will be there to find out more on my competitor, too. *grin*

entry edited on 080707: added photos