...

Recalling my maternal grandmother's funeral...

-phone rings-

Receptionist: Hello good morning. This is Dr Tan's dental surgery. I'm calling regarding your dental appointment for this morning...

Darren: Hi. Yes. I left you a message yesterday saying that I will not be able to go this week as I will be at my grandmother's funeral. Sorry about that.

R: I see. I did not get that message.

D: Yes you did. You sent me a sms yesterday and I replied to it saying that I will be at my grandmother's funeral which I am currently at. I have it in my sent items right now.

R: No sir. Let me check if I received it.

D: Excuse me, as I said, I am at my grandmother's funeral right now and I think your checking does not matter at this point now, does it?

R: Ok sir. Would you like me to arrange another date for you?

D: Seriously, can we do this another time? Now's not a good time for me to talk about something like this.

R: Ok sir. How about I place you down for some time next month?

D: I am at my grandmother's funeral and am walking after her coffin this very moment. If you would please allow me some privacy, I do not wish to talk about something like this right now.

R: Ok sir. Thank you. Goodbye.

-end of phone call-

I think I need a change in dentist now... anyone has any good recommendations?

rumours

yet again, friends have been telling me rumours that they've heard about me so far. i guess everyone has rumours about them floating around... part and parcel of life i suppose. just to set the records straight if any of you who have heard the rumours are ever interested:

Rumour 1: Darren created the scholarship for publicity reasons
Reply 1: False. It created more unwarranted publicity which I did not want. Friends have asked me to stop the scholarship now that it has achieved its "intended purpose". I have only reacted with disdain to their suggestion. The scholarship will continue because I believe in it.

Rumour 2: Darren joined ASoc mainly for career advancement reasons
Reply 2: False. If that were true, I would have joined Cognitare instead. I joined ASoc as, like the scholarhip, I believed in it.

Rumour 3: Darren has interviewed with (pick any of the following) CS / GS / ML / MS / DB / UBS / JPM IB depts
Reply 3: True / False. Yes I have interviewed with some of the above with the view of getting to know the market better

Rumour 4: Darren has been offered a position by (pick any of the following) CS / GS / ML / MS / DB / UBS / JPM IB depts
Reply 4: True / False. Yes I have been offered positions for the places I interviewed for

Rumour 5: Darren has left to join (pick any of the following) CS / GS / ML / MS / DB / UBS / JPM IB depts
Reply 5: False. No. I am thankful for the offers but am happy where I am.

hope that clears up matters for those who are interested in knowing the truth.

Whoa...

Few weeks ago... someone told me her relative named their kid after me last year when news of the scholarship first broke out... even though they've never met me before... Scary to say the least. Sorry miss, but you chose the wrong person to name your kid after. haha :p

Toilet seat decision maker

Recently, a close friend and I were discussing jokingly the age old question... whether it was an inherent obligation for all men to leave the seat down. She, being female, naturally felt that it was so. I believed that it's more of a case-by-case basis. ie: it might make more sense to leave the seat up in an all-male household.

So, just for laughs, I took a rare few minutes out of few pre-bed ritual to make this smashing toilet seat decision maker.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8ZOYOTNW

Enjoy. Erm. If there's anything to enjoy.

Feel free to spread it around if you so desire.

How stupid can you get?!

It's 2am but I HAD to complain... so here's a quickie:

My brother just told me the following real life incident that happened in Copenhagen where he's on an exchange program (but of course, I paraphrase as always):

SMU exchange student to American-born Chinese (ABC) exchange student: Excuse me, would you like to work together on this project?

ABC exchange student to SMU exchange student: I'm sorry but i only want to form a group with native english speakers.

And the ABC girl knows that the SMU student is from Singapore.

Excuse me while I curse and swear... #)$*(&@)&#*($&@!!!!! As you can see, I've started cursing a lot as of late... bad habit. sigh.

Anyway, 2 things to you miss ABC girl...

1. Wake up your idea and get your head out of your stinking gutter you stuck up ****h /*****r / ******e. Singaporeans learn english as a first language. Even if you didn't know that, do not assume that a fellow chinese who is not coolio-Americano can't speak proper English. It is utterly surprising that someone from the same race could have gotten it oh so so so wrong about us.

2. You're on an exchange program in Denmark. Why in the bloody world should you be limiting yourself to ''native english'' speakers?! I understand that that is obviously the easier route... but doesn't that entirely defeat the purpose of going on an exchange program?!

Now that that's over and done with, a quick disclaimer, as is always necessary in a growingly litigious society.

The above passage was aimed at only one person and that is the aforementioned person. I know many americans who have been extremely friendly and open to new cultures, regardless of race and religion. It is unfortunately disappointing that this ABC girl does not seem to be one of them.

another short revival

it's been a long time since i haven't had to think (much) about work. today's my first ever break since training. phew. it's really much appreciated! i wonder if the security guard at my work place is wondering why he didn't see me.

anyway, since i had some time.... someone suggested i blogged. and i thought hey why not seems like a good idea. then i realised i have no idea what to say. alamak.

not very smart huh?

oh ok. i know now. there's been something i've wanted to clarify for the longest time. and now that it has kinda died down i guess it would be a good time to talk about it.

the scholarship.

some of you might know about it. some of you might not. if you don't, then i rather you don't. it's not a big deal at all.

ok i' ve had questions about why and blah blah blah and that's fine. but there were two things i heard (not from the horses mouth of course) that really shocked me.

1. a friend suggested that it was done in order for me to win the school award that i was lucky enough to win.
2. a few friends suggested that it was done to further myself "politically" in the work place.

i wldnt be shocked if someone i didnt know mentioned it since they don't know who i am. but for people who call me a friend and to think of me that way.... well..... i don't know what to say.

in reference to part 1: the scholarship was formed long before there was ever any talk about the school award. i did it the first week i returned from my exchange when i suggested it to dean pang. and since its formation, the original plan was to have that scholarship announced during the accounting portion of commencement in its own individual ceremony instead of during the speech that i gave. it was only after the award was won that the plans changed. in fact, i never mentioned the scholarship once during my interview for the award. if you're wondering why i won the award, i can tell you it's partly because of luck, and partly because of the people around me. was it because of the scholarship? i believe the school is not so shallow as to have done, or even thought, that.

in reference to part 2: why would the scholarship further me in the workplace? that i simply don't understand. if anything, it has only brought about attention which i'm uncomfortable receiving. think about it. i'm new, i know absolutely nothing about the industry compared to all my colleagues.... something like this would definitely to some extent raise their expectations of me. in all honesty, it would have been better for me "politically" if this didn't hit the news at all. i was so glad i was away in training when the news first hit... who would have thought a second round would come when i got back. ah well.

question to you: must all kind actions be politically-motivated?

my apologies if i'm coming off naive but that's the way i feel about the whole thing.

i started something that i believe in. and having met the recipient... i am so much more encouraged to continue with the scholarship.

hui fang, i know you probably won't be reading this. but i hope you're having fun in barca!

the dead blog is resuscitated for a few seconds

some of you have been asking where i disappeared to.

i've been working seven days a week and going back in the mornings every day since coming back from london training.

the only time i'm back before 12 is when i bring work back home to do.

bright side is i'm learning a lot and i'm really pushing myself out of my comfort zone... i've made a few mistakes at work... but i guess the best way to learn is to fail.

i know i'll come out of this stronger and wiser. already i've learnt so much... and yet there's so much more to learn.

thank god for supportive colleagues and friends and family and leonora.

for tomorrow! :)

Not Emeritus, but Expired

Allow me to declare this blog EXPIRED! Nope... the days of Emeritus are over. From now onwards... the blog posts will be even RARER (is there such a word?) than they have already been this year. Under Emeritus, this blog churned out a grand total of 4 posts in about as many months. Now that it has expired... expect close to zero.

I finally received a call today asking me down to sign some employment papers tomorrow... the given starting date is coming monday... i hope to push it back a week as there are still things i need to settle (namely the SMU yearbook and video) but if i'm not successful... then it's goodbye world from Monday onwards.

From my understanding... the place that I'll be going to will be very tough and I'll probably be doing many 18 hours days... possibly if I'm lucky... Apparently 12 hours days at my new work place are a rare luxury. As such, blogging will be nigh impossible.

I do look forward to it though. It will be an interesting challenge and it will definitely pose many many new learning opportunities for me.

And at the very least... I will be nicely compensated. Thank god for that!

See you world! Goodbye!

update: i was able to push the start date 1 week. phew :) but still... ta ta world :D

funny gossips :S

jackie chia shumin just told me she heard i'm working at jp morgan.

Eh.... sorry to disappoint ah.... but i'm still really truly unemployed. Haven't signed any documents yet.

Deh! Who's the bugger out there spreading rumours of my imaginary employment?

Haha!


and someone also asked me saying he heard i've found myself a chio gf.

sigh. word spreads around like wildfire eh? hello. i where got chio gf. it's SUPER DAMN CHIO LOR!

:S

Emeritus Post 3: more angst?! :S

yo. third emeritus post. my emeritus posts are getting "relatively" regular eh? once every fortnight / month... wonder if this will continue for long. anyway, this post contains two sections... one, rather angsty. two, rather silly. but the bulk of it will be in part 1... u can consider this yet another angsty post then. geez, so far every single one of my emeritus posts have had quite a bit of angst haven't they? queer. queer indeed. Ah well. maybe i have people to share my joy with but use this medium to share my angst.

Part 1: Dilemma
I'm not sure if i've mentioned this before... but I have very little respect for people who cheat on their partners. If I were to meet someone new and know that he/she's a player (through reputation, etc), I would normally have a very bad impression of that person. It's just the way I am and I never really figured out why. Maybe it's because I was single for a very very very long time and could have been subconciously jealous of guys with many gfs... which would in turn make me really pissed if they didn't appreciate their relationships.

Whilst I have little respect for players... Ok ok, I understand that if the person only fools around with willing parties... at least no one's being hurt in the process since everyone in that equation made the matured decision to do so. In such a scenario, I normally disrespect the act, but I'm still perfectly alright with the person since he/she did not hurt anyone.

I draw the line when it comes to someone cheating behind their partner's back. That person would be lying to and hurting their partner... someone they claim to care for and love. That is something I cannot in any way at all condone. A common excuse of some of these guys is that they've stopped loving their current partner. If that is indeed the case, then end the current relationship before moving on to someone else. Some have even more elaborate excuses but the fact is if you want to end a relationship, you can, regardless of the situation. It's not an easy thing to do but it's gotta be done. By keeping on to the current relationship while looking for someone else, you're lying to your partner and probably lying to the new third party by confessing you love the new party when in actual fact you're not truly doing so by holding on to an old relationship.

Love is about caring and giving, by being selfish and holding onto the old relationship whilst enjoying the new one... you're neither giving nor caring. You're only receiving and taking. The best word that comes to mind describing such a person is probably a vulgur one.

I could continue this entire tirade on why I feel such an act to be despicable but I'm pretty certain I'm not alone in feeling the way I do about it. There would be little value in me repeating things you already know. Or at least I HOPE you know. ;)

The dilemma comes in when someone I know and call a friend is guilty of such an act. I was very surprised at the amount of such stuff going on when I entered SMU. I guess I was just a little to naivete in the field of relationships because of my rather nerdy nature. Since coming to SMU, I've been able to close one eye to friends who cheat. Normally, I only find out a person's a player after I've befriended him / her. By then, that other party would already have called me a friend and have treated me with nothing but respect, concern, and kindness as friends normally do one another. Because of that, I know it would be rude for me to judge a person who has treated me well based on one of the things they do... and I end up closing one eye to their philandering, hoping that they change their ways one day.

The biggest dilemma, however, (and this has happened to me more than once with different people) comes when a friend cheats on another friend of mine. Now this is a lot more painful for me to make any decision on. The cheater has treated me well and deserves no ill-will from me. Yet the person who was hurt by the cheater is someone I also care for and for me to treat the cheater well... that would in some way be betraying my loyalty to the person who was cheated. And I find myself torn between to opposing loyalties.

Of course, in the end, like most people do, I "side" (not really side, but rather, remain closer to) the person I'm more familiar. But if that person's the cheater... I end up feeling like I'm part of the whole she-bang... a she-bang which I vehemently detest (yes, I believe these strong words are justified).

Is there a solution to all this? Probably not. Some guys and girls will continue going on to hurt more people and all I can do is just watch and from time to time warn people I know away from known philanderers... ah well. At least through this post, I've made my stand clear on this issue. At least I can sleep better at night. By a bit.

Part 2: Some Silly Stuff

Here at SMU, we have lots of presentations. From time to time, a professor might hint that he or she would like some entertainment thrown in. Some groups do skits, others do videos, and some do really elaborate and creative things... all in the name of impressing the prof. This field, of course, is LARGELY reserved for freshmen who think they're oh so cool cos they know how to do dumb stuff. yes my impression of some freshmen i've met is largely that of unimpressed and sometimes I wonder how I could have been so dumb :S. (argh darren... be humble! stop thinking like that! you must be humble! -mediate.... hummmm......- you can do it!) I'm glad to say, however, that I've met freshmen too whom I feel have potential. We need more fellas like those people.

As SMU students go into their senior years they begin to realise the UNimportance of videos in the real world and grow to see them as mere gimmicks to keep the class awake or to have a simple laugh or two about. It was thus to my surprise that my strategy prof was looking for an entertainment factor... and my group... being a bunch of corny loser idiots (aside from doreen of course) decided to do something stupid for our presentation.

We did 3 video skits... each one introducing one of the strategies we discussed for Raffles Medical Group's health tourism revenue stream: Battle (Doreen acts as a Japanese tourist coming to Singapore because it's cheap), Brawn (I act as an Indonesian Chinese going to Penang because of its location), and Brains (Weiyang and Lester act as Mainland Chinese coming to Singapore for an operation they can't get elsewhere).

http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=52911 Battle

http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=52919 Brain

http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=52928 Brawn

many thanks to say eng for allowing us to use his photo :)

These videos have, by far, the worst editing that I've ever done... simple because they didn't need any. It merely relied on a damn retarded script. Hopefully you'll enjoy them as much as the class did.

and btw...

I'm an Audi TT!

You're not the fastest, nor the most nimble, but you're cute and you have style. You're not intensely competitive, but when you pass by, everyone turns to look.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

The Biasedness and Ignorance that is America

Emeritus post 2 - DP World and the USA

Ok ok, so the title of this post is extreme ly strong and probably unwarranted. I just wanted to sensationalise the title a bit, can? Geez :p

Anyway, those in Singapore would know the DP world / P&O deal pretty well. PSA, our own local, govet-linked port operator was fighting against United Arab Emirates' DP world over UK company P&O for the longest time. While there was a big hoo ha in Singapore during the bidding battle over who will win and the possible reasons why each party might come out the winner... it was no surprise to anyone that the winner was the highest bidder... in this case, DP World. Fair and square eh?

So after this big hoo-ha in Singapore was over and done with... the very same deal caused a huge uproar in the states. Turns out P&O owned some American ports and the Americans were unhappy that a govt-linked Middle Eastern firm was taking over some of their precious ports. Anyway, to cut a long story short, here's the time line (without the exact dates cos i'm lazy to check)

DP world and PSA both announce they want UK company P&O
DP world offers, PSA counters, and DP world counters that counter to win the bid
FINALLY the americans notice the deal and are unhappy about it over "national security concerns"
DP world attempts lobbying but fights a losing battle. doesn't help that they aren't familiar with USA's lobbying system.
George bush says he wants the deal to go through
DP world voluntarily offers to have itself inspected by the USA
Congress votes overwhelmingly AGAINST the deal even BEFORE the inspection was done
DP world offer to transfer the american ports to an american company

here are some links that i got the above from
link 1: Dubai's progress
link 2: The senate's decision
link 3: transfer of assets
all 3 are from the new york times
of course there were many other stuff i read, but these are just some of the few i've found.

so what do i think of this whole issue?

The biasedness of the American media and the ignorance of many (I can't say all or that would make me a biased person myself. heh.) American people is most evidently expressed in this whole brouhaha.

The media

First let's look at the media's role. We all know the media's power in influencing our way of thinking. Even the slightest choice of words can cause use to decide one way instead of another.

take link 2's quote as an example:
"DP World's takeover was a special case: a state-owned company from the Middle East buying a sensitive American asset. Most multinationals that invest in the United States come from Western industrial democracies and are unlikely to be subject to such scrutiny."

The line, is technically, true. But doesn't it only tell a part of the whole story? The whole story is that DP world from the UAE (an ally of the united states, a country concerned more with progress than jihad, and a country that has NOT been churning out terrorists the way countries like Iraq and Pakistan have) is purchasing a UK firm which happens to own American ports, amongst many other countries'.

Yet that very line above insinuates the following... it HINTS that the company is from a zone which has acrimonious feelings towards america and that the company is intentionally purchasing ONLY american ports.

Of course if I were an American reading that line... i jus might get quite pissed and try ways to protect my country... but the fact is, the media intentionally portrayed it as such... a way which is obviously misleading.

The people

So since i've placed blame on the american media, why do i blame the american people? (some, not all)

national security is of course of utmost importance. ports of course are of utmost importance too.

the media gave many americans the wrong idea too.

the point here is that i personally believe that they jumped to a conclusion way too soon over way too little information. i'm not sure how the senators and congressmen came to their decision. i suspect that it has a lot to do with the hatred towards the deal in the population as a whole to begin with.

why do i say they jumped to a conclusion too soon with too little information? in every single report, it was said that the americans are afraid of having a middle eastern country controlling some of their sensitive assets.

without understanding the country that is UAE, the assumption here made by the americans is that the UAE has connections with countries or organisations that would like to cause american harm. whilst i cannot profess to be an expert on middle eastern affairs, i am fairly certain that the UAE has always been a proponent of economic progress and has not muddled itself in the religious wars that its neighbours are involved in. if the above is indeed true, it would seem that the UAE has no intention whatsoever of hurting the US' ports.

yet the assumption that all middle eastern countries are out to hurt the USA was wat lead the americans (Some, not all) to decide what they decided on.

Dudes, before you make such an important decision, please find out as much information as you can. I'd be willing to bet that many of them never knew that the world's biggest shopping centre and most expensive hotel are all in Dubai. Maybe a slightly smaller amount would think of Dubai as a land filled with people plotting the death of the USA :S

My belief seems to be supported further by the fact that the senate and congress made their decision even before a national security investigation on DP world was even conducted! if the americans had conducted an investigation and actually found evidence of security concerns that merit cancelling the deal... then i say fine, fair enough. but they made their decision before all the information was made available to them. they made their decision based on their own assumptions. that, in itself, shows the biasedness (which led to their assumptions) and the ignorance (cos they didn't find out the information that they needed to know) of the decision makers (and perhaps some of the american people) in this whole issue.

Conclusion
of course i have nothing against america. i spent 4 months there and thoroughly enjoyed it... but sometimes... some of the things some of them do... think... and believe... just strike me with a tad of arrogance mixed with ignorance.

ah well. we all have our cons. i ain't no angel either.

my first emeritus post... and it has to be something like this :S

Howdie dudes... yuppers. first post in god knows how long. and guess what? it ain't a lovie dovie post... it ain't a funny post.... it ain't an impt post.... it's a completely inane, useless, and an utter-waste-of-time post! really lah.

this champion... added me to his msn out of the blue and started msging me. charan44@hotmail.com was his msn email, charan is his nick... not sure if any of you know him... unlikely... but anyway he added me and the following msn conversation ensued. He sure was irritating!

charan: kuta
charan: hru?
charan: bz konon
charan: donkey
darren: who are u?
charan: idiot
charan: am charan la
charan: the sabah charan
darren: i think you got the wrong person
darren: i don't know any charan
charan: lupa kawan
charan: hey
charan: enough is enough
charan: if you want to pretend don know me its k
charan: am bz 2
charan: bye
darren: (thinking better clarify i really don't know him so he won't disturb me next time) charan from where?
charan: charan jit kaur
charan: cherry? (excuse me, but which guy actually goes about calling himself CHERRY?! :S )
darren: you really got the wrong person then
darren: i'm darren from smu
darren: year 4
charan: i got the right person
charan: darren singh rite?
darren: darren lim (at this time i'm getting quite annoyed already)
charan: wat?
charan: bastard
charan: bye
charan: irritating specimen
darren: (now i'm just damn pissed at the irritating conversation) next time when people say you got the wrong person
darren: please believe it
charan: I know you are darren (duh, i said i'm darren LIM wat. not SINGH)
charan: n take the bastard
darren: (not wanting to take his insults without any retaliation at all) fuck you understand? i am darren lim, a chinese singaporean. i don't know who you are, where you're from, and what you do. don't come adding people wrongly and start hurling vulgur insults and insisting you got the right person.
darren: go call your bloody darren singh friend and ask him what his msn address is
darren: don't go making stupid assumptions
darren: i'm blocking you now, so don't bother replying.

yup. so that's the end of this completely unenriching unediyfing post. possibly the only takeaway you might have from this entire issue is that yes, i actually do lose my temper and communicate vulgarities to people every now and then, as rare as it may be.

btw, do any of you know what some of the words he said mean? i'm not sure. looks like malay. should be a malaysian indian chap judging by his name and the mention that he's from sabah.

Blogus Emeritus

Been receiving a lot of questions as of late "why u want to close ur blog?", "pple read and talk abt u u dun like is it?", "dun close lah... u close liao i nothing to read", etc etc etc... ok. reasons for my actions are as follow:

Why i blogged
1. Thought I'd try it out to see what the big fuss about blogging was all about
2. It's fun to make fun of pple on the blog (relatively sincere apologies to pple like Charles, TSE, and Song though... heh)
3. It's nice to share fun events with people
4. It's a good place to share my views on both current affairs and other issues (as one can see from my "noteworthy posts of the past" section)

Why I don't like blogging
1. It's damn time consuming. 1 post takes at least an hour? yah yah. I know it's cos i'm luo sor... but that's just the way i am. too bad for u. :p
2. I find it damn weird when I'm talking to someone and they say to me, "Oh, I read that off your blog!" Yah yah, not their fault... just something i never got really used to.
3. I'm lazy. (which also explains the extreme lack of photos)
4. I feel bad when I don't blog for over a week cos I know some pple come and check only to find I've done nothing to the blog.

So I've decided on a way to have the benefits in the "Why I like blogging part" and avoid MOST of the stuff that make me not like blogging... I henceforth bestow upon this blog the status of "Emeritus"!

Main Entry: ¹emer·i·tus
Pronunciation: i-'mer-&-t&s
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural emer·i·ti /-&-"tI, -"tE/
: one retired from professional life but permitted to retain as an honorary title the rank of the last office held

So for all purposes, you can consider this blog "retired". Regardless, it'll still work every now and then whenever I feel like putting stuff on it. Otherwise, don't expect regular updates and stuff.

ie: i happy then i blog. i not happy then i dun blog. :p

I MIGHT put a note on my msn nick whenever there's a new post or whatever... u can check in whenever you like... but dun expect too much from me!

Not all girls out with me are my gfs! Geez!
Perhaps luckily for you... i actually feel like blogging today. Ok. I was having tea break with Addie in school yesterday. People I knew walked past and gave me this naughty wink obviously hinting that they thought Addie was my gf. And then was out with old friend Shangyuan for dinner tonight and was walking in school to the car to send her back when AGAIN some dude saw us and later asked if tt's my gf.

Hello.

Help lah eh help lah...

Just cos I'm out with a female friend doesn't mean she's my girlfriend can? Not as if you saw me holding their hands or anything right? Chey! Haha! I'm pretty sure all the abovementioned would be puking at the thought of being linked to me romantically at all. As tempted as I am to say, I shall be kind and not say that the feeling is mutual. :p

Humility
I must continually remind myself to be humble. I must continually seek to see the best in people and to find impt learning points from each and every person I encounter... regardless of their age, experience, or their attitudes. I should never think that I am better than someone in any way at all. I must not be a person who says one thing and does another. It has been a challenge since coming back what with the ORD mood and the classes that I am taking... but no. I must remain humble. I must not forget what it is that I believe in.

coming to a close. but before that...

ok i've decided that i'll be "closing" this blog (or something to that extent) soon... but before i do so... there's just a few things that i might wanna say before wrapping things up here. one thing that's really postponing this eventuality is a recent phenomenon that i've been hearing upon my return. and i find it most troubling.

since returning i've had a significant number of people coming up to me knowing EXACTLY which courses i'm taking ("Oh, I heard a rumour that you're taking this class", they seem to say)... and asking which specific class time slot i'm taking. this is, of course, quite surprising... surprising but not unplausible considering the fact that I've previously mentioned my courses online before and some people must have been spreading it. i'm only surprised that anyone would want to keep track of wat courses i'm taking.

and without fail... the people who ask me which class time slot i'm taking... will always tell me that they're glad that they're not sharing the same timeslot as me... that they do not want to be in the same class as i am... because they think "he'll take up all the As and not leave me with any."

now that part is something i find extremely disturbing. firstly, the notion that i'd "wipe up all the As" is absolutely ludicrous. I might have my pros, but I have my cons too. Do not think me to be a God. I am just an ordinary student. A lucky one perhaps, but a normal student nonetheless.

What's even more frightening to me is the notion that one shouldn't take a class because one believes that the As will all be wiped out leaving none for them. ASSUMING that it is true indeed that I or any other person in SMU is capable of the wiping up of As feat... is that reason enough not to take a class? Forgive me for being blunt here when I state outright that I believe such an act to be cowardly and weak... and also a strong indication of one having the wrong set of priorities.

The priority for that person is to obtain an A and nothing else. get a 4.0 GPA and not bother about one's learning process. That is the sort of impression I get from someone who chooses his/her class based on the least competition each class presents. Such a person will only leave the school finding that they are completely ill-prepared for life when they leave. A GPA is not what your employers want out of you. What they want is a person who has learnt well from their university experience... choosing the easy way out can NEVER provide such an experience.

I look forward to going into a class where someone can "wipe out the As". I shared the same class as Kong Wee (SMU's first valedictorian") once... and enjoyed every moment of it. Though he was one of those who you could truly say would "take up all the As", the learning experience I went through through my interactions with him was just plain fantastic. If you have the opportunity to interact with someone you believe to be better than you... why sacrifice that over an easy A?

Lastly, never consider yourself to be weaker than someone else... sure someone might have had a better grade record than you do... but to go into a class and say "ah he is sure to wipe out all the As" that's a self fulfilling prophecy! Go into a class and say "this is going to be a challenge but i will do my best!" Not that I believe I'm that special someone you should go up and learn from... it's more likely that I'll be learning from you than vice versa... but yeah, never lose that opportunity if you ever find that someone special like me from Kong Wee.

In short: 1. Getting an A shouldn't be your main priority. It should be learning. 2. Taking the easy way out is never the right thing to do. It is sad and cowardly especially if it's over something like grades. 3. Never let go of an opportunity to learn from someone you think you can learn from.

and 4. I'm no genius. Wanida will gladly tell you I'm a moron.

UPenn Grades

They're out:

Fall 2005 WHARTON UNDERGRADUATE
FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENT

OPIM 101 COMPUTER AS AN ANALYSIS TOOL 1.00 CU A+
URBS 265 POPULATION AND SOCIETY 1.00 CU A+
HIST 096 LATE IMPERIAL CHINA 1.00 CU B+
MGMT 291 NEGOTIATIONS 1.00 CU B+

Of course I'm glad with the results considering the comparatively lesser effort I have placed into each and every one. Was almost certain I would NOT get an A (or even a B for that matter) at all if I had placed in that same effort for any of my SMU courses. Ah well, praise be to God and the Wharton curve.

Btw, I'm considering closing the blog. No reason in particular. Just feel like doing so. Will let you know of my decision soon.

Back

That's right folks. The boring one is back. Stepped into Changi just 2 hours ago. It was almost surreal... heh. You can expect a post coming soon... now to stare at my luggage at hope it unpacks by itself. :S

The Last Penn Post

It's 2am here... on my last night in Penn. Time for the last Penn post! Gosh. I'm sure this is gonna be a long and luo suo (long winded) post. Hang in there! I'll make it as painless as possible! (or try to at least)

An Ode to My Cooking
I still can't believe there are people who don't believe that I actually managed to do a bit of cooking here. Haha! Yah yah. I know I know. I couldn't cook even if my life depended on it back in Singapore. But well, since coming here I made a decision that I'd make use of the opportunity to learn some basic cooking. Here are some of my (barely edible) concoctions!

The First Attempt. Pasta. Tasted better than it looked... thought that doesn't seem hard to do.

The First Instant Noodle. Yup. It's with Egg and BAK KWA. Yummy! Eh, stop giving me that weird look.

Chicken Soup and Rice

Quesadillas. I'm gonna miss those back in S'pore

NY Strip Steak. Delicious!

Bak Kut Teh
Beef Stir Fry and Veggies Stir Fry
Macaroni Aglio Olio with Grilled Chicken Thigh
Chicken Fried Rice

What i'll miss here and what i won't miss here
What I'll miss about Penn
- Mexican food
- Salads
- Walking distance to school
- Walking distance to friends / food / other necessities
- Short distance from City Centre
- 24 hour areas in school
- Friends
- Freedom (kinda)
- Independence
- The Slack Studying Life
- Pass / Fail
- Navigating on grid system roads
- Yummy sandwhiches
- Genuinely nice people (regardless of nationality... not that there aren't any in Singapore... but you tend to be more appreciative of nice gestures when you're in a foreign country)
- Ludwigs' Garten the German bar

What I won't miss about Penn
- Impatient drivers / lots of honking
- Driving grid system roads
- PUBLIC TRANSPORT STRIKES
- Single ply toilet paper (yes. u miss two ply when it's gone. really)
- Ambulance / Police / Fire Engine sirens every other hour
- Almost a murder a day in the city
- Like, having to, like, say, like, the word, like, "like", like, every other, like, sentence.... ya know?
- Spelling words like behavioUr and coloUr funnily
- Driving on the right side of the road. That's cos the right side is actually the wrong side. The left side is actually the right side.
- Explaining that the Singapore Rice Noodles you find here can NEVER be found in Singapore
- An utter disregard to the beauties of Thousand Island Dressing and McVities Digestive Biscuits
- Explaining where in the world Singapore is
- Explaining that no, I don't get thrown into prison and sentenced to death everytime i jaywalk in Singapore
- The Penn "scenery" (kx should know what I mean)
- Sub zero temperatures
- Dry air and static electricity... -ZAP-

Are we tt different from an ivy league school?
I've been asked that quite a lot in different ways. How's Penn different from SMU? I have to confess that I cannot give you a totally objective view. One. I've only seen UPenn through the life of an exchange student... which is probably vastly different from a normal student. Two. I'm biased bcos I love SMU.

Despite this lack of objectivity, I honestly believe that the difference is not vast. I guess this could be because Wharton came to set up SMU's system. They've got MGMT 100, we've got LTB. They've got OPIM 101, we've got QM and CAT. The system is almost identical. They do have an advantage over SMU in terms of the number and variety of courses they offer because of their size over us. Then again, SMU has always had that problem because of its relative small size.

Their alumni network is HUGE and very strong too. They beat us hands down in that department. Something that 6 year old SMU needs to try to inculcate as much as possible while it still can. Now, if only the few culprits in our school admin (not all of them are guilty of this) can wake up their ideas and start treating students with an inkling of respect... that would be a good start.

Professors-wise... my opinion is based solely on the five professors who have taught me and is definitely not representative of the quality of the faculty at UPenn. Of the five... I felt that I only really learned from perhaps 2 or 3 of them. But of course, please do not take this to mean one school's worse than the other... I don't have a good enough understanding of UPenn to make an informed opinion. I'm certain they must have some famous professors here. I guess I was unlucky not to get a course being taught by one of them.

Students-wise... I guess this is where I can make SOME sort of an opinion. Again, the same disclaimer as above applies here. I came to UPenn hoping to meet the greatest minds of the States and to learn from them. Well, I guess UPenn is like any other school in terms of student make up... You've got the smart ones, the not-so-smart-ones, the hardworking ones, the not-so-hardworking ones... etc etc. Unfortunately, I haven't had the pleasure of interacting with the cream of the crop the same as above. In fact, I've had some experiences with some students that have soiled my impression that Ivy League students were really "all that". I won't share them here for fear that anyone uses those experiences as the sole basis of judging the students of UPenn, which would be unfair indeed. I'm sure each school has their black sheep. Perhaps, in a seperate post i might share it if any of you are interested. I can say though that the percentage of hardworking students here is probably higher than SMU. And an American friend said to me "We're really good at talking even if we know nothing." I guess those are about the only compliments that I can think of for now.

I'm sure UPenn is a great school. To maintain its reputation I'm sure there are some great faculty and great students here. My experience should not in any way be the sole basis of forming an opinion on the school. UPenn sure has its pros and cons like any other school... but it's a good school for sure.

I like UPenn. I love SMU. Trying to be as objective as possible... I believe SMU's best (or at least those that I have had the pleasure of knowing) can definitely compete on the same level as UPenn's best. I have no doubt in my mind about it. Past SMU exchange students have topped their classes here... (though I don't believe I will achieve anything anywhere close to that). This is not an insult to UPenn (I try not to) but a compliment to SMU's students. I only hope that the future batches will continue to do us proud.

On a weird side note... when I first came... I bought a Wharton Tshirt and a UPenn polo T... I only wore each shirt once and never touched it again... but I wore my SMU jacket in UPenn almost everyday during fall. Ha! Pride!

The best thing about Penn
There's no doubt on this one. The best thing about Penn? All the friends that I've made here! :D

The main exchange gang
Ryan - Rza (the one being kicked)
The Dutch Chinese dude... My original lunch buddy. Without him, I probably wouldn't have had the chance to meet the rest of the gang!

Nard
The other dutch. Tall, handsome, and super funny. International Blog Superstar!

Chris - C Biscuit
The Aussie Rocker/Mathematician/Philosopher. Yes. It's confusing. The dude who started calling me "Dazzler"... or would that be Andy?

Andy - A Dawg
The other dude who calls me Dazzler. One of only two men to have ever shared a bed with me this exchange

Djoulien - Juju
One of the three frenchies. My fellow protester in Washington!

Mathieu
Another frenchman. Loves the moose at Ludwigs. I've no idea why. :S

Anais - Ninis
The rose amongst the thorns. Hey Anais, do you know... in Singapore... Ni ni... actually means... erm... errr... breasts?

Fabian (the one on the left)
The german... and number one fan of German bar Ludwigs' Garten. True to german form... he really knows his beer!

The Chicago gang and others
Charissa (in the photo with Dounia)
Singaporean studying in Aussie... Ali claims she has a... err... never mind.

Chi
Another Aussie... this dude snuck into my bed while I was sleeping... and slept next to me... in nothing but his briefs! Yucks! :S Chi! You're gross :p

Ali
Moroccan who studies in France... and knows how to say KNNBCCB like the best of them. Courtesy of yours truly.

Ryota, Donald, and Byron
Jap, Scot, and Hongkonger... Didn't go to Chicago with these three. Didn't even get to meet them much (cos Ryota's always holed up in his lab!). But it's always a joy joining them whenever they eat out bcos Byron reallys knows how to whack his food. It's entertaining just watching him eat!

Chie, Yukino, and Noriko
The three jap girls who I will be going to NY with tomorrow. Don't you dare think funny! Ryota, Donald, and Fabian will be there too!

Sera
My Indonesian OPIM group mate who unfortunately could not finish the semester! Get well soon Sera!

Singaporeans
Renhua, Qiuwei, Gabe, Yanxiang, Kaixiang, etc etc etc... Aiyah. I've blogged enough about this group already. Surely you guys don't need another long profession of love now do you? :)

Anyway, yup! These people were the ones who made UPenn so so so so special for me. Thanks guys! For everything! :D It was really great getting to know all of you!

Penn SG pple are NICE! (but not the music moguls!)

1 paper down. 2 to go. Can't say it was all that difficult. A combination of easy courses with an exchange attitude. Haven't had it this easy in a long while!

Christians: Tithing is not in the bible! (so he says)
Well, at least tithing the way we've been told... some of you might know that though I consider myself a Christian, I have little faith in most Christian churches in the world today. But of course, that view is my own and is not something that I wish to pass on to anyone else. Regardless, I found this site which presents interesting interpretations of the bible. Notice that I'm not putting down a judgement on whether he's right or wrong... I'm merely saying it's an interesting interpretation. I guess the only guy who'll know whose interpretation is correct is the big G himself.

Well, essentially this guy set up a website putting up his arguments for what he thinks the bible says. He claims that pastors out there are interpreting the bible to their own advantage (such as tithing) and he puts up LENGTHY arguments to counter what the pastors have been preaching. Since I ain't no expert on the bible and I can't be bothered to read such a long piece of essay... I gave that a miss but did take a quick browse through some of his arugments. They seem well researched and rather well thought out. A bit biased at times... but that's hardly surprising. Seems like a site that's not up for commercial reasons either. But I can't say for sure if he makes sense or not. Perhaps a staunch christian can give it a good read and let me know OBJECTIVELY (such a hard thing to get with some religious people out there) if it's accurate?

http://bible-truths.com/

All I'm trying to say here is that... when someone preaches... though he might point to the bible and say "do not doubt. have faith in god's word and what i am preaching to you."... it might be a good idea sometimes to think through what it is the pastor is trying to say... and the reasons behind it... regardless of the stature and reputation of that person. We're all humans after all. Even pastors.

I HATE the Music Industry (and other corporate bullies)

Recently, Warner/Chappel (the music company) threatened to sue a small time Austrian hobbyist developer that created a program called pearlyrics. All this program does is to search the internet for lyrics and to place it on ur iTunes which he provides for free. Warner sued him for copyright infringement, and the developer removed the program cos he didn't want to risk a lawsuit which he could ill afford over a mere hobby. Warner was being a )*@#&$)*@%*%&@$&*(%@*$%& bully. Yes. I am that angry over the matter. There was absolutely no copyright infringement involved! All the guy is doing is to take lyrics off the net and putting it on your itunes. It's nothing more than a search engine isn't it? It does EXACTLY the same thing that google does but in a more specific and automated manner. The people who are copying the lyrics isn't the developer... it's the people who put up the illegal lyrics sites to begin with.

Why am I so pissed? It's just another example of corporation LITERALLY BULLYING people who cannot defend themselves into getting things done their way for their profits.

The Starbucks Bully

Here's another example of another such scenario. Starbucks sued a person and won just because he owned a coffee shop named after himself. It's HIS fault that he's named Sam Bucks and decided to name his shop Sam Bucks Coffee. It's literally LAW that states that you cannot be sued for trademark infringement if you're naming your product after yourself. And yes, Sam Bucks has a circle for his logo... but it's a CUP inside the circle, not the starbucks woman. I am 100% certain that in ANY OBJECTIVE view, Sam bucks was not infringing the trademark. Why did Starbucks win then? Well, it's the USA... lobbying is as natural as brushing your teeth no? I won't say that there was any corruption involved... but I wouldn't be surprised if Starbucks did more than just attend court.

Back to the Music Industry

Thank GOD for that Austrain developer that Electronic Freedom Frontier (EFF. A group that I thoroughly support and have made donations to.) wrote a public letter to Warner Chappel and published it making clear their view on the whole shenanigan. Since then, Warner has issued a much deserved public apology to the Austrain developer. WOO HOO! EFF! YOU ROCK!

Despite that, the music industry, I believe, is still guilty of many wrongs. One is its impending attack on lyrics sites. They claim that lyrics sites copy their lyrics and make a profit from it through advertising. Yes. I believe that is a fair thing to say, to a certain extent. If I were to write a poem and someone were to post it up without my permission and makes a profit from advertising, I believe I deserve the right to tell them to remove it.

The problem comes with the way the music industry is treating the whole issue. They're looking at it as "We're doing no wrong. Everyone's a thief!" and sue the pants off everybody. They should wake up their bloody (yes, bloody) ideas and realise that the existance of such illegal sites is a BLATANT indication that there is a market waiting to be filled, there is a demand that needs to be satiated. By removing these sites without taking any action in providing a suitable replacement... they are depriving their customers who purchase their music off lyrics... which I think is a fair thing to say that people who purchase songs should be entitled to have a copy of the lyrics. (Like, how can you sell a song to someone and say "Eh, you cannot know the lyrics ah!") And by doing the sueing and not taking a proper good look at themselves and their strategies, they are leaving us customers high and dry without satisfying our needs... yet accuse us of theivery. Warner/Chappel... if you're so desperate to get rid of lyrics sites... here's an idea you *@(&$%$s, set up your own lyric site! :S Is that so difficult? Set up your own lyrics site... make money from advertising... and provide other services that illegal sites are not able to. For example, illegal sites have the problem of not having accurate lyrics and not having all the songs. You have a site providing all the songs and all the accurate lyrics... you'll literally drive the illegal sites out of business. If they copy from your site... you can sue them and your customers wouldn't mind since you aren't depriving them off anything. Think. man. Think. Is it so hard?

Another thing I don't get is their INSISTENCE on Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. By putting copy control on cds and the legal music available online... you are literally restricting the rights your consumers have. Already... music industry people have mentioned that "Buying a cd gives you the right to listen to that song on your cd player, not your iPod." WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?! If I want to listen to an artist both in my car and when I'm walking the streets... in the past I could get a CD and listen to it both in my car and on my discman... but now? I can't! Cos I no longer have a discman! I must buy TWO copies of that song... one on CD format and one on mp3 format! If people are already purchasing cds from you... they (most) are already making a concious choice to support you and not piracy. Why do you treat them like criminals? Sure, there might be some who might go against copyright laws and spread it... but just to stop that one bunch, you punish ALL your other loyal customers?

And you claim that "oh woe be to the musicians who have their music pirated." Well, these two musicians seem to think otherwise you money grubbers. OKGo and Steadman. (By the way, steadman is offering all their music for free legally online. They're good stuff!)

The music industry wanted DRM. So apple agreed to put DRM on their music on iTunes. And all other online music sellers have to use DRM as well. So now, the only legally purchased (ie: DRM embedded) music you can listen to on your itunes / ipod are those bought from the itunes music store. And with Apple's near monopoly of the mp3 player market... the DRM technology FORCED on them by the music industry has given Apple a near monopoly on the legal online mp3 sales market. And now the music industry is literally bitching that apple should raise prices and all that. Dudes, you guys gave Apple the monopoly and you still wanna influence their pricing strategy? You merely took on a supplier role in this arrangement. You provide Apple with songs and they sell it online. Who are you to tell Apple what to do? Have you ever seen a supplier tell their customer "Eh, raise your price so I can get more profits leh." Rubbish I tell you. RUBBISH.

One music guy even said that all songs, like food, are different and should have different prices and hence everyone should pay more. (i don't have the link, i'm sure you can google it) Dude. I bet you didn't take any logic class. Yes, you argued quite correctly that perhaps different songs should be priced differently. But what's to say they should be priced higher and not lower? !)*#&$)!*#$

And again, the music industry can solve this problem by providing an online store which prices competitively and sells mp3s with NO DRM on it. People will buy from you now cos you have better prices. You have no DRM so your customers are no longer restricted to those only owning certain mp3 player. Yes you will have a tough fight with Apple, but that's your problem for having given them so much power to begin with. If you had only thought properly to begin with instead of stubbornly sticking to your old ways, you would have recognised the need for legal online mp3s and filled the void instead of letting other companies legally take it away from you. Serves you right.

And the dumbest music industry thing of all

But this one. this one TAKES THE CAKE. So Apple has a monopoly on online music thanks to DRM that was forced onto them right? So anyone in Singapore who wants to buy online music legally will have to use the iTunes music store... and no other place. They can't even buy a CD and rip it since the music industry is placing copy controls on all the cds out there. Problem is. iTunes doesn't have support for sales in Singapore yet.

So how? Singaporean buy iPod. Can't rip CDs legally purchased from stores onto mp3s. Can't buy mp3s legally off the net cos of DRM technology. What do you want us to do? Pay S$500 for an iPod and listen to static right? Or all the oldies in our dusty cupboards that does not have copy control on it? I wanted to legally obtain all the songs that I want to listen to. But you champions don't leave me much room to do things legally.

Idiots.


Gosh. I believe that was my ANGRIEST post EVER. Whoa. Didn't know I had that much angst in me over this issue. But well, I do honestly feel that way about it. Ok ok. On to nicer topics. :)

Penn SG pple are NICE

Ok, can't say I know all the Penn SG pple well. But I have to say that many of those whom I have met have been fantastically nice to me so far. Of course there's the gang that I normally hang out with (when I'm not hanging out with my exchange friends) such as Renhua, Qiuwei, Kaixiang, etc etc... Yeah they're all a great bunch and I enjoy being out with them of course. But in a way, because I'm closer to them, it's not surprising that I think they're nice people and that I feel so comfortable around them.

But interestingly... even people whom I barely barely meet give me a good feeling. For example, just today I had dinner with the freshmen... (wee siong, russell, mingjing, val, caleb, haresh, martyn, paul, and shijie. Fabian was there too but he ain't a freshman.) a bunch I very rarely get to meet because of timetables and stuff like that. This would actually be my first proper meal with most of them in fact. Despite that, I felt so comfortable just interacting with them and they didn't make me feel out of place even though I wasn't really in their clique. And even when I meet people like May and Kathy (they aren't Singaporeans per se, but have studied there before) whom I've only gone out with one time at the very beginning of the semester to Ikea... it feels just like we're proper friends and not people whom haven't seen each other for 4 months.

Of course, there are people around here whom I feel uncomfortable around... but that's to be expected from all social settings. That's a different story. :)

Regardless, I am indeed blessed to meet such a fantastic bunch of friends here... Exchange students, Singaporeans, and the IHouse people... really blessed indeed. Guess I should do a post on them of sort soon huh? I'm leaving soon afterall.

My Yr End Trip

To the people who are interested in my yr end plan... (ie: mum and dad, mum and dad, and mum and dad)

22nd Dec - Leave philly for NY with Fabian, Yukino, Noriko, Chie, Ryota, and Donald

25th Dec - Leave NY to reach Copenhagen on the 26th (2 stopovers! ouch!) to meet Joanne and Leonora

31st Dec - Leave Copenhagen for London with Bro Chew, Bro Chua, Ada, and Meijun where we will join Ken and Zoe and maybe Siew Shin. Hope to meet Michelle Lai and A-Dawg Sharman there too.

4th Jan - Leave London to reach Singapore 5th Jan morning, 7.50am (Thursday). Qantas Flight 32.

So.... with that in mind guys... I probably won't be able to blog much from 22nd to the 5th... If I'm even able to blog at all.

Quick update

Exams start tomorrow with my first paper. The amount of studying time i've placed into preparing for tomorrow's paper? A grand total of 3 man hours.

Boy am I screwed. Ha!

On a side note. This morning, Kaixiang and I left to send Liying to JFK airport at 3am in the bloody morning... (yeah we needed two guys so that someone can navigate on the trip back) we reached the airport at 6.30am... walked out in the piercing cold for jus 2 minutes to get into the airport and in those 2 minutes I felt like I could have just frozen on the spot and died there. I think it was -10 deg celsius then? Plus a whole load of wind chill factor. The lungs were actually hurting a bit by the time I got into the airport. And that was only 2 minutes. And no, I'm not weak... I can do 0 to -2 deg celsius easily. But that just took the cake.

To further illustrate... Well, we left a pack of skittles (those fruity sweets) in the car when we went into the airport. By the time KX and I got back to the car, the skittles were rock hard frozen.

Shiok right. Like that, no one needs a freezer anymore.

:S

Wish me luck for tmrw's paper!

Finally, eh?

My Rear End is a Penn Celebrity!
Penn, like most other American Unis, has its own newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian (DP). It's daily and it's pretty good. I don't read it all that much... but I do pick it up once in a while. Well, one day I was in my room doing my own thing when I received an group email from Andy (A-Dawg) Sharman asking Juju and I how we're dealing with our newfound fame. I was like... "Wha? What fame? How come I'm famous?!" Only then did it occur to me that I probably appeared on DP somehow. So I went to pick it up...

and lo and behold...

Wah. My ass is Penn Famous. :S

Eh. It's true alright? Like Nard noticed my rear and didn't even notice Andy and Ju in the shot. Nard, is that back so obviously mine?! :S

My First Ever Failed Job Interview
Well, it had to come sooner or later... I'm surprised that it took so long for it to finally happen to me considering my utter lack of intellect. Thank god for that. Most of you my recall a rather recent post where I explained how I screwed up my video interview? Yeah that's the one that I didn't get. Hardly surprising though considering my performance in that interview. Their reason for the rejection was only 2 things... one was the tough competition, and 2nd was my technical quantitative skills.... will I really can't expect the company to hire me when I couldn't answer the most basic of technical questions especially when the other candidates could probably answer that with ease. To be honest, I'm slightly thankful that I didn't get through the interview. I love Deutsche Bank. The internship program, the rigorous recruitment system I was put through, and the very fantastic recruiting dept... they actually made sure that they told me abt the rejection over the phone even though they couldn't get through my line several times... and they thanked me for investing so much time and all in then. Overall I feel like DB is a fantastic place that anyone who works there is really quite lucky. :) The reason why I'm glad that I didn't get the job.... well.... I know my skills, my strengths, and my weaknesses.... I know I'm probably techinically adept enough at doing the trading thing... skills wise, both qualitative and quantitative... I'm sure I can do a good job. But I think there's a slight mismatch in attitudes towards risk... I'm rather risk-averse as Kaixiang and the other poker guys will readily attest to. As such, I'll probably make a good trader, but not a fantastic one. And I probably would like the company, but I might not like the job scope what with all the risk taking I'd have to make.

So over all, I'm glad things turned out the way they did.

But there's one thing I'm hugely disappointed with. My performance! Doh! Haha!

Ok, the interview, as earlier mentioned was a breeze. But 3 questions fouled me up. 3 questions I ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO fouled me up. Yeah, I'm quite riled up by it. Haha! So here are the 3 questions...

1. When interest rates go up, bond prices go down. Why? Model Ans: The NPV of the bond goes down as future receipts are worth less today as interest rates go up. My answer then: Err.... I'm supposed to know this... Haha!

2. When you play a game and flip it for infinity... every time u get to heads in a row you get 1 million dollars... what's the value of a single flip? Model answer: $250,000. That's because when you flip for infinity every single flip is a 50% chance (first flip) to get a 50% chance (second flip) to win $1,000,000, hence the fair value for each flip is 50% x 50% x $1,000,000 = $250,000. My answer then: If you flip the coins ONLY twice, there's a 25% chance of getting $1,000,000 so it's a $250,000 fair value for two coin flips, giving you a $125,000 a coin flip.

Note: My answer is technically correct if it's 2 coin flips only. The difference is that the question asks for an infinite coin flip. In an limited coin flip game, you will need to divide the fair value of the entire game with the total number of flips. (All flips have a $250,000 value with the last coin flip having $0 value... so you need to do the averaging out. Which gives the $125,000 value for a 2 coin flip game) Because the question asks for an infinite flip, you do not have to average out the value since there isn't a valueless last flip.

3. What is 269 x 3? Model answer: 269 x 3 = (270 x 3) - (1 x 3) = 810 - 3 = 807. My answer then: 269 x 3 = (270 x 3) - (1x3) = 710 - 3 = 707. (ie: I got the technique correct but made a careless mistake on the calculation.)

So yeah. That's the thing that pisses me off... The fact that I knew that I had the skills and knowledge required to BREEZE through the interview, yet screwed it up. -smacks forehead- DARREN LIM! WHY U SO CMI?! Hahaha! I guess I have to learn to work better at "getting back the groove"... even if I really couldn't get the first question cos I was taken by surprise... it's no excuse for me not to get the other two right.

Yeah, that's something for me to work towards. Always good to find yet another room for personal improvement. :)

And don't worry about me friends. :) No real harm done. The only thing that was hurt was my ego. And considering how immense an ego I have, I suppose a little hurt might actually do it some good. :)

Grouper
There's this real cool program on the net that Themin introduced to me. Grouper. It basically is a LEGAL P2P platform which allows u to share your stuff with your friends. I have my own "group" where I put up my stuff and I can invite only me friends to the group and they can help themselves to the files. very useful stuff.

Right now I've got almost every song that I have on it (note that the songs can only stream using grouper... it IS legal afterall) and I also have almost all of my project videos on it. Ok, I have to confess that I'm actually really proud of my project videos (most of them at least)... all of them were scripted / directed by me and though I know they aren't the best and I've made some really lousy ones (IT Law comes to mind)... I still like them very very much! :D I do try to experiment now and then with the videos using different themes. These include the black and white silent business law film... the MPW stereotype china kind of film with kungfu Zhiyang vs Ruffian Jon... the Company Law monologue-theme video which I like the best... the trailer-theme ITLaw which I didn't like that much... and the cheesy Finance videos.

Well, you can download Grouper and form your own group and stuff from this website. If you would like me to invite you to a group, just leave me your email address either thru msn / email / comments or whatever. :)

Disney goes entrpreneurship
This is just a silly game I found today online. You pick a business you want to set up and u try to earn as much profits as possible. Quite interesting for a game or two. Kinda like SimHospital, the game that Jon Ban was crazy over so so so so long ago. Made by Disney with the Kaufman foundation. If you're ever bored, try it here.

Soon lah soon.

Eh.... haha... this blog very empty now right.... -scratch head-

ok ok. i update over this weekend ok? i update. really. promise. :D if i don't... erm... u can lock me up in a cage with Song in his Santa-with-tightie-whities-on-the-outside costume. :S Erm. Wait. Maybe not. I'd rather be shot. twice. in the balls.

back to my china history paper. woo hoo.

This Phase, A Haze of Lazy Days

Been thinking of blogging about some stuff since the last gruesome post. I really sincerely hope that your eyes have recovered somewhat from those photos. As usual, please blame the source and not the mere messenger boy ya. Anyway. Yah. Been thinking of blogging but I'm feeling just too lazy to do it. :S

In addition to feeling lazy to blog. I'm also feeling lazy to do any productive work. Think I'll end up lazing the day again till 10pm comes around the corner and I'll start pia-ing all over again.

Was supposed to go gym too with Qiuwei... but I've yet to go...

It's probably the weather. Winter has this tendency on people, doesn't it? -Yawn- I need a butler to make me a hot cup of milo with marshmallows. And maybe some McVities digestive biscuits to go with it. I'm still extremely irritated by the fact that they don't have McVities here. Sheesh. Just cos it ain't laden with sugar doesn't mean it ain't good ok.

Porn : The Post Worth Waiting For

Yup, Ladies and Gentlemen, here it is... finally... after all that waiting... Jem Loy has finally gotten his ass into gear and has sent me his plethora of porn. I've chosen the finest and have placed it up. But instead of showing u all that sin of flesh and lust now... I shall save it for the later... don't want ya running away from my blog just yet you know. Got other stuff to say first!

Thanksgiving Break
It was nice! An American Family invited me to their place for dinner and I brought Ryan (the Dutch) and Chris (the Aussie) with me. The meal was a FEAST. I think we started at around 3+ (yes, dinner at 3+)... took a short break to digest before dessert, and finished around 7. Dave, the husband cooks well. Carrot with spinach dip, Crackers and Mini-Pitas with mixed cheese dip, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, avocado salad, bread, apple and caramel crumble, raspberry pie, pumpkin pie, and ice cream. Wah. Eat until cannot walk. They were a very very nice family too. :D

Boston was a nice city too. Very european architecture. Rather different from the rest of the States.

Harvard has a very very nice campus. Architecture kinda like how u'd expect it to look back in the 50s... except it look grand and it covers BIG areas and everything looks very well maintained as if it was just painted before we got there. And oh, Djoulien pissed on a Harvard bush. Ho ho ho. Take that Harvard. :S

Boston Uni looked like a long stretch of European houses... nice. MIT, in contrast, looked mostly like a dreary industrial estate. Even Sloan business school looked it. The main building was very nice. Grand roman style architecture. The new Stata Center was very cool too. It's like Picasso suddenly decided to do architecture. I liked it. But apart from these too (and the huge and cool looking antennas and satellites poking out of almost every other building)... even Ang Mo Kio industrial estate looks more exciting in comparison.

My Bro's A Closet SNAG
He professed on his blog that he loves me (as well as his love for some damn super chio cars)! Awww.....

Offer
MAS has just given me an offer for Associate in Financial Markets Strategy Department under the MAS Graduate Officer Scheme. That's another option to consider. Thankful to God and everyone else for it. I'm quite keen on accepting this post... hopefully they'll give me some time to consider it in comparison to any other offer that I might (hopefully) receive in the future.

Video Interview
Had a video conferencing interview (not with MAS) last week. It lasted 1.5 hours... 3 different interviews of 1/2 hr each. I think I screwed up my first, did pretty ok for my second, did well for my third.

As some of you might have known, I was putting tonnes and tonnes of effort into preparing for the interview. I knew the Financial Times, WSJ, Economist, whatever from front to back for the past few days... took in all the info, summarised, and thought of opinions to share then. I was as prepared as can be for any "What is your opinion on..." question.

So the first interview was going smoothly... then one guy asked the SIMPLEST of SIMPLEST of questions that on any other time I would have had the answer on the tip of my fingers. It was so elementary that I knew I'd look like a complete buffoon if I didn't get it right.

And guess what? I didn't know the answer to it. With all that preparation I had done... I wasn't able to answer his simple question. It was a complete mind wipe. "Why is it that bond prices go down when interest rates go up?" I COULDN'T ANSWER THAT!!! It was very very embarassing... :S The rest of the first interview went downhill for me from there cos I kinda lost the groove.

and yes, for the record, of COURSE I know the answer to that question. It just didn't occur to me at that time. I didn't fail finance you know. Bah. Shit happens I guess.

Thank god there was some time for me to rest and gather my composure before the other interviews. Did good for the second interview. Where I think talking about my learning of poker here in Penn really helped somewhat. Heh. The third interview was smashing. It ended off with him saying that he was very glad that he had a chance to interview me today. I guess I felt some sort of a stronger connection with the interviews for the latter 2 interviews that I did the first one.

Hmm. 3 Interviews, 1 bad, 1 not bad, 1 good. Dunno what the result's gonna be. Well, if I don't get it... I know the reason why. Damn bond question and my inability to get the answer out of my head at that time.

Online Music Sales the way it's supposed to be
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/28/jane_siberry_opens_b.html
Jane Siberry opened an online music store that allows you to purchase MP3s that do not have DRM or Copy Controls on it for any fee that you choose. Jane Siberry, mind you, is not some small time singer, she ain't exactly mainstream, but she ain't small time either.

I applaud her brave, AND smart, move of venturing into this new form of distribution. Legal online music sales with NO drm (unlike iTunes and CDs) AND you choose your own price. Finally, customers are no longer treated as criminals. :)

Thank you Jane!

God Info Blog
http://godlorica.blogspot.com/
Some of you might find this information. It's a blog that posts up any information found that relates to God, religion, or science related to religion. It shows both pro-religion and anti-religion stuff so it's kinda well rounded. I'm not sure if it takes a stance per se. SOME of the posts do make for quite interesting reads. Like there's this guy who's trying to make a Christian version of snakes and ladders. :S

Porn
Yes. The moment you've all been waiting for. After ploughing through all the verbosity above... or just clicking "Page Down"... you've finally arrived at what all of you have been waiting for.

The Porn.

Well, allow me a disclaimer first, will u? Porn, by its nature... can obviously be rather grotesque. Sure, there are some porn which is just ur normal man and woman making out, but there are kind which just go beyond the scope of normal human taste. I'm pretty sure a quick search on weird sexual behaviors would bring about a plethora of "distinct" tastes. I, for one, loath to think of what they could be.

It is most unfortunate, thus, that Jem Loy is one who has these distinct tastes. So evidenced from what he has sent me... I know not what goes behind that head of his. I suspect I do not wish to know either.

With that in mind, friends, please be warned that the following is not meant for innocent eyes. It will tear a hole right through whatever innocence you have in you and rip your retinas right out of your sockets. Yes. It is that bad. This is going to be bad...

My disclaimer: I shall not be liable for any physical, mental, or emotional harm any viewer might receive from viewing the following. You see it at your own risk. This disclaimer include, but is not limited to, burnt retinas, eyes dropping out of their sockets, utter depression, megalomania, puking, and damaged laptops/keyboard from said puking.

Now that we have that over and done with.

Here it is.

Dear reader.

I present to you.

Porn.

Prepped and ready for some Hoe Hoe Hoe.
Is he telling me to be quiet? Or is he trying to grab some. Erm. Balls?

(Poor quality from source)

Sorry Song, I couldn't resist. :p

Weiyang. Hope you liked it. ;)

101 Post = No Porn cos of Jem Loy

Yes yes I know I know... I've been lazy and haven't been updating my blog the last week. You see, I've got a pretty good reason... I promised Tangoh that I'd post up porn on my 101st post. Problem is, I'm an innocent nice little guy right? So OBVIOUSLY I wouldn't know where in the world to get porn... so like that how? Make promise cannot break right? Well, the solution was obvious... get the skankiest guy I know to send me porn of course. Well, it was a tough fight between Jeremy Nguee and Jeremy Loy (Goh Chee Kiat beats them both hands down in skankiness of course but I think his porn is all on VCDs... cannot send over) but in the end I chose Loy simply bcos at least he's in my time zone and is more convenient to communicate to.

So that bugger promised me the porn in my email... I was being nice and said send it when it's convenient for u.... and guess what? He went ALLLL the way to Orlando far far far away from his laptop and didn't tell me. So here I was waiting for Loy's Porn (not porn with Loy in it for goodness sake)... wondering what's taking him so long to send it.... then only today did I realise he was enjoying himself in sunny Orlando. Thanks Song for telling me. Geez. So Tangoh. My apologies. Hopefully we can get porn in 102.

Busy busy
Alright alright, ANOTHER reason that I haven't been updating is that I've been super busy as of late. Work, play, and everything else. The next few weeks will be hectic too what with all the final paper deadlines coming in. Hopefully I'll finish up my papers soon and jus breeze thru the last 2 final exam papers. Heh. We'll see. Either way, updates will be rarer from this one onwards.

:(

EFF
Some of you might have noticed the EFF button on my screen. It's at the bottom of my right bar. I donated 10 bucks to them (I'm a poor student man!) and I think they really deserve it. EFF stands for Electronic Freedom Frontier (i think) and these chaps are kinda like a non-profit organisation except that they fight for internet users' freedom. Having taken IT & the law under Prof Mary Wong has really opened up my eyes to the shitholes that some corporates can be. And as of late... many corporations have been trying hard to take away our freedoms so that they can benefit monetarily from it.

EG:
1. Sony placed hidden software in the music cds which laid hidden in your computer and the software allowed hackers to easily manipulate it to access your computer. EFF is sueing them now. So is Texas.
2. Music companies are now insisting that when u purchase CDs, you are not allowed to put the songs on your CDs on to iPods. They insist that if you want to listen to music on both your discman and your MP3 players, you gotta buy BOTH the cds AND the mp3s. WTF?!

There are many other examples where the corporations have been taking our liberties away from us which we have been unable to fight. This applies especially so (I personally feel) to the music industry where the financially strong RIAA and MPAA have been lobbying hard to ensure that we cannot do what we wish with the music we purchase. (ie: point 2 above)

EFF has been challenging all of the above as well as many many many other causes. Check out the achievement sections to find out their victories. I believe their cause is worth fighting for... well I don't expect anyone to donate to them just bcos of this post... but well, it's good to raise awareness no? My main gripe currently is with the music industry and how they're trying to put in place laws such that their customers will be treated like criminals (we can't do this we can't do that etc etc etc... we paid for our cds no?!) but the many other causes that EFF takes on are very impt as well. I really do hope they do well. Do check out their site if you're free. :)

What I've been up to the past week
Just a quick update on what I've been up to since the last post. Lots of things happened of course... but it's been a while and I can't really remember all. I'll just do this quick too. :)

Interview with MAS: took a train down for an interview with MAS in NY. Not sure how it went. Hopefully well.
Harry Potter: Watched it was pretty good i thought.
The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night: finally finished that thin book. I thought it was ok. Too much hype. But I really felt for the dad character. He's the hero in my books.
Thursday cookout: This time not with the Singaporean gang but with exchange students. (ok, plus 2 other singaporean exchange students whom I haven't had the chance of hanging out with)
WABC: Wharton Asia Business Conference followed by pasta dinner and then drinks. Interesting. :) Drinks wasn't as cool though. This women fell backwards and hit the back of her head on a glass table. blood spilling out. :S not nice to see.
Dinner with Renhua's family: It was very nice. Renhua has a very warm and friendly family. :) Ren, did you know I actually blogged about ur dad and his public speaking skills before? Ha! AND, your mum actually called me guai. Aiyoh. I so hai xiu leh. :p
DB video conference interview: consisted of 3 consecutive interviews. Messed up the first one. Did alright for the second one. Aced the third one. I think. Not sure how the final results will turn out.
Song visits Penn: Was nice meeting him and talking over coffee. And dude, I AMMMM guai and innocent ok? Geez! Why can't u believe the truth?!
Andy's BDay drinks: Happy Birthday A-Dawg!

What I'll be up to this week
Thanksgiving dinner at a kind and nice American family's place.
Boston over the weekend.

Will probably blog after the weekend. Hopefully with porn in hand.

Yes, I know I've been using very very short sentences this entry, especially towards the end. It's 3.30am and I wanna sleep. I sacrifice sleep to blog leh. I how kind. :S

Night!

The 100th Post! The Centennial!

As promised, the 100th post has arrived. My apologies for the long wait... I only got down to working on this entry after some "concerned individuals" started bugging me to get off my lazy ass and start on the post already. My excuse? I was waiting for photos from Renhua and Qiuwei... but then again, I never really did bug them for them did I? Haha! Ah well. Regardless, here we go.

And what will I be talking about on this "momentuous" entry? Well... I've only had 2 requests so far... one from Kelvin who wants to see porn... which is kind of expected anyway... since when did Kelvin not want to see porn? Skinnyman porn. That has got to be quite the painful sight for the normal eye. But nope, there shall be no porn on my 100th post. I shall not defile it as such. I'll save the porn for the 101st post. I promise. Nothing on me either. Really. You see, I don't do it for free.

Second request was from the leader of the "Darren should wear contacts everyday" lobby group... she wants me to say that YEAR 2S SHOULD STOP BIDDING FOR MT2 CLASSES! ESPECIALLY TAX PLANNING! Seriously, I tried to put this across last year but it didn't work. I don't see how it'll work this year. But yeah, I agree with her. MT2 was created so that yr 3s can do their internship and still have courses to do after the internship. The courses in MT2 were designed such that yr 3s on internship coming back wld have just enough slots for them. With yr 2s coming into the equation... ur depriving deserving souls of their courses. Of course you can argue that it's a free market and all... but hey, simply put, you're taking something that was made for others and not for you. But I shall stop here... I ain't gonna make my 100th post about something as futile as this. Ha!

Since I'm rejecting the requests... I'll have to come up with my own topics... Eh... They might be boring to most of you... but I hope you'll like them to some extent nonetheless.

Birthday at Penn
My first birthday overseas was a great one... all thanks to the friends who made it great fun. :)

Even before my birthday I was already at the receiving end of many nice gestures... I get a nice sweet BDay card all the way from Copenhagen... I get a package from my parents and bro... with a nice wallet and note inside (so now I've got two wallets as gifts from the whole exchange. Ha! :D ) which took me forever to retrieve cos it came into some problem at customs... Fedex had to call me asking what material the wallet was...

"Excuse me Mr Lim? You're receiving a wallet from Singapore? What material is this wallet?"
"I am? Oh... oh... Erm... Yah. I mean I am. Yeah I am."

That kinda spoilt the surprise for my parents. Ha!

Received nice ecards too from the likes of a certain J Luo and the person who gave me a headbutt and many msgs from friends. Thanks guys. :)

There was also a fun bday dinner 2 Saturdays ago with the Singaporeans. Concert, followed by dinner, then drinks at QW's place. Thank god i didn't have to do the forecasted 24 shots. I survived the night with 9 shots and 2 bottles. Had lots of fun playing silly games like Truth, Dare, or Drink. Ha! It was a good night with good company.

QW was really really kind and baked me a chocolate cake too. KX helped by stirring the chocolate for like 10 minutes I think.

Yet again, another surprise was foiled with Fabian (the Singaporean one) asking KX during the concert, "Eh, QW baking a cake today, is it?"

Poor KX had to try to salvage the situation, "Err... yah. She's practising baking cos her mum's a baker you see..."

Nice try dude. Nice try. :p

But the cake was a good one. :) Thanks QW!

Renhua and KX also bought one of those Tshirt being sold by MGMT 100 groups for charity... from Peony... for me. All of them wrote nice notes on the back of the shirt before "surprising" me with it. And of course... it wasn't much of a surprise again since everyone who signed the shirt went into QW's room to sign it. And they all took turns. And once someone came out of the room another person would go in immediately saying "Oh my turn ah? Ok!" Sorry ah, but unlikely that everyone all needs to go toilet at the same time. :p

But it was a very sweet gesture nonetheless. Thanks for everything guys!

But of course, I can't let the Singaporeans take all the credit ya? Thanks to fellow Bday boy Chris Wilcox, I had a total of three additional birthday celebrations. :) Thai Singha dinner where Fabian (the German one) gave Chris and I german chocolates and Andy gave us each a Far Side card. Thanks guys. :) Then a Friday night at NY visiting the Museum of Modern Art, dinner at a small coffee place, and drinks at the Brooklyn Brewery. Smashing night. :) It was good beer, good place, good company. And lastly was a Family Guy Drinking game at Chris' place on Saturday night... where I ashamedly dozed off on his sofa during the last screening of family guy... sorry dude. Beer makes Darren sleepy!

Thanks again to all you guys for making my birthday this year such an enjoyable one. Probably more so than many many others. :)

Speaking of fellow birthday boys... come to think of it... I've come to realise that many people share the same birthday as I do... queer huh? These are the following people that I can recall right now:

Chris Wilcox
Shaunya
Tan Wee How
Pathmanaban
Buddy Goh
Jason Lim
Twin Yee
Me
Definitely a few more whom I can't recall this

That's at LEAST 7 people I know who share my birthday. Now, assuming that amongst the people I know... their birthdays are spread out evenly throughout the year... for me to know 7 people born on the same birthday, I'll need to know the birthdays of at least 7 x 365.25 (for leap years) = 2,556.75 people... which I don't I think. My Friendster (which I very seldom use now) has about 300+ people on it... assuming that this number is say.... 25% (arbitrary number) of the people I know well enough to know their birthdays... that would be a total of 1,200 people... which is less than half of 2,556.75. This indicates that there isn't an even distribution of birth dates amongst people I know and that there is a slightly higher tendency for someone I currently know to be born on the same birthday as I am compared to other individual dates.

Wonder why... :S

Ok enough about the birthday... now time for the REAL topic. Since my last post was about SMU... I guessed that it would be appropriate that my next post should be about the most important people in my life.

My Family
Like most other people... the most important people in my life would be my family. My parents, my brother, and my grandma. Without them, I wouldn't be who I am and where I am today. Dad, Mum, and Sam, I know you'll be reading this. This post is for you.

Dad
Lim Ee Seng. The man I hope to emulate in many ways one day. Sure, he has his flaws and quirks like everyone of us... but in him I see someone with a generous heart of gold. A person who has lots of love for his wife, his kids, his mother, and his siblings. He got from running around naked in a kampung having barely enough to eat to where he is today with sheer hard work (and support from his two elder sisters during his studies). His humility, always crediting his success to "a lot of luck", is something I wish to emulate as well. Yeah he does "brag" about his accomplishments to mum and Sam and I... but hey, if you don't share your accomplishments with the ones closest to you, than they aren't all that close to you are they? :) My dad also tends to give generously... sometimes even without thinking some might say. But haha! I think it's just cos he has so much love for those closest to him that it doesn't bother him the least bit that he's giving so much. :)

Dad, you know this but what the heck, I love you. :)
Mum
No other person has made as big a sacrifice for me as my mum. She was doing very well at Hewlett Packard as an engineer before I came along. Was even posted to the USA to work. Then one day I popped out of you-know-where and she gave up her nascent career to take care of me. Since then she has done part-time lecturing which allowed her time to take care of us while earning some income too. She was also a disciplinarian in many ways. "Eat your food! Cannot play cards! Cannot play computer games! Study! Must study! Go for tuition! GO!" Dad was always the more fun one. "Come Darren! Open your mouth airport! The food aeroplane is coming! EEEeuuuuuu.... aeroplane flying into airport! Ah! Good boy!" Haha! Ok, so I didn't like the disciplining and nagging back then... (and now still :p ) but hey... if it weren't for that, who knows how I might have turned out? :) One thing I hope to emulate from my mum is her never-ending desire to learn. Till today she's always looking for ways to improve herself... learning english, activities, current affairs, everything. It is something that I need to inculcate in myself.

Mum, I love you too. Yeah yeah. I said it. Quick go buy 4D lah. Buy 4D. :p

And oh, my parents are rather different from each other in many ways... yet they love each other so... they've taught me that with hard work and commitment... you can make any relationship work. :)

Sam

Then

Now. Kinda.

My evil younger brother. The one who terrorised me when I was young. Bite me lah. Bite my pillow lah. Yet I'm always the one getting punished. Ha! But it was fun back then ya? All the fights in Yi Mei Garden. The wrestling on mum and dad's bed. The battles with Uncle Wai Meng whenever we're at any uncle's place. Ok, I don't know why it all had something to do with violence... but it always did. Heh. Ok ok, the non-violent bit would be the bubble baths together. Also always someone to go through the sometimes-torturous chinese wedding dinners of people we don't know or the annual CNY dinners where we hardly know anyone. He has since grown into this young handsome men with girls going after him like bees to honey. Dude, do you know you've even got secret admirers in SMU? It's scary man. Scary. Ha! And they didn't even catch you doing your professional magic tricks at the first Asoc Day.

This is gonna be damn tough for me to say man... aiyah. Yah lah. I love you lah. Geez. :p

Ah Ma
Ok, I know my grandma will most likely not be reading this... but what the hey... She's also an important person in my life. She brought me up personally since young. Taught me how to use the utensils in fact. Heh. She loves me lots... I know that's for sure. Well, a piece of information that she's rather proud of... she's my zha boh peng you (girlfriend). Haha!

Ah ma zha boh peng you, I love you too. :)

Jon Ban

SM Jon: Smart and Manly lah!

Jon and his short... erm... stick.

Ok, this dude is more of an honorable mention. Grew up alongside this same age cousin. Staying over almost every weekend. :) Was in the same kindergarten but couldn't get into the same P / Sec / JC despite many attempts... finally ended up in the same school again in SMU. :)

And no Mr Ban. I'm not gonna proclaim any love for you at all. We've got enough people out there thinking we're a gay couple. :S

1 more to the Centennial, I Love SMU (warning: photo heavy post)

This is post 99... one more to the hundred. any ideas of how i should mark my centennial post? any topic that you would like to hear me blabber about? Like if u want to hear me talk about myself... or... the pple in my life... or... give my views on any specific event (riots in france? cheney and the cia leak? SMU BOSS? Bush's claim that the US doesn't torture? )... or even post up porn... (ok, maybe not that) just leave a comment and i'll CONSIDER it ok? :)

I Love SMU
I've been meaning to do an entry on this for the longest time... but never really had the chance to do it... nor was I able to think of enough content to do this topic justice. But ah well, I shall attempt to give it a shot nonetheless... a rather appropriate issue for my 99th topic don't you think? :)

Yup, I seriously sincerely do love SMU. Now, I know this topic would probably be boring to my Penn friends and the other non-SMU people... and many of the SMU pple might not agree with what I have to say here... but please do bear with me. :)

I love SMU because the entire university experience has given me so many opportunities. It has given me the opportunity to learn in the classroom both information from textbooks, as well as skills that I will need in the future such as presentation and communication skills. It has given me the oppotunity to interact with so many great people... faculty, peers, and industry people... to learn from them through interactions. It has given me the opportunity to have a whoooooooole lot of fun as I go through all the abovementioned learning. Well, to make things easier for you, I'll break up my tribute to my beloved institution into the 3 main areas that I love about SMU:
1. SoA 2. CCA 3. Friends

1. School of Accountancy
Now, I know that SMU has its faults and its flaws... it has its mission which I think is a good one... and many offices which I believe are not meeting this vision as well as one might have hoped (which could be due to many obstacles in the way or whatever, it's not in my position to comment)... and there are many students who do not embody the school's values (which I, admittedly, have been guilty of from time to time.). Despite all that, I still love SMU. Whilst I might have given up hope on the university's mission... one office, to me, really does represent in many ways what attracted me to the university to begin with. That is the School of Accountancy, a school that I'm proud to belong to.

Well, some of you might say my account is biased because I was formerly the Accounting Society (Asoc) President... well, I believe it is exactly because I was in that position that my view is as objective as it can be... I've had a lot of interactions with the school because of my position and have always left each interaction feeling sincerely glad to be in the school.

Through my many interactions with the school of accountancy, I have found the faculty AND the administrators to BOTH be concerned about their students' well-being, which I think is a very rare thing indeed. Not only are they concerned that we learn what is required for the syllabus, they are concerned that we learn beyond what we see in our books and in so doing, be better people. They are concerned that we lead a balanced lifestyle, that we see things from another point of view, that we succeed in whichever path we choose.

Not only that, they have shown me that they are sincere in wanting students to be participative in the moulding of the school. Through chats with Dean Pang and the other faculty, I have come to understand that they constantly seek student views on how the school can be improved further... and the big kick is that they actually implement suitable suggestions. Having voiced many student concerns as part of Asoc previously, I have found that the School of Accountancy has been the office that is most receptive to differing views and has been the most open to two-way communications. Things that have been done which demonstrate SoA's commitment to students include things like having current students be part of the interview panel which admits future students. I do not know of any other school that does anything as close to this. I am most impressed.

Yes, curriculum and education is important. Yes, student well-being is important. It is this sense of involvement that I have with the school and the sense of respect that the school has for its students and their views that makes me love it so.

2. CCA
The CCAs that I've been in SMU have really contributed to the entire SMU experience for me. Asoc / SAC / Toastmasters / Aikido / YEP AEIOU / YEP Pyin Nyar Tagun / SIFE / Cognitare (only for a short stint in organising a case competition)... each has given me a real cool bunch of friends... lots of fun times... and tonnes of learning.

First and foremost... of course, there's Asoc. My baby (Rigan's the other parent) and something I very much have enjoyed being a part of. The setting it up... the recruitment of capable members... the conducting of events... the fighting for causes... and the knowing of all the accountancy people. Asoc has been really something extremely satisfying. :)

SAC was an interesting result of being in Asoc. Despite having been "forced" into it... it was a very interesting experience nonetheless. "Polar bear" was definitely the most fun part of any SAC meeting... but the whole experience of having to listen in on the meetings and be involved with finances and policies and politics... good learning experience indeed.

Toastmasters... what can I say? I love Toastmasters! Well, I like it that it has honed my public speaking skills lots... and that the meetings that I've attended were always tonnes of fun with lots of jokes with the old gang. :) I hear that the new group has been doing a pretty good job with the club now. Good job guys! :D

Aikido. Jabronee-central. The birth of the toe-breaker. I believe that in the whole of the SMU Bukit Timah Campus... the dojo is the place where I've smiled the most, laughed the hardest, and hurt the worst (physically). I love the Aikido club even more than I do Toastmasters... I do like the throwing, the rolling, the slamming, and even the being slammed... but I think what made Aikido special for me... was the presence of people like Denny, Mana, and the whole Jabronee crew. Who else could make Thursday nights (as they were back then) so enjoyable?

Samurai Wannabes

The 2 YEPs were both interesting experiences for me... working with the first group... taking on a leadership role as a freshman was fun in itself... a pity we couldn't go to Thailand cos of SARS! The 2nd one did get off the ground... and interacting with the Myanmar people was yet another good learning experience for me.

I wasn't in Cognitare as a case member... (I was given a choice between trying for that club or to run Asoc... I chose Asoc) but I was sort of in it for a while to help organise an International Case Competition. I left before anything REALLY concrete was done... but the tonnes and tonnes of planning that we placed into it... with such a great group of chaps to be working with. Priceless. :)

SIFE! I REALLY ENJOYED SIFE! :D Alright, I wasn't a member of the club per se. I was part of the first SIFE team... of which only one member stayed on to help with the formation of the club. I was in SIFE for a grand total of 1 week. Wee Swan had asked me to help loan a cable wire so that they could load their SIFE videos onto the laptop... then she asked if I could help with the video editing... then the team asked if I could go help them click powerpoint... then they asked if I could help them with the introduction... and thought heck, why don't you do the conclusion too? Hahaha... it was only by good fortune that I got to be part of the team. :) This was the first time SMU was in the competition. Because of a whole lot of factors (such as us not knowing about the competition until 1 week before it happened) our first meeting was two days before the competition and our first rehearsal was on the day of the competition itself. Haha! We were a rag tag crew of goondus and yet we left the thing feeling that we had done our school proud. We didn't win the competition that year, but given the resources and time that we had... we felt we gave it our best shot and really showed everyone we were serious contenders. And true enough, we've been winning annually ever since. :)

So yup, that's it for CCAs. Good stuff. Loved them all. :)

3. Friends
You guys know who you are. You made SMU life the way it should be. :) Thanks for everything ya'll. You're the best! :D

Ok I tried as much as possible to include as many people as possible, but I'm very sure I would have missed on some of you guys... sorry ya? Prob I dun have a photo of you... or in the shot with you it's only 2 of us so I can't really put ALLLL the shots up... or I jus looked plain ugly in that shot so u can forget about me publishing it. :p Cheers mates!

Men have more sex... or so they think :S

BOSS Starts
Hey SMU guys... BOSS bidding is starting 7th Nov. Time for us to start fighting for courses. I'll be taking the following courses: Strategy / FIM / 1 GE(Science). If any of you are interested in joining me for any of the courses, please drop me an email or a msn msg.

Do note that I'll probably be taking Strategy with Tangoh and his short friend so you'll need to live with 3 "guai lan kias" if you choose to join me on that one. :) But this is assuming his short friend still wants us lah... want to reject us for another group liao. Chey! And FIM I should be taking it with the handsomest Charles Li Yourui. No, my nose is not getting any longer. Really lah. But yah, do join us. :)

What I Learn in Population & Society
So this is one of the courses I'm taking. An introduction of sorts into demography. Quite interesting in some aspects... boring in others... well this week's class was on marraige and its impact on lives. For example, married people tend to live longer than widowed, who in turn live longer than divorcees, and the singles are the first to die.

The Survival Curve for Males. Further out it is, the higher your probability of survival is

The Survival Curve for Females

So anyway, as interesting as the above graphs are... the following chart had me intrigued somewhat.
The chart above is quite self explanatory. It states that the average frequency of sex for males is higher than females in all categories. Single males have more sex than single females. Married men have more sex than married women. Cohabiting men have more sex than cohabiting women. This difference is greatest in the "married" category.

Whilst it sounds normal to say that the average XXX person has more sex than the average YYY person... do note that we're talking about gender here! Using the rather simple assumption of number of men approx = number of women... (i believe worldwide the difference between the 2 genders is around 5%... lesser than the difference in sex frequency tt we see here) but yeah anyway, we have that simple assumption... AND we know that ave freq of sex = total number of intercourse / total number in that gender.... since the total number for both genders are the same... the ONLY way for the average sex frequency can be different is if the total population of guys has more sex than the total population of females.

Then that leads us to the all-important question: If the total number of females have less sex in total than the males.... just who are these males having sex with then??? Surely the additional number of times that the average male has sex over the average female must be with another party ya? And this other party cannot be female since that would also increase the number of times that the total number times that females have sex.

There can only be two possible answers:

1. The men are having sex amongst themselves. So, are there that many more male gays than female lesbians? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'm not an expert on this area but my guess is that the numbers should be about equal between gays and lesbians.

Problem is, we see that the greatest difference in sex frequency is in the married category. Married men (since gay marraiges are banned in most places) are less likely to be gay since they have made the choice to spend the rest of their lives with a lady. Of course, one could point out that the married men are screwing single women thus leading to a higher sex frequency... but the survey only asks them to list their sex frequency with their primary partners... which would exclude infidelity.

So this survey leaves us with only one real possiblity.

2. Men simply think they have much more sex than they really do, or women simply think they get much less sex than they really do.

Something tells me it's more the former. :S

Today
This is the first weekend that I'm actually spending in Philly. The weekly travels record has finally been broken... mainly because no one wanted to go to Baltimore with me... AND i wanted to catch the homecoming game.

Well, I went to UVA and caught a historic win by UVA. They won a team they hadn't beaten in 10 yrs. Now, in UPenn, I've caught yet another historic win........ by Princeton. Penn's archrivals. Whom Penn hasn't lost to in 10 years. Until today. :S I bring fortune now don't I?

The toast tossing ritual was damn interesting. Haha! Will post up shots if I ever get the chance.

Tonight
I'm scared. I'm afraid. Something tells me that Renhua, Gabriel, and just about whoever I'll be meeting tonight will ensure that I down 24 shots of liquor before going home tonight.

Dudes, I've never done anything above 6 before. Have mercy k? Can die one leh this kind of thing. Really! -pitiful look-

Lightning will strike me

Source Site

Damn. I'm a one-kind lousy Christian. :S I claim that I love God. I think that I love God. Yet, I find the humour in the above strip most witty indeed. Guess I'll be seeing you in hell, mr tangoh.

Singlish and Non-Singaporeans
It has come to my attention recently that my blog has a couple of non-Singaporean readers who, I assume, don't really understand Singlish . Though I haven't used Singlish in its full "lah" and "lor" glory, I am aware that I've used Singlish grammatical shortcuts rather liberally in some of my posts. Well, my non-Singaporean friends, if you ever encounter any word in this blog that you're not familiar with (such as kena, hantam, etc) or grammatical constructs that make no sense... Wikipedia offers a really detailed explanation of the Singlish language. You can check it out here.

On my part, I'll refrain from using Singlish unnecessarily... Darn, it's so much easier to type in the really "shortcut" language of Singlish.

Joanne (Luo), this is for you
The Limonata Lover has requested that I fill in the below... I thought I've already posted most of my weird quirks amongst other stuff in a previous post? Ah well, here's a repeat.

Rules: Post 5 Weird and Random Facts about yourself, then at the end list the names of 5 people who are next in line to do this.

1. I enjoyed eating ants when I was a young kid. Red was spicy, black was standard, white was sweet.

2. I pooped in my pants a lot when I was in kindergarten because I was afraid of being alone in a toilet. You never know when the poop monster might attack ya? :S

3. The first time I was ever rejected by a girl was in kindergarten 2. I passed her a Post-It with the words "I Love You. I Love Charmaine." on it. She told me she "tore up the paper into a million pieces". Plus, I spelt her name wrong. Cos dad told me it was spelt that way.

4. Was told that he looked like the following people / animals / things before: Gay, Hamburger, Cricket, Beaver, Hamster, Wombat, Rabbit, Sponge, Shi Tou from Wu Yue Tian, Jay Zhou, David Tao, Andy Lau, Samo Hung, Shawn Heng. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I don't want to know. Scary.

5. I broke a friend's pinky toe while executing an aikido move before. Been labelled "Toe-Breaker" in Aikido ever since.

Tagged:
No one. If you'd like to do it, go ahead.

Being Blunt

James Blunt
James Blunt was performing last night... I tried to get tickets but couldn't... until a hr before the show... MAx called me up and said that Debbie had pulled out and asked if I could go. I seized it... and it was GREAT! He sings well live... not like Hoobastank who can't do The Reason live for nuts. lol. The starting act Sarah Blasko was pretty good too. :)

I think i enjoyed it more than Jason Mraz actually... he was funny too. :) That was his very first performance in US actually. Cool huh?
Well, the performance was quite similar to his CD... really melancholic... all abt heartbreaks and such :S But i like the way he sings. :)

Blunt about Penn SG Girls
I'm guessing this particular entry might ruffle a couple of feathers here in Penn... but well... I'm only being honest and open with my opinions ya? Hiding stuff ain't good. :)

Alright before i go onto ruffling feathers... allow me to state for the fact that I do believe in chivalry. My friends would know that I open doors for ladies and stuff like that and I do it willingly and cos I think it's only right. So yeah, I don't think of myself as a brute or what not.

Yet since coming here... I feel that UPenn Singaporean guys are almost being bullied by the Singaporean girls here. It's weird to me I think. Maybe it's kinda expected over here... but I don't think it's something I've seen in Singapore. Seriously, I think the guys here are really being taken advantage of by SOME OF the girls here... simply cos it's hard for guys to say no to a girl without looking like an asshole.

e.g.: at a house party... if a girl wants a drink... she'd pass her empty cup to the nearest guy and say "I want a XXX" and sound as if it was expected for the guy to get it for her even though the guy might not be drinking at all. :S Or if she's carrying a particular item... she'd pass the item to the guy and say "Carry this for me". And the guy carrys it cos he's a nice guy.

Now, I'm perfectly fine getting drinks for friends and carrying stuff for friends (regardless of gender)... but 1. they sound like the guy must listen to them and 2. the thing is usually something that they can easily do themselves but they just ask the guy cos it's so much easier for them. Is it so hard to mix a drink urself without troubling someone else?

Now if the guy offers and u accept... that's a-ok... but if u just command the guy to do it (which seems to me to be the case ard here) then... i dunno. i feel like there's some sort of a disrespect involved? maybe i'm just being prissy but yeah it does feel that way.

So to distill the above into simple english... my main gripes are...

1. if u can EASILY do it urself... why do u want to trouble others just cos it's convenient for u?
2. if the guy did not offer... shld u still expect him to do what u ask?
3. even if u really needed the help... shld u sound like it's a command?

of course, allow me to reiterate... i'm a-ok with the singaporean females here. i enjoy their company cos they're nice people. just that i see the above 3 points being done by SOME of the girls here SOME of the time... and it just puts me on edge... whilst i believe it's expected for the guy to be chivalrous and open doors for ladies... it's a different story if a lady tells a guy "open the door for me". that's quite disrespectful isn't it? funny thing is... i've never ever had this feeling before until coming here and meeting club singapore.

i don't know. am i being sensitive here? Penn Singaporean guys... any comments? is this commonplace? rare? far too widespread? or am i just sounding like an asshole?

My 10K
Yup! I've received ONE email with a print screen of the 10k... it comes from a "Junior Aurelie"... but had no indication of who that person is apart from the name. Hey Junior! Why don't u tell me more about who you are? I'm interested to know! :D

Wily Willy Wonka

More Halloween stuff that you might be interested in.

The President of Penn, Amy Gutmann, organised a UPenn Halloween party and invited all students to join her in the celebrations. Stupid me thought it would be some boring affair and skipped it in exchange for a quiet evening to myself last night.

Boy, was I wrong.


That's the President dressed up as Willy Wonka with one of the exchange students, Dickson, at the party.

It was a HUUUUGE affair... everything was Wonka themed. EVERYTHING. And that means... CHOOOCOLATE! The place was just surrounded with free chocolate everywhere. And where was I? In my dorm, reading a "Can Asians Think?". Ha! But at least I got to cook myself a pretty decent steak. And I got a chance to chat with my dorm mates, something I haven't had much of an opportunity to do.

But I sacrificed a trip to chocolate paradise for that. Dammit.

Many thanks to Dutchman Ryan for telling me about what I missed. For those who are vaguely interested in how it was like, you can see more pictures at Dickson's Blog.

10,000!
This is my 95th post.... 5 more posts to the centennial. And... it would seem that my big 10k should arrive within the next 24hours. WOO HOO!

Accentuate. Finally.

Yay! A kind soul has FINALLLLY sent me a soft copy of Accentuate. Woo hoo! And guess who sent it?

Could it be...

a. Wanrong, the current Asoc president?

b. Chinser, VP cum layout person for Accentuate?

c. Denessa, current IC for Accentuate?

d. Addie, former IC for Accentuate?

DEH!!!! WRONG ANSWER!!!

It's NONE OF THE ABOVE!

Wah... Accentuate wasn't sent to be by anyone in Asoc at all... it was sent by Adeline Heng ah! Of all people. Tsk tsk. Need office staff to send me ah you all. You all good. :P Haha! Thanks Adeline! It looks great! :D

I've posted it up for anyone who's interested in reading that magazine here. I resized it to make it smaller so that I can upload it onto photobucket... if you want the original size, which has much bigger font... just email / msn me and I'll send it over.

CMI Terrorist!

Halloween at Upenn!
Yup, in yesterday's post I did mention that I will be attending a Halloween party. And attend one I did. Possibly the craziest party I've seen to date. Pple were PACKED like sardines in the basement. Don't believe I've seen a club that packed before... Sure the dance floors might be packed but there's always areas where u can stand and have a drink in clubs... but this one. You can forget about having a proper drink. Drunk people are BOUND to come a-crashing into you. I bet half the alcohol available there ended up on the floor cos Julia couldn't stand right. :S No place to stand still. Nope, none at all.

Well anyway, "what did you wear ah-pek-boring-lim?!" you ask? Ok ok, maybe i'll go through the entire process for you ya? So I wanted something simple... unelaborate (is there such a word)... and cheap. Lynn had cat ears and I thought, hey... if I can't find anything... that would be a good free back up plan. But since everyone seemed so damn on about getting something, I decided I would put in SOME extra effort into getting something.

So Lynn, Kaixiang, and I went to South Street to find some stuff. Jim's Philly Cheese Steak (supposedly one of the best ard) was a good tea break... but anyway, finding an outfit was a huge pain cos all the costume stores around... were all jus sex shops who placed out their kinky female costume wear for the halloween. Yup. Very very very very few stuff for guys. But tonnes of kinky costumes for ladies. Nurses, prisoners, angels, devils, 1/2 angel 1/2 devils, you name it they've got it for the ladies. All using as little cloth as possible of course.

I was thinking maybe i'd do a pirate ya? It's common but not THHHAAAAT common. And all I had to do was get an eye patch... and a red head scarf. I could get a nice brown leather jacket of sort which would be something I could reuse after halloween. But alas, none could be found. The rest weren't all too nice either... monster lah... doctor lah... grim reaper lah... all looked really plasticy... might as well stick to cat ears I thought.

Until... lo and behold.... I saw this item... and thought... HEY! I COULD USE THAT! Yah, I never thought of being this character until I saw it... Haha! It was a spur of the moment spontaenity thingy... Ha! Turned out to be a good idea me thinks... I was definitely the only person in the whole of University City being that character. The costume I got myself was that of a...

robber

terrorist

hitman

whatever you want to call it

Yup! That was what I was. The item that I saw was a normal proper actual ski mask. I thought it'd go perfectly with this toy cleaver that I saw earlier and the jacket that I had at home... Think it did fit it perfectly. Plus! It was cheap! 6 USD COSTUME! :D

Me and Kaixiang the Chinatown Chef

SoA is better, you SoB!

I swear Michelle uses EVERY SINGLE photo opp to show off that long tongue of hers. Hao Lian! Hanar hanar, my tongue not as long as yours lar. My finger longer, can?!

Rarr...

So you're wondering now... "But Darren! Like that where got robber?! It looks like you're wearing a beanie and walking around with a Tyco Toy Cleaver deh! More like little geena pretending to be robber!" But ah... you see... i bought a ski mask ya? The photos above didn't have the mask down lah... in fact... most of my photos has the mask down. Heh. This is the real thing!

A shot of me trying to do the world a favour...

The shot above was taken outside Qiuwei's place when we went to pick her up. She was dressed like a little girl (ie: herself) and we did that pose there. The moment we took the shot... a COP in a car drove right up! HAHAHA! Wah! How stress :S What if I was thrown into prison?! Hahaha! :p

He came up... rolled down his windows... and said "Hey guys... for a moment there... I thought you were really going to hack her up!"

Heh. Along the way to the party, lots of random strangers seemed to get a big kick from the robber costume as well. Looks like the planning didn't go to waste. Best part... they wouldn't know who I am... no embarassment at all! Ha!

Anyway, here are a few more shots.

Gabriel trying to turn the tables

Jon in a Wet-TShirt contest winner costume. Yeah, I was trying to carve some of it for myself.

As earlier mentioned... the party was a bit far too crowded and had far too much drunk people for my personal preference (possibly because they got drunk before I did. It's not fun getting drunk when there's no one else to do it with ya. Heh.) Didn't feel like drinking cos of it... and did only 1 shot of whiskey. Was as sober as can be. :S (Ok, I confess, I pretended to be drunk at times to avoid having to down stuff.)

Act drunk then kena taken advantage of. Haiz.

We left the party slightly earlier cos I was keen on supper... and well... seriously... some of the people shouldn't be at the party any longer. Hazard to both themselves and others. Haha! Thank god Kaixiang sobered up real quick (not that he was very drunk to begin with). So two of us had to take some of the people to their respective homes or wherever. Think Gabriel also did quite a bit of shepherding too. Ha!

And wah. The person I was valiantly trying to get back home safely (HER PLACE! Sheesh. And no I had no intentions of going into her place. Tsk. You evil people.) Of course, there was the usual puking and stumbling all over... but there were many other... erm... not-so-usual-things too. Thinking back at it... it was really quite amusing (not so at that point in time of course). She was shouting loudly "Blacks always hit on me! It's DISGUSTING!" when we were erm surrounded by them... and trying to run onto the roads with cars coming head on such that I actually had to tackle her to the ground (she's quite a strong person... :S)... etc etc etc... Best of all... for all my efforts at trying not to get us killed (be it by car or by people)... she gave me a headbutt. A HEAD BUTT! Wah lau. Eh, you... next time ah... I think you drive motorbike don't need helmet liao. Your head very hard leh. Butt me already then still walk around as if nothing happened like that. Ha!

Scars of war

Of course the other sober guys had their hands full as well... but think mine was the most amusing what with the tackling and headbutting. :S But haha.. yeah... it wasn't fun at that point in time. :p

Eh. Mum and Dad. I know you're both reading this and thinking... "Wah.. that Darren! SOOO DANGEROUS! He should stop getting into such dangerous situations!" Haha! Dad, Mum... don't worry ya? No problem one. :)

All the photos taken at the party can be found HERE.

The VJ Gang Phonecall
So I got back late last night... slept even later cos of a nice phone call... so yeah slept like 5+ knowing full well I had to be awake at 9am for a call from Singapore! :D

The usual VJ gang called... not sure if you're reading this guys but it was very very nice to hear from all of you. Thanks so much for the call ya? I know I know... I was half awake and probably wasn't making THAT much sense. I don't remember ALL of the phone conversation... haha! But I do remember most of it... like telling you about the head butt... and wishing Joel Happy Bday... and the Bday song. Thanks. Was just nice to hear your voices again. Haha! But eh, how come almost all the time I only hear Jac's and SH's voices? Occasionally Nica's acerbic jibes... a bit o Ma and Joel... was WQ there? I don't think I heard her! :-O I almost didn't want to hang up :S but yeah... the Z monster pulled me back in quickly enough. Ha!

Anyway, thanks again chaps. :)

Six Flags. Finally.

Six Flags
After trying for so long to get a trip down to the Six Flags themepark... I finally finally get the chance to do so... allowing me to maintain my weekly travelling streak... which I suspect will end next week since I don't know if I want to do so or not. :( I do want to go to Baltimore... but there's homecoming here in Philly as well, which I don't want to miss. Ah well. We'll see.

Anyway, went to Six Flag in New Jersey on Friday with John, Alex, Zhengyan, and Kaixiang. It was great fun man! Fantastic! Definitely worth the wait and hassle of getting there. If you love theme parks... Six Flags is the place to go. Eh! Joyce Khoo! Were you working there last time? If I recall you were saying you wanted to man the Kingda Ka ride right?

I don't think I've ever talked about my trips in detail before... Think I will for this one. It was really that fun. :) I didn't manage to get many shots though... I'm not exactly a huge shutterbug to begin with. Plus, it was hard to get proper shots when night fall came.

So anyway, we trooped down to Six Flags (many thanks to John who drove very much like a bat out of hell... albeit a rather safe one :) ) and reached at 4.30pm (the park opens at 5pm). Because it's Halloween, the whole placed was decked out in full Halloween Regalia complete with employees dressed as scary monsters scaring people all over. Was very well done!

Ooh! Fountain of Blood!

Regardless, we were there for one reason and one reason only. That was to accomplish our mission of riding as many rides as possible! So we went STRAIGHT to the first ride... Superman!


Now this ride might look deceptively simple in the photo... but there's a reason for it being called Superman. You do the entire ride... literally as if you were Superman! Instead of being in a sitting position, the chair folds backwards such that it looks like you're flying forward!


Yup, that's how you're positioned throughout the entire thing. It's a very different kind of rollercoaster experience. For one, all the force that you receive as you're hurtling forward is no longer on your body.... but coming down from the head... and when you enter a loop, it's so much more thrilling... I'm not sure why, but it does feel that way. I know it sounds silly but I had my hands positioned to look a BIT like i was superman flying through the air... having my clenched fists in front of me... while being restrained by the seat. heh. Unfortunately the ride wasn't a very long one... and there were all that many loops and such... which was a great pity. Good stuff nonetheless.

The next one was better. The Great American Scream Machine!


It's your standard rollercoaster ride... Good stuff. Lots of spins and such. Enjoyed more than I did Superman, partially cos it lasted longer. Fun!

From this point onwards... dusk came and went and night came. ie: No proper lighting to take nice shots of the rollercoasters with. It was rather dark throughout the park... for most parts.

So we went to Nitro. Heard lots about it... But on the way... we bumped into some White Tigers.

Beh Hor! Beh Hor! Sibei Hor!

Nitro was handsdown the best ride there. It wasn't all THAT different from your normal rides... only difference is that instead of a proper body harness... all you had was a really tight lap bar. Whilst this did give you more room to move about... I didn't think it made much of a difference. Think the best part was the utter freefall they sent you through... The ride started of with a vertical descent at an extremely high speed. Very very shiok. The ride was equally fast and furious for the rest of it. Think the speed (and the fact that it was almost pitch black because of the time) really made the trip utterly exciting. Yeah, so exciting that... -cough cough- John and KX had to... -cough cough- link arms!

Next one was Batman.

That's us queueing up for Batman. It's one of those where your leg hangs freely. I'd like to see a shoe fall from it one of these days. Well, we queued 1.5 hours for a roughly 30 second ride? It wasn't bad. But it was far too short... nothing to scream about for that long a wait. Plus, with the extremely high bar that Nitro set, it would be hard for Batman to meet it.

By that time, it was already 11pm... but we managed to squeeze ONE LAST RIDE in. Batman & Robin: Chiller. Now this one was good stuff. Short wait... and short ride... But very very good. The acceleration on that thing was near instantaenous... very fast and you did all the turns and loops and everything.... then u went through the same whole thing again BACKWARDS. Woo hoo... better than the "Boomerang" in Dreamworld Aussie (I think it's Dreamworld).

Well, that's all the rides for you. Mind-numbing fun it was! Definitely worth the 50USD i spent for the whole thing. I would have preferred more time there since there were soooooo many more rides we have yet to do... especially their most famous Kingda Ka which sends you hurtling down a 45 storey track perpendicular to the ground. If pure bliss should ever be on earth... I think its name would be Kingda Ka. Ok. So. Maybe not. Screaming ladies ain't exactly blissful...

I WANT TO GO AGAIN!!! -stomps foot- heh. ah well. :)

You can get all of the photos (not many though) HERE.

Asoc Day and Accentuate
Asoc Day '05 came and went... and I wasn't involved in it in anyway. That sucks! :( Ah well... I heard it was good fun! :D After a non-asoc student saw it... she told me "and yes, i think asoc rox. heh. and tt's a huge compliment coming from judgemental me ya". So kind!

But yes, not everything can be fine cheery and dandy ya? I know the theme didn't sit well with everyone there... some of the ah peks in the audience (and I consider myself an ah pek too... and so does everyone in the current exco :S) don't really enjoy the theme-y thingy. Not sure if ahpek me would as well. Haha! But ah well. Win some, lose some. :)

One of the many Accty Ah Peks there that night. I know. I thought he was wearing a halloween mask when I first saw the photo too.

And I want my Accentuate! Asoc's first ever publication! Wanrong? Can I slap on your remote control and get you to Fedex one over?

Bah. Thank goodness Wanida was kind (I think) enough to actually take a snapshot of ONE portion of it with her handphone camera... otherwise I'd have NOTHING! NOTHING!!! That's what I get after 1 yr of slavery... NOTHING! :P

You've got a WHAT?! :S

Ok. Don't ask me why of ALLLL the shots in the accentuate magazine, she HAD to take that pic. Geez... Can someone send me the whole thing soft copy PLEASE?! :D

UVA Photos
Jem has requested that I put my Virginia photos online. Here they are. I don't have all that many.

University of Virginia Photos

Speaking of Virginia. They're famous for these T-Shirts and stuff that says "Virginia is for Lovers." I saw one in Philly today which was printed in reference to the Amish Village called "Intercourse". It says, "Virginia is for Lovers. Pennsylvania has Intercourse."

Right... I for one have yet to witness any such thing here in Pennsylvania.

Ok maybe except for the occasional female moaning sounds from next door at 4am in the morning.

But apart from that... Really lah.

Really.

Ok time to get ready for the Halloween Party. Bye!

nearing 10k / 0.1k!

This would be my 91st post on this blog EVER... yah yah. i know i blog slowly. i'm not as hardcore a blogger as the pet owl can? sheesh! slave drivers :p and according to my site counter... i now have around 9,600 site views. Wah... 2 milestones coming up. 100th post! And 10k visitor!

The likelihood is that the 10k visitor will come first... considering my slow blogging rate. So as like the first k, and the 5th k.... if ANY of you are the 10th k visitor... i'd be really honored if you could "Print Screen" and send it to me... just to let me know you're the 10thk ya? :) I know the site counting system's a bit iffy... several people can see 10,000 on their pages because of I.P. address issues. So....... to solve that problem.... the MOMENT u see 10k... IMMMEEEEEDIATELY print screen and send it over to my gmail account ok? my user id is darren81. so that's darren81(at)gmail.com. (I don't wanna type it all out as it bots can pick up on the email and start sending junk) And whoever sends it to me first... we'll know that you're the real slim shady k?

1k : WY and Annabelle both laid claims to it.
5k: WY and Jan both laid claims to it.
10k: I really really really really hope WY won't be in any way involved this time around.

As for my 100th post... hmmm.... maybe i'll make it a long post. -scratch head- we'll see we'll see.

At a nice restaurant...
Joined Kaixiang, Joan, and Lynn at the Marathon Grill (a nice place with good decor and steak) at 10.30 for drinks and "supper". I was late so I missed out on the 3 of them spotting a rat in the restaurant. The waiter came to us after that and said,

"Actually... the little guy you saw earlier? That's Tommy. He's an employee here. Really! He helps us keep the rest out. We pay him with breadcrumbs and all."

Erm... Ok...

All your movements are belong to us!

Whoa. Check this out. They've actually developed technology that allows you to remotely control HUMANS. Yikes. And how appropriate, it was invented by the Japanese, makers of Aibo and all things electronically evil.

I need one of those contraptions man. Strap one on to Wanrong (my successor aka current Asoc President) and I can practice being our like venerable LKY. Don't play play ah. Turn right! Turn Left! Stop! About turn! Ho ho ho... the fun i'd have with something like that.

(ps: LKY is the abbreviation for Loo King Yew... duh! what were you thinking?! That ah beng always wear all black one ok. Not white!)

Snow
Somehow. Everytime I go to a cold climate. I get dandruff. It's really irritating. I shampoo daily, I switch shampoos, I wash my pillow case many times... it all doesn't work! Never does! Grrr...

And oh, tangoh posted on his blog many people read this blog cos i'm "popular in your social circle". And conveniently leaves the "write damn well" portion out of the description... eh. you're only half right lah brudder. :S Write damn well definitely doesn't apply to me... and i'm about as popular as our dearest golden monkey is... ok. maybe not THAT bad... but u get the idea :p got girl lose appetite before cos Rigan and I sat at the same table as her before ok! I'm like how detested lah! :S

How much is your blog?
With the relatively recent purchase of Weblogs by AOL... there have been people wondering how much their blogs were worth... afterall, that was in essence what AOL was purchasing (along with infrastructure and all that, but the price went mainly to the blogs). The current belief is that the monetary value of a blog is based on how many links there are to it. There's this site that calculated the value of each links based on the price AOL paid and came up with an estimate of $500USD per link. Ha! Obviously an inaccurate number... besides, site links have a much higher value per link as the number of sites linking to you increases I think. It shouldn't be a linear relationship. Regardless, that dude came up with a nifty device to tell you how much your blog is worth. This is mine. :)

My blog is worth $10,161.72.

How much is your blog worth?

Cool, huh? Haha! As if I could sell this blog for 10k. You've gotta be quite an idiot to buy this blog for $10k USD.

the weekend

this is curious. i've been blogging almost everyday for the past week. considering my poor track record since coming here, this is an interesting turn of events no? well joan huang just asked me to blog more... so err... i'll blog more? It's Joan Huang the SINGAPORE YATCHING ASIAN GAMES GOLD MEDALIST LEH! WAH! Celebrity ask me to blog more leh... i can say no meh? how to? CANNOT!

haha nah... think the sudden spurt came from the midterms. i think i tend to blog more when i actually have productive things to accomplish in my to-do-list. heh. :p or maybe it's cos sunshine ain't around :S it's been getting colder these few days here in philly. 3 layers on and i still feel cold outside. dang. my room also no afternoon sun, unlike kaixiang's.

so the first half of midterms and stress are over. 2nd half starts tomorrow... should have spent the weekend preparing for it... but took a nice long break cos the previous week was rather tough. ha! ok, the key events were:

Cookout at Qiuwei's!
Gabriel called on Thursday asking if I wanted lunch on Fri... for some strange reason... I had a sudden urge to cook. Haha! So I told him I'd cook lunch and he was like "Cool!" I asked Kaixiang too. So the arrangement was lunch for 3. Somehow someway... it became a friday DINNER for Gabriel, Kaixiang, Renhua, Qiuwei, Michelle, Zhengyan, a bit for Max, and I. :S In the end had to ask QW if I could use her place since there were so many pple. (as a disclaimer for those who might say "why darren never invite me?!" I would have liked more people to be there of course... but I don't think I can cook for so many :S sorry! )

so anyway, the menu for the evening was... hmm... let's see if i can do it ristorante style and make everything sound so much cheemer and yummier and atas-er than it actually is. haha!

Simmered City Sliced Pork Ribs served in Oriental Herbal Broth with Dark Soya Bean Sauce
(aka Bak Kut Teh)
Premium Top Round Slices Sauteed in Oyster Gravy, accompanied with a Fried Onion Medley
(aka Fried Beef)
Sugar Snap Peas, Broccolli, and Carrots, tossed in Garlic and Canola
(aka Fried Vegetables)
Oriental-style Barbecued Pork Strips
(aka Bak Kwa)

Yup, so that was the menu for the evening. Qiuwei contributed white wine, gabe brought ice cream, ren hua brought chocolates and jelly, kaixiang... erm... did the dishes. ;) I cooked for 8... but Max couldn't stay for dinner, and Michelle and ZY went somewhere else for dinner too... and yet the 5 of us wiped out everything. Scary I tell you... :S maybe i didn't have enough ingredients. or maybe they were just damn greedy people. :S

The food was pretty good I guess. Considering this was only the SECOND time ever I did a chinese meal. Kudos to the other 4 for their bravery of trying my highly suspect cooking. Haha! Well, at least I enjoyed the cooking and the eating. Only problem was the Bak Kut Teh. I only had enough spices for 4 people? So I just used that amount of spice for a pot of soup meant for 8... and as expected the soup was damn diluted. But the pork ribs itself was somehow damn shiok with a dash of dark soya sauce. YUM! :D

And oh, I set off the fire alarm twice while i was cooking. Hahaha! -oops-

Here are some of the pics :)

Hmmm... It would seem that Kai and Ren are fighting to put the... erm... n'mind.

NY, again.
Six Flags was cancelled YET AGAIN cos there weren't enough keen people. Regardless, I still managed to keep up my weekly "away from Philly" track record... it was back to NY again to spend a day with Febrita. Was fun of course. :) The view from the Empire State Building at night was just fantastic!

Missing SOME Stuff
I never really drummed that much or pooled that much back home. Very seldom. Yet right now I miss the premier drums. :S (not pool though) Ah well. I'm probably rusty as shit by now.

The two things I miss: My drums. And my hair.

Bananarama

I picked up a banana this afternoon. Wanted to eat it of course.

It zapped me.

Static.

Since when did bananas store electric charges?

Someone should have warned me. :S

Chicken Pee School

Below, I posted an email Penn sent me. Thought their way of doing things was pretty good. At least in this sense.

Then I receive an email from SMU Office of Facilities Management... who I do not have all too good an impression of.

__________

Hi All,

After meeting up with the Office of Student Life (OSL) and the Student Association (SA) welfare secretary, it is agreed that at this point of time, students are not allowed to have barbeque (BBQ) sessions in the school campus. There is currently no provision for BBQ facilities. However the student hostel will have such facilities available. It is likely to be ready by the end of next year.

In view of the recent Avian influenza virus which may possibly cause a global outbreak, students are strongly discouraged to sleep overnight in school for activities.

Regards
Facilities Management

___________

Lol. I'm highly amused by their... precautionary measure. :S

The likelihood of Avian influenza passing from human to human is currently extremely low. The main (well, there are other ways but this is the main culprit until new mutant strains start running rampant) way in which this disease is passed from chickens to human is when infected chickens urinate and the fumes from the evaporating urine is breathed in by the unsuspecting human.

I know I haven't been back in school for a long time... But I don't believe I'll go back to a school filled with chickens peeing all over the place.

Typical.

Real student involvement

I received this from the school today.
_____

The Department of XXX is considering the promotion of
Dr. YYY to the rank of Professor. An important part of this
process is a careful evaluation of Dr. YYY's teaching. We want to make a
more complete evaluation than is possible on the basis of end-of-semester
course review forms alone. Therefore, we are writing to you and other
former students to ask for a frank and thoughtful assessment of Dr. XXX's
teaching in the courses that you took with him.

When writing your evaluation, you might wish to consider aspects such as
Dr. YYY's course organization, clarity of presentation, concern that
students understand the course material, his availability and helpfulness
outside of class, and the extent to which his class enhanced your
understanding and appreciation of XXX topics and prepared you for
your subsequent courses.

You may submit your response by return email, or in writing to

XXX, Chair
Department of XXX
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6299

It would be most helpful if you could respond by November 1. Thank
you in advance for taking the time to assist us in this matter.
_____

Whoa. How come SMU don't have anything like this one?!

I could spend the rest of my life in this village

This is the name of the village I visted in Lancaster.


Yup. The sign reads "Best Western Intercourse Village"

Who would have thought that the Amish were so... adept... at the "natural" ways of life... :S

UVA and the end of the world is coming

UVA

UVA came and went. Many thanks to the superb hospitality of Jem Andrew Song and Liying. Enjoyed myself lots. You can find most of the details on Jem's and Song's blogs. What wasn't noted on those pages, however, was KX and my observation that C-Ville has TONNES of babes, mainly local blondes. Contrast this to Philly's lack of a chio bu population... it was definitely a difficult thing to ignore.

I'm curious. All those babes wear so damn low cut... in KX's own words, "They were SPILLING out of the dress I tell you!" and it gets pretty cold there... don't they catch the cold or something? :S or are they just damn healthy and strong?

Some genius told me it's because their more-than-ample-bosoms provide much needed insulation.

Right. I'm sure.

End of the world

In every period when countries have faced hardship... people have always proclaimed that the end of the world is coming.

The Europeans thought so with the black death and, later on, the Mongol invasions. ("Oh woe is us! The lord has beset us with the devils' children! Look at their evil advances! They with the slit eyes, black hair, and yellow skin... Oh God! Deliver us from this ching chong evil!")

The Chinese thought so with the shifting to Matreiyan Buddhism (Buddhism that believes the Matreiya Buddha will come "soon") and the popularity of the White Lotus Clan (yeah yeah, the same thing you see in those Wong Fei Hong movies) at the turn of each dynasty in the latter part of imperial China.

We are in pain, isn't it clear that the end of the world is coming. Come to our religion because we know the end of the world is coming and that you'll be well rewarded when that time comes. Think about it! It's like buying a short position! Stock market tumbles, everyone dies, you walk away laughing from the bank. The best deal ever man.

I choose to believe that Christ will one day come.

But do I know that he's coming "soon" (yeah, they always use soon but never put a date on it you see.)?

No. I do not know that.

I do not believe anyone knows when it will happen.

Hungry

I'm in Virginia w KX visiting Song, Jem Loy, and Liying right now. Bunked in w Jem and his roommate. It's 12.30pm right now and I'm starving and I really need to get started on my China History studying. Really.

I'd start but I can't study on an empty grumbling stomach. But I can't fill my stomach till bloody Jem wakes up. Wake up u beached whale! Wake up!

-grumble-

Haha! Seriously, I'm having a whale of a time here.

And that's not just cos Jem's here.

Vaio's up!

Ok the vaio is finally running well. Was a long and painful process. Emailed a friend on wat happened and since i'm too lazy to repeat everything in the email, here's a cut and paste:

"after the talk i bumped into this singaporean freshman... he decided to tag along w me cos he had nothing on too. so we went to max's place (in the rain) where i borrowed his windows CD. we borrowed it and went for dinner (in the rain). so after dinner i rushed home to install windows... but cannot! turns out the lousy cd was scratched and cldnt install so i went to the complab for a while to check email and all... then called John who had a cd and went over to his place (in the rain again) and did the windows installation there. installed then came back home to test out the computer... but cannot! cos even though there was windows, but it didn't have the drivers for my lan connection, my wireless card, my sound system, and some other stuff. wah damn pek chek! (it was then i received ur sms about u going to bed. SO LATE!) so again i took all my stuff and this time lugged everything to school comp lab (in the rain, wah so surprising). so at school i die die had to find some way to get the drivers on to my comp ya? problem is 1. i dunno wat drivers i needed. 2. i dunno where to get them from. 3. how do i bring it onto my laptop with no net connection. wah i was searching high and low for some hint until finally by a stroke of luck i found some software on the net (using school comp) that searched the comp for what hardware u have and told u waht drivers u needed. so i dled it onto school comp, used ipod to transfer to laptop. found out the drivers then searched using school comp and transferred to laptop one by one. wah seh. damn painful process... and that's excluding all the pain i went thru BEFORE going to the comp lab... hahaha! but still, me happy! me got working comp! :D"

forgive the poor broken english. Max and John, many many thanks. you guys saved me!

Was looking at the readings I've got to do for the coming week in prepartion for my midterms and other stuff.

Almost 2000 pages of reading. Excluding powerpoints. From now till Thursday. 2000. Pages. Of. Reading. Considering the fact that there's slightly more than 5000 minutes a week... something tells me that I'm screwed.

And oh, did I mention that I'll be playing poker tomorrow and will be visiting Song, Jem, and Liying in Virginia from Friday to Monday?

Bring on the pain. :S

Update

Vaiochio
Got a call from the rip off computer fixer today. Collected my Vaiochio... and guess what? They didn't even install Windows XP for me! Like... WTF?! Repair computer dun need to put in OS one ah? You even called me and asked if i wanted it and I specifically said YES I WANT IT. Ah doi. Well, bright side is i wasn't charged for the XP installation. Think I'll hunt around for someone who has it... I sure as hell ain't going back to those guys!

Atlantic City
Didn't go to Six Flags on Saturday in the end because of the rain. Damn. Rain and Rollercoasters just don't mix.

On the bright side, back-up plan Atlantic City came through and my weekly travelling streak is still going strong! :) First time playing in a casino (went to some before and did some slot machines and that was about it) Played Texas Hold'em Poker... played against other normal players (not the casino). lost money. Duh. Of course. I went to the table and the players all could smell "Fresh Meat" reeking off my body. Hahaha! But it was an interesting and fun experience nonetheless. And I lost within the amount that I had set for myself so it wasn't all that much. :) Think I'll go back again. It's really interesting entertainment. Requires brain power for one.

And of course, the casino treats you pretty well (i don't have enuff cash to be treated like a king... but it was good euff) for one, as long as ur seated at a casino table they'd have people serve you free drink, beers, or mixes. Good stuff. But I still think paying that amount of money I did at the table in exchange for the Heinekens that I had isn't all that good a business proposition by itself. I paid for the gambling entertainment lah :) it really was a VERY DIFFERNT experience gambling at a casino as opposed to family stuff or playing with friends. was shaking when i played my first few games. ha!

and the servers, in true casino fashion, were dressed as scantily as possible... if the low cut went any lower it would have started to show the server's tummy. :S and they were all so "maximised" i wonder if they've got trouble breathing in their outfit. the server at our table was this chinese lady and kx and i both agree she was hot. haha!

Blogging groove might be coming back
Hmm... feel like putting up some thoughts and comments up here. Guess I probably will soon. Topics that I would like to post on:

1. SMU students and UPenn students
2. My love for SMU
3. Hang w S'poreans? Or w others?
4. How I might have grown
5. My next mp3 player will NOT be an iPod, I think

The devolving blog

Yo

I think all of you who have been following this blog (for some strange reason) should have noticed this by now. My blog, despite keeping exactly the same name and author, is now vastly different. Isn't it?

The verbose entries are gone, the thoughts on issues that I try to act smart on are gone, the feeble attempts are being funny are gone, and everything is just... boring-er than it has ever been (who would have thought it possible?)

I've been quite amused at how my blog entries have gone so different. One might say it's the exchange, but those more astute would have noticed that the change actually started a few weeks before I left. Though I have changed since arriving here (it's hard to go to an exchange and not change. Rhyme not intended) but I have not changed drastically and I'm still pretty much the same boring guy. The change in blog entries is not a result of a change in my personality / behavior (see? i'm spelling like an american now! grrr... i need to add the U back into my alphabet!).

So since that can't be the reason... perhaps another reason could be that my life has been absolutely boring and there's nothing to blog about. That, too, would be wrong. My life has been very much more interesting since arriving here. Not interesting in the sense that it's better than my life in Singapore, but rather, the experiences are very much more new to me and I'm enjoying every bit of it. Plus, i've been travelling every other week and have encountered many funny situations. Yet, I don't blog about it. So this change in blogging is ALSO not a result of having a boring life.

Time constraints perhaps? Well, I'm quite busy now... juggling between play / travel / work / etc... but i was just as busy back in singapore with all the additional responsibilities that I had. So nope, time's not the problem.

Perhaps, blogging has lost its novelty and attraction to me. Or it might have lost out to other forms of entertainment now. I don't look at an event and say "hey! i must put that up on my blog!" anymore. Yeah, i guess this reason must apply to a certain extent.

Why should it have lost its attraction to me? That, I really don't know. Ting once told me her reasons for blogging in a reply to one of my comments, and I found that rather applicable to me. And I think those inherent reasons still apply very much to me. I still find those underlying reasons attractive. Yet I don't feel like blogging that much. -scratch head-

I guess I'll have to mull over it further. I would now, but the dryer needs clearing and KX is rushing me to dim sum.

Hmm... ironic that this entry talks about the "devolution" of this blog... yet the entry is reminiscent of the old entries, no? Perhaps, I just might be getting back to the old blog. Heh.

Perhaps I used the word perhaps too much. :S

The perils of having your parents read your blog

Came online to see this on my tag board.

"mum: my dearest, stop using vulgarity."

Erm. Right. Of course. ( *^#$% )

Alright, so my parents didn't know about this site for the longest time (well, you don't really want your parents to know EVERYTHING about you now, would you?) but I thought it would be a good idea to have them refer to this site as an easy way to update them on how I've been doing.

You should have seen some of the other emails I've received from them since they've started reading this blog. It's really quite hilarious in a "ouch. poor you!" kinda way... But i've been told not to let others know the contents of the email, so too bad for you. heh. I guess parents just view things SLIGHTLY differently. :) Dad, Mum: Relax ya? Relax. :p

Maybe I should get a new blog address... hmm... Ha! Just kidding. :) -creates new blog address-

On a side note
Starting some time next week, I've got a total of 8 deadlines and 3 Midterms in a span of 8 days. Followed by 1 midterm, 2 assignments and 1 presentation a week after those 8 days.

Time to get down on it. Without my laptop. -cracks knuckles- This is gonna be fun.

...

Yah lah! I meant that sarcastically. I'm not Masochistic Rigan. Sheesh. :p

$$$ flies so fast!

Vaio's at the repair shop now. Estimated cost break down (all in USD) as follows:

Harddrive : 165
Labour - Hardware : 100
Labour - Software : 75
"Express Service" : 50
Total: 390

Just to change one stinking hard drive.

I feel damn ripped off. Wait, make that i KNOW i've been ripped off. Bloody hell. The bugger even had the cheek to tell me "Oh, we've got many computers in the queue right now so we'll take about a week before we even LOOK at your laptop. If you want us to jump you forward in the queue so that we can look at your problem today, you'll need to pay for the express service"

And I got STUDENT price leh.

Wah lau eh. Wah lau.

I guess that's what you work with a monopoly. Pricks.

Ah well. Better 400 for a fixed laptop than 1k for a new one I suppose. Must. Save. Money!

Six Flags New Jersey (no it's not a soccer team uniform)

will be trooping down to a shop to get vaio fixed tmrw. hopefully it wldnt cost too much, it's only a switch of hard drive.

Bright Side... going to New Jersey on Saturday! Woo hoo! Keeping up the track record... leaving philly 5 times (Chicago, NY twice, Washington, Lancaster, in as many weeks... and when virginia comes along next week... it'll be 6. Whoopee!

Death Becomes Her

Operation Frankenstein failed. The Vaio is dead. ARGH!

Thanks anyway Qiuwei.

Will try to find a repair shop to get it fixed.

Should all acquaintance be forgot...

My Vaio is dead. Gone. Kaput. Bye-Bye. Her last words to me were,

"SMART Failure Predicted on HardDisk 0: Toshiba MK3021GAS - (PM)

Warning: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent."

Sigh, such sweet sorrow in those parting words... even in her dying breath, my Vaiochio wanted me to back up my information. She still had my welfare in mind. Now, where can anyone else find such a loyal companion?

But alas, it is the end.

Well, tonight, Qiuwei and I shall attempt a Dr. Frankenstein. Dear dear QW has a spare hard disk! We just might be able to replace the hard disk and bring my Vaiochio back to life! We'll see we'll see. I dare not raise my hopes too high... for even if we do replace the hard disk... I've no idea where to get the proper drivers, OS, and software that I need for this coming 3 months. Sigh.

Wish me luck!

Don't die Vaiochio!

My Sony Vaio (once christened "Vaiochio" by someone) that has served my so loyally, faithfully, and without any problems (hardware ones at least) for the past almost-2 years is now starting to die on me.

Shit.

This is the worst place for u to die Vaiochio! I need you! Just hang in there for another 3 months ok? After 3 months then u can die when we're both back in Singapore then I can send you to the Sony Service Centre! I received an email from the US Sony Service Centre saying they only deal with US models. WHAT THE ****?! EH! If i'm in the US with a Singapore-model Sony product, you can't expect me to fly back to Singapore to fix my laptop and fly back right?! IDIOTS!

Stay alive Vaiochio! Don't go!

My hopes aren't high though... it's showing the same symptoms my old Fujitsu demonstrated. Sudden shut down, weird scratchy noises from the inside, problems starting up, and overall slowdown in performance. Die liao lah... DIE! :S

Help lah eh... help lah...

For some strange reason... my asoc successor thought the below post was about a product for use on "unmentionable" activities...

Those are bloody earphones lah friend. EARPHONES! You can't tell from the picture?! Lol! Etymotic ER6I to be exact. You can read more about it at the review here.

Aurgasm

Oooh...

The aural pleasure that these babies give me...


And the best part?

I bought them at a BIG discount. Woo hoo!

Intercultural Communications

No.

I have not converted to Riganism.

Numbers do not turn me on.

"How would you like you hair done?"

"Short, please."

"Alright, how about I cut of some and you let me know if it's short enough"

"Sure!"

-shaver turns on...-

-zzzzzzzzzttt-

So much for ORD eh?

Americans should go to BMT. They get the same hair for 1/10th the price.

Perfectionist

I usually get wary when someone tells me he/she is a perfectionist...

it usually just means that person prefers things being done his/her way.

Shiver.

to the two of you...

hurting sucks ya... :( have two friends in two different and seperate situations who feel shitty right now... i know there's nothing I can say that can make things feel any better... and in all likelihood, there's nothing i can say that you two already don't know... regardless... i'd just like to gently remind you that we're all here for you ya? You've got friends, you've got family... we're all here for you. Hang in there ya? Hanging in there always brings about a better day at the end of it all.

Take care.
Darren

Be careful with your words!

Another MSN conversation.

Byron says:
u going to for the DC day trip?
!Darren : Negative Population Growth Rate means population decreases. How can my classmates not know this?! says:
this saturday? yes.
Byron says:
good~ let us have fun together!!!
Byron says:
heh heh
!Darren : Negative Population Growth Rate means population decreases. How can my classmates not know this?! says:
dude. that. sounds. wrong. man.

Yah yah, blame it on my imagination ya? But it's not everyday a guy goes up to another and says "eh... let us have fun together ya? heh. heh." Eeeww...

:S

soft porn

was walking past the school's institute of contemporary art with kaixiang and peony jus the other day. then peony stopped us. told us to look at the BIG TV that the institute has facing the main road. we saw the TV showing some video of mountains and hills. Peony told us to wait.

The TV then switched scenes. It started showing a naked man and woman making out. Woo hoo. :S Peony said they show soft porn every night. We only stayed there for a few seconds, so I didn't get to see any RA scenes.

Tonight. Tonight.

i love this school. :S

mini-update

got thru the first round of db phone interview. tot i screwed it up. lucky me i guess.

tmrw's the second round. hopefully they won't call in 1.5 hours late the way the first interview went. i heard none of the NUS interns got past the first round. that's shocking! but of course prof wee got the job already. a truly deserving candidate. congratulations prof wee! :D

i've got my photos from chicago and NY up already but i'm waiting for the rest of the photos to come in from everyone else before i place the link up here. It's confirmed that i'm headed to washington this week. lancaster next week to look at the amish. a 1 week break from travelling. then to virginia for jason mraz.

i bet u guys back in singapore are having lots of fun too. ;)

2 reasons to be happy

1. I'm headed off for New York! Woo Hoo! Yup, you heard it right. Chicago last week. New York this week. Coming right up, Washington next week.

Study? Huh? What study? I'm exchange student leh! You do realise the term is a bloody oxymoron? Exchange student... where got study one?! (Ren, if you're reading this... my apologies eh... I know the high expectations you had of KX and I... are all down the drain. Pai seh lah... we aren't Rigan ;p )

2. Max loaned me his Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers for the whole term. They don't exactly bring about aural nirvana... but they more than suffice for my needs. :) Yeah! No more shitty quality sound coming from the puny Sony Laptop speakers. Ah... the sound of REAL music. I missed it. Dudes, treasure ur proper speakers man... you'll miss them when they're gone!

Don't Use DHL

My "brother" Chua Bee Teng... she's in nice and cold Maastritch doing her exchange program and she's loving it. BUT! The whole experience was spoilt by DHL. Yes, the same people who claim they're the tiptop number one logistics solutions company around.

She asked them to ship over her laptop and ALLLLL her belongings from Singapore to Holland as she was going to travel before the exchange and had no plans on lugging everything with her during her pre-exchange travel. But after she reached Maastritch... lo and behold... her items were not there yet! In fact, it took DHL an ADDITIONAL 2 WEEKS to get everything shipped over!

That's horrible isn't it! You go to one of the most renowned companies hoping they'd do a good job because your livelihood is at stake with most of your essentials being in that box. But no, not only do they screw it up... they do it by 2 whole weeks! My poor brother had to last on nothing but the stuff she brought for her pre-travel tour for 2 whole weeks.

And to make matters worse... she called up customer service only to be yelled at and scolded by the lady on the other side! How ricidulous is that?! Your company screws up a delivery service, your customer calls to enquire, and your customer service representative says she doesn't know anything and there's nothing she can do and that she's TIRED of talking to the customer. She scolds and she yells. What sort of an attitude is this?!

I know it's probably a one-person thing and does not speak for everyone else at DHL. But if one such person is allowed to rant and rave (regardless of bad day or not, one has to at least maintain some form of professionalism) while the delivery package arrives two weeks late without nary an apology... there's got to be something wrong with DHL. DHL, it's time for you to wake up. It's time for me to switch to UPS dammit.

db

telephone interview with deutsche in 5 minutes. i really appreciate it that they tracked me all the way here for the interview... but i'm still nervous about it. :S wish me luck!

Chicago

Back from Chicago... safe and sound, tired as hell. unlike SOME pple who can ONLY visit other countries... I'm confined within the boundaries of the States for my term time travel. Bah. Will post some photos and comments on it soon.

And yet again, one of my posts has angered some people. This is starting to become a bad habit on my part I guess.