I am blessed

I was reflecting on the bus earlier and I realized that in the recent few months, I've been blessed a lot. I think it is important that we acknowledge our blessings, so that when bad things occur, we can think back to the good things and not feel so down.

1) Got an internship

About a month ago, I applied for a research internship at Police Psychological Services Division (PPSD) (Under Singapore Police Force) in response to an email blast that we received. At that point of time, it was more of a 'I-have-nothing-to-do-so-why-not' thing.

I got past the first cut of resume/grades and got invited for a group interview, which I decided to go for just for the exposure of what it's like to be in a group interview. There were 12 of us in total, and only 4 would be selected ( I didn't know this then). Thus I went for it, with some minor preparation, gave honest answers, and didn't expect much.

Somehow, I got selected! I'm not sure what I can learn here apart from doing research, though I'm hoping to get as much out of this as possible.

2) Got great fellow interns



What makes a boring job fun? Great colleagues. The bunch of 6 other interns are easy to talk to, interesting, and fun to have around. That makes work 12398x more interesting. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be stuck with a bunch of quiet, boring people for 10 weeks. Would have been torture.

3) Got a nice supervisor



I'm not sure what to make of this at this point of time. My supervisor is young (1 year older than me), easy to talk to, approachable, and fun. This makes interaction a joy. However, she is also the most inexperienced of the perm staff, which means my exposure to actual work may be limited. I think if I want to get more exposure, I'm going to have to fight for it myself, and not rely on her for it. We'll see.

4) Got an HT supervisor

After talking to a few friends, I realized how fortunate I was to have secured my honors thesis supervisor so early and easily (last year, Dec). I didn't have to write 2 page proposals, email the prof consistently, pass an interview, I didn't even have to provide a (list of) topic! I just asked via email, and was accepted immediately, with my prof supplying the topics for me. Furthermore, I heard that my prof is apparently 'hot property' and many people wanted him as supervisor lol.

I really have no idea why this worked out this way for me. I was kinda in the right place at the right time (he wanted someone to work on this follow up study, which I did for my IRP). Really must thank God for this neat arrangement.

My magical hair

Haven't been blogging for a while, so here's a short random blog post about... my hair.

When I was living in the US, my hair did magical things overnight. Some mornings I wake up and my hair is in an incredible state of disarray.

I had many more photos but most of them were deleted accidentally, so I am left with these. Enjoy.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="288"] This ain't so bad yet..[/caption]



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="288"] How does my hair become like that seriously. This almost looks deliberately styled.[/caption]



 

That is all

Highlights of 2012!

When I looked at last year's 'highlights of the year' blog post and saw that I wrote "This year was pretty… meh", I couldn't help but think 'bitch please, this year was fabulous!" hahaha. Indeed, this year was extremely eventful and I can't believe everything actually happened in a short span of one year. It seemed so long ago. Anyway. Let's begin with a walk down memory lane of the supposed doomsday year... 2012!

Birthday in the USA!

My 23rd birthday just passed, and... it went better than I expected! Well I had not expected much out of it in the first place, I'm not big on celebrations and parties and stuff so I just wanted a chillax card playing session. It was quite problematic actually, because it was the Columbus Day long weekend so many people were travelling and wasn't free on Friday, and because of some other stuff that's too complicated to explain.

I eventually managed to scrap together something, with like a 50% response rate lol. But it was SO much fun. To me, at least. Heh.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="446"] The plan was to play Texas Hold'Em! I bought this set of chips off Amazon[/caption]

BUT before this...

I have this friend Peter, a really nice friendly guy from Massachusetts who's Vietnamese/Thai, who I got to know over here in America. I had asked him to come for this poker thing, and he began to ask suspicious things:



I didn't want him to buy me cake la, like so paisei! I don't even know him thaaaat well, just bump into each other occasionally at the gym, play pingpong together.

That was a few days before my birthday. Then on the day itself:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="260"] That last line made me crack up seriously lol. 'It's for my homework' HAHAHA.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="352"] AND HE TURNS UP WITH A WHOLE CHEESECAKE FROM CHEESECAKE FACTORY[/caption]

LIKE OMG!?!

I would already have been pretty touched if he just got me some normal cheap fruit cake, given how he didn't really know anyone else there and we only just knew each other for over a month. But. He got a WHOLE cheesecake from the yummiest cheesecake place in the world!

Ok maybe not in the world but it was super delicious! Sorry for the lousy photo.

Ok, delicious yummy cheesecake aside. We devoured it quickly and ... on to the games!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="561"] Me explaining the game to them. I actually won quite a bit, then some people began to run out of money (chips) so I kept sponsoring them, then end up I wasn't the biggest winner lol.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="494"] We switched to Banana Scrabble after poker. It was really fun! It's something like speed Scrabble, you have to race to finish up your tiles.[/caption]

And after we finished playing, they're damn cute la they went to do this with the tiles:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="514"] awww[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="558"] Don't ask me why they wanted to carry me[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="545"] :D It was a fun night with awesome company. Thank God for how everything worked out after the initial hiccups :}[/caption]

The day ended off really well imo. I already had a decent day, spending the afternoon gymming + playing basketball and a bit of pingpong, and I returned to my dorm pretty tired physically, but still had to prepare for this gathering that I arranged. And it turned out splendid! It's like, everyone was nice and fun to talk to and have around. And I was winning. So. HA. ok the winning part is secondary.

I should sleep soon, it's like 2.30 AM here. Have a long day tomorrow, going to be meeting Singaporeans in Boston at some event, then I'm off to New York! Pray for my safety I'm genuinely scared I get robbed! Bye!

P.S. Oh we had a video too:



Just our random conversation as I was cutting the cake ... there's one funny part at 1:13 so you can skip to that.

Thoughts in Boston

Surprise! I'm blogging again. Yea I've been pretty busy this past week settling into Boston, going for orientations and stuff, and I keep putting off writing this blog post until now. I have many thoughts to pen down and I guess the most coherent way would be to list them as general subject headings and talk about each a little bit.

Weather

It's an often-made joke that when conversation is awkward, people talk about the weather, and I only fully appreciated it when I came here - because there really IS something to talk about, unlike in Singapore when it's just sunny and humid all year round. When I first arrived it was pretty cooling, you could walk around everywhere without sweating that much... but it's actually getting hotter! Damn. No idea why.

The nights get pretty chilly, dipping to 15 degrees sometimes. So it's literally colder outside than indoors (air-conditioned).

I'm hoping it gets colder actually, because I have no fan in my room so it's HOT in the day :( No a/c or anything! I mean, if it's cold you can just wear more clothes.. when it's hot... you SUFFER. Well you can fan yourself with stuff but that's troublesome.

Food

The. Food. Is. Freaking. Awesome. I am working on a blog post that I will post next Sunday (not this coming one) night I hope, and you will see how awesome it is. But just to give you a rough idea - restaurant - style buffet every single meal. And the food is good. (This is dormitory dining halls, AKA hall food in Singapore)

Courses

Many of my friends return from exchange boasting about how little they studied yet how well they did - but somehow I don't think I'll be able to end up like them. I just feel the compulsive need to study... yet again, I am lazy to begin and my brain feels hella rusty. Plus I'm not really getting enough sleep every day because my Muslim roommate wakes me up at 5AM everyday to do his prayers -_- sigh.

ANYWAY. The courses I am taking are pretty awesome - one of them has 4 tests - the first 3 are not cumulative tests (i.e. Test 1 covers Chapter 1-5, Test 2 covers Chapt 6-10, etc), but the final exam is cumulative. However, your score is the best THREE out of the four tests. Which means that if you're satisfied with your first 3 tests, you don't have to take the finals. HAHA. What a joke! Why so easy one. (Maybe the content/tests are very hard that's not what I meant.)

Then I have another module - two essays, no finals. haha!  And another module with 2 tests - no final exam. So essentially.. I only have one finals. Woohoo!

Friends

There is a very open culture in the US where you can go up to anyone and strike up a conversation and then know the guy's name and where he was born and how many pets he has and when he lost his first tooth. Ok I am exaggerating but it's really very NORMAL to do that. Consequently I realize what the whole 'picking up girls' thing is not as woahhh as I thought it was... well my definition of 'picking up girls' is just chatting with a girl and getting her number (not having sex with her) so maybe it's different. I think I have done that (get the number, not have sex) like more than 5-10 times already, with both guys and girls (remember, not the sex).

Ironically (or maybe not), I have made more asian/international friends than American friends. I don't know, there's something about americans that make them harder to talk to and befriend... ironically. This seems to contradict my earlier point but firstly, half the people here are not Americans but international students, and secondly, talking randomly to Americans does not necessarily lead to having a longer conversation and exchange numbers.

Accent

Do I have a US accent yet? No I don't. Nowhere close. Don't think I'll be able to develop one.

 

Ending Thoughts

I admire students who study full-time here, or anywhere overseas in particular. It's quite a big commitment, and a big adjustment to have to make for 4 years. I can't imagine that, really. I'm just really glad I have two Singaporeans here that I can really get along with, and we are meeting new people together. And my favourite part for now is the food hehehe nomnom.

PCAMFS

I thought it'll be really sweet and nice to cook a meal for SH before I leave, despite my limited culinary abilities. I mean, it's the effort that counts right? This would be my anniversary + christmas present for her ! (I won't be around)

But I don't have any idea what to get for in terms of a monetary gift, so I decided to invest the time and effort (and a bit of money) to prepare a special meal for her!!

5 days

There are 5 days left till I fly off to the US! (or 6, depending on how you count it) Yes, I am already feeling the tingle of excitement, mixed with a pinch of nervousness,  stirred with a handful of anxiety, deep fried with a portion of anticipation!!

I mean, who wouldn't be excited about flying to America for 5 months!! It's one of my dream places to be since I began watching American TV shows when I was young (oh gosh, feel so old saying this), and now I not only get to visit it, I get to LIVE there! Woohoo!

It is also my first time flying alone - I am travelling with 2 companions but I am flying the 25 hour journey alone. I will also be alone in certain legs of the 2 week California trip I'm having before school begins. I am not so much afraid that the plane will crash or something but more worried that I will board at the wrong gate or forget my luggage or something silly like that. Also, how many movies should I watch? LOL. I mean, it's an overnight flight, but it's also freaking 24 hours long. I have to plan when I watch the movies + sleep well.

 

Everything is booked and ready - accommodation, tours, transport, etc. All that's left is for me to ... GO and have fun! I hope it'll be fun! I will zi-high and make it fun if it's not! Ok actually I haven't even started packing, so that's one more thing for me to do. One of the biggest problems is - how much clothes to bring! I really have no idea. Ugh. Will be packing on Monday.

As a result of this excitement and anticipation for the 15th to come, I'm beginning to have slightly restless nights. All that I'm thinking about at night is the trip!! Ahhh hope my scumbag brain stops doing this and lets me sleep at night.

Did I mention I am excited? Woohoo!! Ok, abrupt ending to a pretty incoherent rant.

NUS Arts Camp 2012

Arts Camp just ended less than 24 hours ago, and after hibernating for 13 hours (I think I could probably sleep for 2 more hours but I have things to be done and my throat was really dry), it's time to write this post. This will be a reflections/recap kind of post, and will be naturally long and windy. Let's go.

EDIT: It ended up taking more than a day to write this post, and I was waiting for photos too.

I had several goals for Arts Camp when I signed up.

1) Mingle around more

Last year I went for Arts Camp as a crasher, and I didn't really mix around that much. What that resulted in was in the OG card that I got in the end, many people wrote 'didn't get to talk to you much, but you seem nice' or variations of this. This year I wanted to interact more with everyone and try to talk to everyone and not just talk to an exclusive few.

2) Be a more proactive councillor

Being a crasher last year, I naturally didn't feel any inclination to take any responsibility or do anything. I mean, I am here voluntarily and I'm not an official councillor, so why work so hard? I was slacking around (with fellow crashers) and didn't really contribute much. Less tiring? Yes. Fulfilling? Maybe not as much. Thus this year I signed up as an official councillor, despite being the only one from my batch doing so (as well as being the oldest councillor).

3) Make new good/close friends

I believe in quality over quantity. I would rather have 1 close friend than 10 normal friends. I'm not particularly social (naturally) and am an introvert so I don't thrive in social situations. Thus it's not about meeting new people, it's about meeting the right people.

With that, let me launch into the recap. I will talk about whether I achieved these goals at the end of the entry.

Update on Life

Yes yes, I haven't blogged in a while. But that's because I've been busy as a bee!

1) Boston SEP

I finally received my acceptance letter from Boston! Yay! My exchange program to Boston University is now confirmed, and all that is left to do is finalize the travel arrangements.... which is a PAIN IN THE ASS!

I have plans to travel California before semester begins, and I'm going with some of the fellow NUS people going to Boston for SEP. Trip planning is NOT easy. We've been doing research about housing and transport, and it's SO hard to find an 'ideal' hostel. It's like, there's always something wrong - too noisy, too far away, too dodgy, etc. And when the hostel is perfect .... they only have bookings available for even numbers (2, 4, 6, etc) when there are THREE of us travelling

So yea after like 2 weeks of planning the only thing we've booked so far is our housing in San Francisco. Up next will be the flight ticket, then our housing and transport in the areas we're visiting.

Just in case anyone's interested, our rough itinerary is as such:

San Francisco -> Yellowstone -> Grand Canyon -> Los Angeles -> Boston

I'm not a big fan of the two natural areas (Yellostone/Grand canyon) but the two China girls I'm going with are quite keen so I'm just tagging along. I want to check out the beaches! Clean beaches please!

Talking about U SA, appl ying for a vis a is a bitch! I haven't even got my v isa and I've had to pay $400+ in administration fees how ridiculous is that!! But I love Ame rica and really want to go so in case the vi sa processors are reading this while processing my application please approve it thanks ^^ (and enjoy my $400 eating pizza or whatever you do with the money)
(the random spaces in this paragraph are my lame attempts at preventing this post from getting picked up by Google lolol)

2) Arts Camp 2012!

Yes yes that's just right around the corner... literally. Well ok it's not literally because if it's 'literally' it would mean if I walk around the corner it's there. I mean, it's REALLY close, as in, it's starting tonight! Day 0 for counsellors, that is.

Been having long meetings with the OG or the House for precamp prep, on Mon and Tues. Shack man! I don't like going out for the entire day (and I was out the entire day for both days). I need to recharge my introvert batteries!

Yup yup don't know what I got myself into but I'm a counsellor at this camp... hope I can transform into some social, entertaining person and interact well with the freshies and let them have a good camp!

I'm not looking forward to the lack of sleep and all though... you're always fueled by adrenaline during camps (hence doing loud fun cheers to boost yourselves even more) because without it you'll just crash and collapse. I want my sleeeeeep. But oh well. Praying for strength and endurance to last the whole camp! The next blog post will probably be some sort of recap post of arts camp haha. Let's hope I get into nice photos so I can post them up ^^

Ok that's all folks! Time to sleep and meditate and prepare for Arts Camp hehe. Ciaoz!

 

EDIT: I realized some followers of my blog (I've no idea why they follow me) are fitness blogs of some sort, so just a quick update on my progress-
I'm at 50kg for bench 5x5 (did one set of 60kg with a friend supporting), 60kg for squats, 55 for deadlifts, and more or less given up on barbel rows and doing chinups instead lol.  Yupz.

Light Show at Marina Bay Sands

How often have you been left in awe at something beautiful?

It could be a person, an act, a breathtaking view of nature, an exquisite work of art, or a sophisticated piece of technology.

I was left in awe last Saturday, on a date with my girlfriend to Marina Bay Sands. Let's begin from the top.

The Last Hurrah

Five guys. Over five pounds of ribeye steak, bacon strips, hotdogs and bratwurst sausages. A grill. Some beers/drinks. Music.

That was the scene on Thursday night, probably the last time the guys from hall were having a meal together. Me, Will, Soemin, Daryl, CaiJie had a mini-BBQ to celebrate the end of the semester and exams, and it had all of the good stuff.

No chicken wings or any of the 'usual' BBQ stuff. The meat was GOOD stuff. The steaks were almost an inch thick and juicy as hell. The bratwurst were the size of four of my fingers.  Bacon was crispy and tasty (abit too salty too)

[caption id="attachment_1484" align="alignnone" width="500"] Yummy yummy beef![/caption]

Pictures ahead!

The IPPT (2)

As some of you may know, I previously failed my IPPT, and as a result I had to go for remedial training in the form of 10 sessions of 1.5-2 hour training at Maju Camp. :(

After these 10 sessions, you are supposed to take your IPPT again (on the 10th session), and this time they have 'modified' standards of passing which you are supposed to hit - if you attain these targets (or do even better and pass or get silver or gold), you have cleared your IPPT for the year. If you don't, you have to attend EIGHT MORE sessions of RT.

So after going through the hassle of 9 sessions, today was the day when I would be evaluated once again. It was time to take my IPPT again.

Attendance slips of the many remedial trainings I went for

A Visit from China

In NUS there are many experiments going on regularly, conducted by honors / PhD students, because NUS is a research-focused university.

Thus, they regularly need subjects to take part in these experiments, and they pay anywhere from $8-$10, and for some it's really random like $20-100+. The most I've got was 20-40$ for one expt (3 hours), can't remember. Szehong got $100 from that same expt.

Anyway, I 'signed up' for what I thought was another experiment, cos my friend msged me and asked if I was free for an interview. and so I said yes.

Then lo and behold, after some SMS exchanges, I found out that 23 China students were actually coming to talk to me. TWENTY THREE.

wtf?!

So at first I thought was an experiment, then became an interview (I thought maybe 1-2 or 3) then suddenly 23 people coming!

So anyway I arranged to meet them in school and so they came... they were a bunch of China JC students (like from a China JC) visiting Singapore, and touring the universities. So somehow by some random selection I was the 'NUS ambassador!' wtf! Don't they have official channels for this.

Anyway the super weird and awkward thing was the moment they all sat down,

They all whipped out their cameras and started snapping photos of ME.

What!?! I felt like a celebrity or something la lol and I was dressed in a super cui T shirt (you'll see later) and berms.

So I eventually sat down and started chatting with them (some still took photos upclose wtf!) and it was really nice and pleasant they were all super cute and friendly and they asked me about NUS life, uni life, whether I have a gf (and when I said yes they all went 'waaaaaa' SUPER CUTE HAHA)
(and I swear I saw some disappointed faces HAHAHAHA. No seriously ok. And they kept snapping pics! So I either look like a weird interesting creature or I'm good looking and I choose to believe the latter lololol )

The girl on my right asked alot of questions, and the girl second from the right asked the most.
I alternated between Mandarin and English, and I actually used English at the start and when I started using Mandarin they were all like shocked like gasssp your Mandarin is so good!!

Oh and they also asked me what my sleeping hours are, and because I'm a pig and need a lot of sleep, I said  I slept by about 12 and woke up at 8-9, and once again they all went 'WAAAAA' and I found out it was because they slept at 1 and woke up at 6 >< rofl

So yea we had a chat for like 30 mins , with mostly just the girls asking questions (and the same 2 girls in general, the others asked the odd question) , the boys just quiet quiet and some looked bored. Asked about Singapore food.. the halls.. CCAs.. essays.. etc

After that they asked for a proper pic which is the one you see above and again here:

How's my paparazzi smile? Not bad right. LOL

btw, this 'photo taking' was like a whole row of people standin in front of us holding cameras and snappin pics (cos alot of cameras ma, all the students wanted photos) so it was really like paparazzi. So I just tried to look at all the different cameras at once and keep my smile on my face lol.

So after phototaking they all thanked me profusely and we said goodbyes, then their teacher or something gave me this bag of stuff that I was supposed to give to the NUS side in charge of inviting them - the thing is that I've NO IDEA who in NUS is responsible for it so I'm stuck with the souvenirs:

Some banner from their school (supposedly a v good sch and the students that came were supposedly the best in the school)

Some epic looking book about their school's epic history or something

Was a really fun experience, I would have loved to stay and talk abit more with them but I had to go so was abit sad ;( I felt bad for leaving! Like they were so eager to just talk more with me and learn about Singapore and stuff.

Ok so now what do I do with the epic souvenirs?

Highlights of 2011

The end of the year is a time where I look back at the year that just passed, and think: "What?? That was this year? It seemed AGES ago!"

This may end up being a tradition that I do at the end of every year - at the end of 2010 I also made a 'highlights of 2010' blog post.
Wow actually after reading that again, I think 2010 was ALOT more eventful and awesome than this year. This year was pretty... meh? Let's find out, as I recap my 2011!

1) Joining www.sc2sea.com

sc2sea is a community based website for SEA Starcraft 2 players. I began making posts there in about March/April, and soon after I was pulled on board to join as the Head Article Writer there.

My avatar on SC2SEA

Over the past 8 months or so I have more or less established myself there as a well-reputed member of the community and I think many people, if not most, would have read something I have written. For samples of my blogs there, check out My Blogs and my Road to Masters Series.

My reputation there is pretty good, and I love the site so much that I hang around there almost the entire day :) I'm looking to become a moderator there, after I get certain issues settled...

2) iPhone 4

After a looong time of unbearable waiting, I got my iPhone 4! The wait was because I actually found a buyer earlier than expected for my iPod Touch 4 so I was left without a device.

I still feel abit bad for selling my iPod Touch of course, because it was a beloved present from my best male buddy Pewi! But I tried to rationalize that he bought me the iPhone actually! Because that's really what it was, he bought me the ticket into Apple's kingdom HAHA.

So yea, the iPhone has changed my life in more ways than one, with me becoming more active on Twitter (which led to awesome stuff like making good friends :) ), having Internet on the move, etc etc.

3) The 1000 piece Jigsaw

Feeling ambitious, me and SH tried to solve a 1000 piece jigsaw for the first time in our life.

After literally an entire day of hard work (10 hours, 36 minutes to be precise), we gave up and conceded.

And after a week or two, I sold this jigsaw puzzle to Weiqin, who promptly demonstrates her imba-ness by single-handedly COMPLETING it under 12 hours (should read it, her blog post is pretty interesting)

4) Arts Camp 2011!

One of the best experiences I've had this year, if not the best. The energy that the freshies had was just so refreshing. I felt I could connect with them better than my batch of people for some reason. Much more than me with my seniors for sure.

For the original blog entry, go here.

5) Failed my IPPT

How is this a 'highlight' again?

It was the first time taking my IPPT after I had come out of army, and it was a time to gauge my personal fitness.... which was clearly rock bottom judging by how I totally failed my 2.4KM run.

I did blog about it and it was rather interesting, so do have a read :)

6) First time night-cycling!
Thinking back, I've no idea how I managed to do it! We cycled from Holland V to ECP to Singapore Flyer, and all the way back to Holland V! It's insane man! I recall being dead tired at the end of it. But was fun nonetheless, as I had good company :)

7) First holiday with SH!

me, SH and shimin!

Went to Batam with the gf, shimin and her bf, who was our lovely host because he is Indonesian!

Our tourguide

I think without him our trip would have been a lot more difficult.. because he could speak Bahasa Indo he conversed with the cab drivers, staff, etc and bargained and stuff haha.

Was a pretty fun maiden trip, you can see the pictures and read the blog post here ;)

8) World of Warcraft

So I started playing WoW again, got hacked again (but got it back), hit the level cap

Ding

Raided again, killed bosses again, got into some leet guild
And quit WoW again. Hopefully, for good this time.

9) Taught the gf how to cycle!

This is not just a highlight of 2011 but a life accomplishment for me hahaha.
Yea basically SH doesn't ... wait, DIDN'T know how to cycle, so I told her I would teach her! And initially she thought would take a week or more, I told her NO BY TODAY.

Read more about it here. ;) With videos even!

---

Yup that's it for the highlights of this year! Next year will be an interesting one, as I will be staying in hall and (hopefully) I'm going on my SEP ! (Student Exchange Programme) (To Boston University, USA!)

Happy New Year everyone!