Friday, December 31, 2010

The Last Day of the Year.

It was another sleepy day for me. I woke up at eleven and actually still intended to eat my regular eggs and toast breakfast. I decided against it in the end because I figured I would need more calories to last me through tonight, and so opted for the U-Mian instead. And now, after watching Prince of Persia with my father, I thought it would be good to spend some time blogging and putting down the things that I have been thinking about lately to paper (or more accurately, screen).

Changes

I was just thinking about this the other day - I have definitely changed this year. Some part of my innocence has been robbed from me by the University system I feel. Endless chasing after the grades and making sure you hit your participation points by everyone around has rubbed off some of the effect on me. The result is a CAP that is the highest I have got since I have entered Uni, albeit lower than many others.

You see, I never did believe in the faking. The answering of questions because it would earn you marks. And I still don't believe in it. I believe in liking what you study, and studying hard because you have a passion for it. A case in point? My Asian Markets and Marketing Management module. I absolutely loved the content and how Prof Xiao Ping taught with such conviction. That's why I always made sure I had something to bring to the table, or something to share whenever she asked questions. And I really think that's why I got an A- for the subject.

An opposing example might be Macro-economics, I guess. Our tutor seemed perpetually bored in the lessons and gave us nothing in teaching. Although I was also interested in Economics, I felt so dreary having to sit through the tutorials that one day I just gave up trying the tutorial exercises, even though I still did the necessary to maintain our participation grades.

Well, the point is, I can FEEL myself changing. Feel myself getting used to the system. Well, it isn't exactly a bad thing, but I feel that somewhere along the way, I have started to rely too much on myself and less and less on God. I used to live my life trusting that God will provide no matter what. That my grades were how they were because that is how it's supposed to be. Now, I fear for my future because I don't know where I can go with the grades or experience I have. A little chat with Ryan on Wednesday got me frightened that I didn't have an internship to show for, and that it might cause me to have a horrible future of mid-tier jobs. That really got me thinking. Is that how I am supposed to lead my life?

Relationships

Another highlight of this year is of course the fact that I got attached to the lovely Miss Oh Kai Li. Last night we had this conversation about how she thinks the flame has died. Meaning the excitement of being attached and being loved and going places together I guess? Well, I don't think so. The flame hasn't died for me because I still yearn to see her everyday, to listen to her talk about her day and her thoughts, to see her being real stupid and spout nonsensical rubbish while shopping. LOL.

But I can't deny that we are running out of places to go. It's like we are hunting down places like animals or something, and these places are starting to go extinct. And the time that we have together is decreasing because she's working and I no longer have a car to drive around during the wee hours of the morning.

I still can see us being together for a long time though, even though Mother claims that we are not "steady" to my aunties, I really think we are in it for the long haul. (Which begs the question, who the hell came up with the term "steady" anyways? And who the heck still uses that term?! Gosh!)

Weight

It's an endless battle against myself. And I seem to be losing lately. I am at my heaviest ever, and nothing seems to be working. I so much want to go back to kayaking, but I know both NUS Canoeing and Canoe Polo wouidn't want a noob like me. Which leaves Dragonboating. LOL!!!

But seriously, I am taking over the reins and working out every single day at the gym just so that I can pass my IPPT before going over to Maastricht. And I have The Spartacus Project blog to show for. It's just a very long-drawn process. I wish I could have some free personal training help =( Maybe I should ask if Eng Keat could help me! Or new friend's brother. Hahaha.. Just a thought.

-

Well, I think that very much sums up my year. Brief eh? There has been so many things, that words will not adequately say everything. I managed to find my direction in terms of interest and career also. So i am just working slowly towards my goal. It may not be easy to excel and yet keep to my philosophical grounding, but I can definitely try!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Daily Routine.

I am really starting to enjoy what my typical day these days after I returned from Dubai. A day starts with me waking up at around 9 am or 10 am naturally (sans alarm) and then lazing in bed for a while more, before I get down to really starting my day by freshening up and eating breakfast at the coffeeshop downstairs. I always order the same thing: Set Meal with Teh C, which includes eggs and toast.

Then I will come back to the computer to tweet, read up on the news, find out about the latest fashion, surf mindlessly about random things, and watch Family Guy. Today I tried playing DotA but my computer "illegal operation"-ed on me. Now I am reminded why I am a Mac user -___-||

Anyways, after that would come the journey to the gym for my daily dose of exercise in preparation for IPPT in January. Afterwhich, i would either head back home, or to town to meet my lovely girlfriend for a nice little dinner and walking around in town. =)

Now, that, is the life.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Giorgio Armani S/S 2011


I was doing my usual browsing around GQ.com and I saw this double breasted coat. And I was like "OMG! Damn cool!" Which made me wanna browse through the whole Giorgio Armani SS 2011 show, and it turned out to be great. Love the fabrics used and the silhouettes. Aww. Now I wish I were thin again and magically rich!

See it here: GQ.com - Fashion Show - GQ.COM (UK)

I'm home!

You know, yesterday when I was still back at Dubai, I was telling myself that I have to write down everything that happened so that I can remember it all. But right now, I am overcome with a laziness that doesn't seem like it's going to abate anytime soon. LOL. I will still post all the 10 days of fun up though! It just means that it's going to take more time than I anticipated.

It was great taking the taxi back from the airport and seeing all the nicely planted trees whizz past me. You never see that in Saudi Arabia. It's all sand there. Even for Dubai, you see more buildings and sand than anything else. Of course, there are some trees, but they are mostly shrubs. So it's really refreshing to see our trees again. And our buildings that fill the entire land. In the UAE, buildings only appear in cities, and for most places other than Dubai, buildings are really short. Even shorter than the HDB block I am in now. So it's a welcome scene too =)

So what exactly am I doing now? Catching up on my American TV series! Watching Bones now, even as I am talking to Kai Li. Just caught up with TBBT, and it's gonna be Supernatural after, and then on to reading mangas! Somehow not being at home really disrupts my daily routine. I don't really remember what I did before I went to Dubai. LOL. Even though I suspect it's pretty much what I am doing now!

Alright. Bottomline is, I will get to blogging soon enough! Thinking of setting up a blog for the STEER trip too. So that we can consolidate our experiences! See how it goes!

Monday, December 13, 2010

STEER Day 3: Jubail, KSA.

It's only Day 3?! Feels like its been a long time since we first landed in Dubai.. and we have really learnt a lot since then.

Today was truly an eye-opener for me. We were treated to the true wealth of the Saudis in Jubail, an industrial model city. Jubail was first decreed in 1975 to be a city built to develop the petrochemical industry in Saudi Arabia. Our first stop of he day was to the Royal Commission of Jubail to learn more about the city and how they planned it. If you thought Singapore's infrastructure was impressive, Jubail is even more so.

Jubail has the benefit of being built out of nothing at all. They took the opportunity to build a masterplan for a city that had industry, commerce and residential areas. The result is a city where all water, electricity, waste, fibre optics are built underground and where the streets look more like Australia than anywhere else in KSA. At the Royal Commission, we learmt how they built Jubail from ground up, and how the city functions now. Apparently every university graduate there gets an average of 5 job offers! The courses in their university are specially tailored to suit the demands of the job market, thereby creating a self-sustaining workforce.

We also had the opportunity to have lunch with some of the students from their university. Makmur especially interacted with them and found out how life really is in KSA. I also had a chance to chat with them a little and i realise that we are more similar than we thought initially. They play computer games too, they like hanging out with friends, going to the beach, etc. Kinda cool actually. The students are alot more approachable than the adults it seems.. maybe because of the smaller age gap?

Anyways, after lunch, we went on to SHARQ, which is a petrochemical company manufacturing plastics for Asian markets. The plant was huge, but we couldn't take any photos.. SHARQ is also an affiliate company of SABIC, KSA's second largest oil company. After the SHARQ visit, we went to Petrol Steel Co Ltd, a joint venture company between a Saudi firm and Singapore's Rotary Engineering. There, they shared a bit more about how KSA is diversifying into petrol-related products to decrease reliance on the oil industry. It was also that i realised how comforting it is to hear a Sinaporean accent when you are in foreign land. Ahh!! Missing home already!

That, by the way, is the end of the itinerary of the day. It seems really short, but we actually took a whole
day to finish the touring. Shagged!! More to come in the next few days. Hope it gets better!

STEER Day 2 in Saudi Arabia.

An entirely random photo that I took at the King Faud International Airport at Dammam, Saudi Arabia.  After flying off from Dubai Airport finally, we reached Dammam in 2 hours on board Malaysian Airlines MH154.  Not entirely friendly, I must say..  There is really a difference between SQ and the rest it seems.

The atmosphere in Saudi Arabia is a lot tenser than that in Dubai because of the stories we have heard about how strict their religious police were. When we landed, everyone was solemn and afraid to draw attention to ourselves.  The late hour of our arrival didn't exactly help matters, since we now feel like we are stowaways from another country... The customs didn't help matters either.  We had to scan in all ten fingerprints and our passport was detained.  I never felt the importance of a passport until then.. They were perfectly able to take it away and I would never able to go home again, I thought while waiting.

Eventually we did get our passports back, and we cleared the checkpoint without much problem thankfully!  And on we went to our hotel!

We are staying at the Crowne Plaza Al Khobar for the KSA leg of our trip. It's the same Crowne Plaza that we have at Changi Airport back at home.  5 stars!  By the time we reached the hotel, it was 6 am and had been 26 hours since I woke up.  Luckily, there was nothing much on the itinerary for the day, and I slept the day away...

To do the hotel some justice, it is only right to write a bit about how marvellous it is.  When we first entired the hotel, we were greeted by a waiter offering us Arabian coffee and dates.  our bags were left in the bus and carried for us into the hotel by the bell boy.  Check-in was incredibly quick and all we needed to do was to get our card keys and head to bed.  Before that though, we tried out the buffet breakfast at the mezzanine floor.  The spread was awesome.  Kind of reminiscent of the spread I got at Angsana Bintan.  I haven't seen it for myself yet, but some said that the pool at the top floor has an awesome view and great amenities such as a jacuzzi (yay!), sauna, turkish bath, etc.  The Saudis are truly very generous!

The next item on the itinerary was a shopping trip to the nearby Rashid Mall at around 5 pm.  It was smaller than Dubai Mall, but more than enough to make our legs ache.  The things there were more or less what we could find in Singapore though, so I didn't manage to get anything other than a scarf for my SEP.

One interesting thing we observed at the Mall was the call to prayer at sunset.  The PA system sounded the call, much like what I heard in the Bruneian jungle, and suddenly all the shops started closing or the shop owners to go pray.  Interestingly, there were some who chose not to pray but took the time instead to have a smoke and slack a bit.  Kinda new to me, since Singapore is a secular country, but really quite cool!

After shopping, we were shown the 30km long causeway that linked KSA to Bahrain.  Can you imagine a causeway that goes across the sea by 30km? It's totally insane!  Pity we couldn't see much because of the night.

And that was actually all that we did today. Not much, which I am actually glad for.  At least we got the time to replenish our energy!

We are going to Jubail tomorrow to visit the Royal Commision, SABIC and Rotary Engineering, a Singapore company based there.  It's gonna be great!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

STEER Day 1 in Dubai.

It's 6.11 a.m. in Singapore now, but it's only 2.11 am here in Dubai Airport. We are now waiting for the connecting flight to Damman, Saudi Arabia after our flight from Singapore earlier today. Been awake for more than 22 hours, and our flight is only due at 5 am. Sleepy TTM!

After we reached Dubai, we made our way via the Metro to the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The tower wasn't the main aim of our visit though, it was more of the 12 million square feet Dubai Mall that we really wanted to check out. It's a stunning 8 times the size of Vivocity, and a supposed retail haven. And haven it was indeed!

There was virtually every single design house in that place, and there was a Gold Souk that housed a whole wing of jewellery stores. Then there was the fountain that we all thought looked a lot like the Singapore River and Clarke Quay. There are water shows every 30 minutes at the fountain, and we were lucky to catch 2. Simply amazing! Although we all tried capturing the beauty of it all with photographs, I think the magic of the moment was in the fact that it was so fleeting. I have got to bring Kai Li here one day...

Anyways, other interesting sights were the indoor aquarium in the mall itself where we saw sand sharks and gigantic groupers. There was also H&M which we didn't have time to go into. I really really wanted to check out the Kinokuniya Book House, but we didn't have enough time for that either.

After one day here, I can really see the opulence and lavishness of the place. The Emirati have spared no expense at displaying their wealth. And wow, do they know how to enjoy the life!

One other thing I noted was that even though Dubai is considered quite liberal in the Middle East and has some latitude in what they allow, the advertising here is still much more conservative as compared to Singapore. Guess? advertisements do not have their usual flaunts of cleavage, and most advertising do not even show people in them. Brand names are the big thing here, but not so much advertising. I can imagine how hard it is for a new brand to strike it out here. Seems like in order to make it in Dubai, your company must have already made it somewhere else.

It seems really short when I am blogging this, but the tour around Dubai was truly an eye-opener, be it from the narrow-mindedness of what luxury is, and also from a cultural viewpoint as an observer looking at how the Arabs behave and lead their lives. They are really family-oriented (everyone is almost always seen in the family unit), and somehow there is an aura of dignity that they carry as Emiratis that one can feel around them. I can only imagine the pride with which they have for their country. Something we can all learn as Singaporeans, I believe.

We are headed to Saudi Arabia later, and from what I have heard so far, the culture would be quite different from what we have here at Dubai. That means more interesting things for me to learn. I am still wondering how they conduct their marketing and advertising if all depictions of humans are disallowed. Looks like I am going to find out real soon!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Dubai, here I come!

If you didn't know already, (and I think some of you actually don't know, since I got an sms asking me to go out for lunch despite me saying just on Tuesday) I am flying off to Dubai tomorrow morning!

To be honest, I am not as excited as I thought I would be. I don't think it has quite sunk in yet that I am actually leaving tomorrow. Hmm.. Anyways, I will try to blog as much as I can about the happenings there, so stay tuned for updates! =D

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Total randomness.

Just read this awesome article on Wired about optical lift. Light can lift stuff by passing through them! Is this the beginnings of a lightsaber in the future?!

-

By the way, I just came back home from a karaoke session with Alan, Zilun, Andy, TYL and Chun Tong. Shioks! Managed to send my Picard bag to repair at Shaw Centre at the same time. Hopefully they can get back to me fast so that I can pick it up before I go to Dubai!

Managed to shop around a bit before coming home too. Hmm.. I don't know if I need anything else for Maastricht. I'm worried that what I have might not be enough to fend myself from the cold =/

Monday, December 06, 2010

The Black Swan


A definite must-watch on my list. NATALIE PORTMAN!!!

Good morning!

I woke up with aches all over my body, with the especial pronounced pain on my shoulders. Which is strange because I didn't run with my shoulders, did I? My abs are hurting too, which totally shows how much they have degenerated over the past two years =/

Today marks the very first day I have to myself without any real plans. YAY! This means I can finally get down to clearing the stuff I have to do for my SEP and STEER Trip. First up, I will go to the bank to deposit the cheque for our hotel in Dubai, then I'll head over to SingPost to Speedpost my documents over to Maastricht. Hmm.. that should do it actually.. Looking forward to relaxing in the jacuzzi in Safra!!

There were plans to play Mahjong at Teckie's but I doubt it would materialise with Ivan not replying and Chow sleeping. Shall just enjoy my day alone by reading my downloaded books! Hehs.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Updates!

It was Kai Li's birthday yesterday, and we went out for a short evening, just enjoying each other's company. Feels like it's been a long time since we were able to do that, and I'm glad we managed to get some time to wind down before she has to start interning, and I have to start prepping for my Middle East trip.

The USP clique also celebrated it for her the day before by playing laser tag, watching The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, and then playing board games at Mind Cafe. Cool! I think they really are a cool bunch of people to hang out with. Looking forward to the next outing!

In other news, I just finished a half-marathon! I wrote an entry about it in The Spartacus Project. So I'm not going to elaborate more here. All I can say is that I need more exercise!

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

I've Got Mail!

Guess what was waiting for me when I got home from singing at Party World?!

ASOS! Wonderfully air-mailed from the lovely United Kingdom.

I decided to make my virgin buy about one week ago because there was free shipping and my pants were all starting to break down from chafing on my thighs (URGH!). Excites!

So here's my loot:

Ben Sherman Black Polo Tee

ASOS shorts

Yay! I shall be vain and wear it to the movie outing tomorrow =D
 
This blog is best viewed in Firefox 3.6 with 1024x768 screen resolution.