Friends | Maestoso Amore | Music | Life

Vernon Lek’s Birthday Weekend

29 June, 2009 2 Comments

Had a weekend filled with activities!

Friday
Played Warcraft 3 with Huzz. Let’s just say that too easy isn’t fun. But too difficult isn’t fun either you know?

Saturday
Met Huzz in the morning to watch Transformers 2. Megan Fox isn’t that hot guys… Please stop swooning over her body! At most, she looks like a thinner version of Angelina Jolie but that’s all!

Then went over to Telok Blangah Soka Centre (TBSC) for NUSSD Institution meeting. It’s my first time attending one! Met Qiuyi on the bus and we were both late together. Haha. Learnt about dialogue and also about some dialogues that Ikeda Sensei made with a few leaders overseas. Made a new friend Kimberly (LAW). She said she’d seen me around somewhere but I don’t really know where anyway. =x

After that, rushed down Bugis to meet Huzz and we went to Eunos to meet up with Teck Hwee, Yi Long and Hwa Swee and we went to ECP to Vernon‘s chalet party. Walked a rather long distance and saw NDP planes and helicopters and the SG flag! There was an NDP rehearsal. Hm, in that case, I should be able to see the flag from my home too huh?

When we finally reached, we saw many people whom we don’t know and also Jasmine Teh and Chin Leng. Ate the buffet stuff (love the fried rice!) and then we basically just stood around and talked to each other and all that. Jia Hui came after that and we proceeded to sign the birthday card that she’d bought and drew in it! 🙂 Jia Hui should design birthday cards!! It looks almost like she’d printed on the card instead of drawing in it! So pretty la! I also want! Haha.

Vernon was very busy coz he has so many friends. But he still took the time to pause and talk to everyone of us and thanked us for coming.

A few of us sat down and played Uno and then Munchkins that Vernon brought along. I basically lost my voice because it was too noisy to talk in my normal voice. hahaha. But the music was great. 🙂

We cut the cake around 10.15pm, and the cake was HUGE! But the chocolate was super rich! 🙂

Anyway, enough about the talking, below are the pictures (I didn’t take them btw, pictures courtesy of Vernon Lek though I’d photoshopped them of course :P).

Group pic 1: Before Jia Hui and HS left and Yan Qin came. Vernon’s the one on the extreme left (stripped wet shirt)

Huzz was figuring some card games out while I was chatting with HS and Edmund.

Sitting huddled in a circle playing Uno…

This time playing Munchkins… Noticed anyone missing?

Group pic 2: This time with Yan Qin

Cake cutting time!

I had a great time and we all left around 11pm. Took but home with Edmund, Yan Qin, Jasmine, Chin Leng and their friend (I don’t know his name but i’ve seen him around in school last time) who was pretty shocked that Huzz lives in Jurong East and he “HUH?!” so loud at the bus stop that everyone on the bus that Huzz boarded turned out and looked. LOL.

Reached home around 12plus and Dad fetched me from the bus stop otherwise I have to walk about 20mins back home.

Sunday
Went for SNCO and basically was trying hard not to fall asleep there. =x

Food, Friends, Rants, Thoughts

Of Chengdu and my plate of thoughts.

13 June, 2009 No Comments

Seriously emotional blog entry. Avoid if you don’t want to hear me.

Went to Pierce Sec for POP rehearsal today. Was assigned the Glocks part. Made a new friend, Hui Xian from Pierce Alumni. =)

Had lunch with Shamin and Dickson.

Had another OPP Gathering today.

Was supposed to be a picnic to celebrate all our birthdays, but the plan failed becuase we (I said “we” because we were really too busy, I understand yea?) were all too busy and all.

*Okay, I know this sounds emo*

Henry couldn’t come because today was his commissioning.
HS had a navy exercise today.
Jia Hui had something on.
Madeline went overseas.
Li Ying was not feeling well.

So there were the 7 of us left. Huzz, Edmund, Vernon, Teck Hwee, Yi Long, Yan Qin and me.

While waiting for the movie to start, saw Kai Li.

Watched Monsters vs Aliens. Haha. Love the CG!!! It’s just awesome that so many scenes are so life like. 🙂 And there were some really funny scenes that are pretty lame (in a good way). 😀 Made me happy la.

Then we went to squeeze around at the PC Show, and I saw Vernon Loh. It’s like I turned my head right and there he was. Oh and also saw Kai Li and Hui Wen.

Went to Xin Wang Taiwan Cafe and the food variety was limited, but quite okay, though the service there was seriously bad.

Firstly, Huzz ordered a side dish that was never recorded, and after the waiter recorded it down, it never arrived. )(!@)&@*

Then, this waitress who came to collect our bill behaved in a super “I don’t want to work here” attitude. I wanted to ask her what her problem was when she asked if I wanted to use my card to deduct points. Hello?! If I don’t understand can’t you explain?

I know why my photos look like crap already. It’s the settings! Believe me, the pictures above without photoshop were seriously scary. I suddenly understood why my pictures didn’t need much photoshopping all of a sudden a few weeks back. Haha.

I had “Fermented Chicken Rice”. I thought what “fermented chicken”. It’s actually fermented beancurd with chicken! It’s pretty much what I like though 🙂

After all that, we headed for home. As we were walking along City Link, I saw cousin Alvin! Haha.
Vernon, Edmund and I travelled back on the NEL and Vernon was sharing with us our thoughts about that first dinner when he reached Chengdu, and we 3 talked about the things we did there. haha. 🙂 Pretty insightful.

I miss Chengdu.

Lastly,

*turns PMS mode on*

If you think you would rather compromise friendship by being bothered because we were being honest with you, because we are not fake, because we don’t pretend like others to say how nice your ____ is, then fine with me.

Btw, I only speak my mind ONLY after I feel that you won’t be childish like this.

Too bad for me.

I’m sorry but sometimes, I don’t think I want to take shit from people anymore. People who only want attention. This is so freaking childish and secondary school. You are not a secondary school kid anymore.

And for those who know me well enough to see me posting this here, I am seriously pissed and it’s not only because of PMS, but because I seriously had enough.

Being nice always makes me feel guilty. I’ve had enough.

*turns PMS mode off*

Friends

HS Alumni Gala Dinner 09

8 March, 2009 No Comments

Lots of thoughts, views and opinions about this, but for once, I am not going to type it here.

Anyway, I played with a DSLR today!! Mdm Chua’s lah. But it’s so freaking cool and so useful in taking good shots I shall aim to get one in future.

It automatically focusses on the object that I want to take whether near or far. Took a few pictures using it, and was also one of the “official photographer” of the day (the other was Gavin). 😀

Pictures taken from my camera (will update with more pictures after I get them from Facebook):

Weird pic of me. Haha.

Me and Mrs Lau.

Sam with his bike and the other HS alumni band people (Dickson, An Chun, Shimin & Joey) =)

Jun Wen, Rong Kai and Wei Siong. RK and WS were my classmates in sec 1. Jun Wen sat next to me during Geog in sec 4 I think. If you didn’t see Chris’s face when he saw Jun Wen… You missed out on what “surprised” means. Hahahaha.

Me and Chris. Haha. I still remember the first time I knew Chris was through this ELC play. He and Belinda were good friends. I can’t remember why but Belinda asked me to add Chris on MSN so I did. His email address had the numbers “85” in them and after adding, Belinda asked me to ask Chris why he’d put “85” in his email. And Chris’s answer was… “it was a typo.”

Chris wanted to take pics with everyone so yea =)

Sam, me and Dickson.

Some interesting stuff:
– Jun Wen & Samuel winning the lucky draw prizes. Both were bikes and both tickets were bought from me 😀 Congrats to them!

– Kelvin winning an oven but he was unable to carry it off the table and down the stage due to the weight, and the guys on my table shouted, “NSF leh!!!”

– Chris singing Barbie Girl
Watch out for “No, I’m not your doll.”

Anyway, it was great to see my secondary school classmates again, namely Fang Yi, Sheueting, Vernon, Aloysius, Jun Wen, Rong Kai, Caleb and my sec 1 form teacher Mrs Lau. 🙂

Quite disappointed with a few people though… Shall not brood on that.

10 March 09: Here’s a picture that I took using the SLR. Photoshopped the colour and added a watermark though.

Friends, School, The Past

NYP SIT Graduation 2008 (BI/IT)

21 May, 2008 6 Comments

Just returned from my own graduation ceremony! I am officially a diploma holder!! 😀

Basically, we wear gowns, hear some speeches and collect our diplomas on stage. Quite cool to see almost everyone again!! 😀

Great speech by Eugene! 🙂 And congrats to Karthika for being the top student! 🙂

Oh and Mr The pronounced my surname wrongly. 🙁 Not the first time someone has done that.

I wanted to take more pictures, but unfortunately didn’t get the chance to. A few friends forgot about me and went off for dinner lor. Haiz. 🙁 [You know who you are if you are reading this 😛 ]

Why are there so many sad smileys?

Anyway, pictures!! Will upload and post more as I receive them.

They gave us this before we went up the stage and we had to pass this to the announcer (in my case, Mr The) to read our names.

Huzz and I. 🙂

Scott, Hwa Swee and Eugene (who gave the speech as a president of the SIT Club).
Doesn’t Hwa Swee look nerdy?

These 3 guys are my classmates and I have a lot of memories with them for my past 3 years in NYP. One of them made me cry during a presentation and another was the one who consoled me when I did. And Eugene’s the one who I talked a lot about music about!

Li Ying and me.
Lol. I miss the laughs and the jokes with her in Chengdu.

Jasmine Teh and I.
To be honest, I’m not that close with her, but I know that she’s one of the very pro people in IT. Only got to know her name and all through OPP (she was posted to Oracle Beijing last year). I remember how I would feel inferior with her around. Actually I still do, but it’s not that bad now. 🙂

Wei Liang and I.
He and Jasmine walked to me and said he wanted to take a picture with me. And believe it or not, the camera he was carrying was pink and he said it was actually his sister’s.

I got to know him during the NYP Open House in 2006. And for some weird reason, a lot of lecturers thought we’re super good friends or something (we’re not) coz they would pass messages to me through him. Haha.

Me, Boss (Mr Quek) and Olive. My boss is tallllll. He’s an NYP graduate as well.

Friends, Interesting, Life

Code XtremeApps competition.

25 September, 2007 1 Comment

I reached Dhoby Ghaut at 9.05am because Teck Hwee said to meet the day before at 9.15am. As expected, I was the earliest, and Hwa Swee arrived about 10 minutes later.

We went to Starbucks and got a drink (Vanilla Latte for me), sat there and talked about what’s going to happen next semester in school. :S Yan Qin, Yi Long, Tom, Vijay, Harish and Teck Hwee arrived and we all walked to SMU SIS building.

Met Li ying outside the building. She forgot her laptop adapter and we waited till about 10.30am before heading up to register for the Code Xtreme Apps competition.

Upon receiving our package, we immediately took everything out and looked through it. The theme of the competition was similar to what we’d guessed it would be, and hence went on to discuss what we could do with the theme. We also realised that our group’s room number was invalid and went on to clarify with the NUS professor what it should be. Haha.

The competition started right after lunch. LY, YL and I realised that we were sitting in front of Vijay’s team until they got reallocated to another room. THEN, about 30 minutes into the competition, the “helper” told us to move to another room. -_-” We’d already settled down into our places and started coding already! Was super annoyed and irritated by that, but nevermind. At least the seats we were allocated to in the other room was more spacious. And the room we were allocated to was the same as Vijay’s team and Nicole’s team. 🙂

Encountered loads of problems thoughout the competition as YL and I haven’t coded in Java for almost half a year (and what we’d coded 6 months ago were mapplets). So poor LY had to help us. I tried not to build onto her stress level by looking at the Java and Google GWT APIs. One of the functions that I was supposed to do couldn’t work out in the end and ended up working on another function.

Time flew by very quickly. By the time of submission, even though we weren’t able to complete all our functions, at least the important ones were done. We encountered deployment problems. I’m guessing the reason for it would most likely be the fact that the project wasn’t created properly at the beginning. >.< Oh well. Luckily for us, the organisers allowed us to submit our files in a normal folder. 🙂 We were the last team to get judged. Comments from the judges were that what we did was interactive and different from others. They tried to get us to "sell" our project, but due to the lack of sleep, we failed that part. Lol. But was quite alright in the end. So well, the weekend was fruitful as I got to learn a lot more about Google WTK as compared to the stuff that I'd read up at home about it. Learnt a lot about using Eclipse as well (though I still am not used to using it). Though I felt that perhaps this competition should be divided into categories. Even though Ruby on Rails, Google Maps, Google Mashup and GWT are new technology, there are many professionals or people out there who are already well-versed at it. A lot of us are newbies to these technology and we would definitely not win or cannot even compare to their standard in a competition like this. Even though the organisers emphasized that it is the idea that is important in this competition, it is afterall a programming competition. Maybe by having different categories in this competition, the top few of each category could have a second round of judging and the best would be able to win the Google trip or something? Just my 2 cents worth on this. 🙂

Cheng Du, Friends

Shopping and karaoke experience.

6 August, 2007 1 Comment

Saturday, went to Qin Tai Road (琴台路), Digital Square (数码广场）, Chun Xi Road （春熙路） and Ke Hua North Road （科华北路）.

We visited Qin Tai Road to buy souvenirs for our friends in SG. We’d first visited the street when we’d went to watch Sichuan Opera about 3 weeks ago and found a roadside stall selling the same goods found at Jin Li Road for half the price. 🙂 As I’m buying some stuff in bulk (for some HS Band and SNCO people), I would be saving quite a lot of money if I buy stuff at a lower price.

So went back to that same stall and bought more stuff for others (but still not enough for all. How?? =x). Also walked around the street. I notice lots of Tibetian shops over there. Probably coz that area is near Tibet or something? Not too sure.

At Digital Square, went to 2 animes shop to look around. Huzz bought a super huge Master Grade Gundam while Yan Qin & Teck Hwee bought a lighter and watch respectively. I wanted to buy some anime accessories, but decided not to since if I buy it, it’ll probably just sit at home in my drawer. :-/ Ended up buying a earphone splitter (SGD$0.40) and a converter for my Energizer rechargable batteries (for charging my rechargable batteries in SG; SGD$1.60). On impulse, I also bought a proper camera bag for my Sony camera. The store assistant first showed me the Sony camera bag that came with my sis’s T10 (SGD$12) and I think from the look on my face, he knew that it was out of my budget. He then asked if I would like to look at cheaper ones and then showed me a Panasonic Lumix camera bag for only SGD$4. For some weird reason, he kept telling me that even though there is a cheaper Sony camera bag for SGD$2, he would recommend me this Panasonic one as it is of a better quality and is more shock proof. Honestly, I didn’t think too much about it and bought the Panasonic bag. 🙂

Went to Chun Xi Road after that. The main objective is to visit this music store which Huzz and I saw last week. The place didn’t disappoint except for the fact that they didn’t sell music scores and better drum sticks. :-/ Everything else was wayyyyyyy cheaper than the stuff sold in SG. And OMG, I saw this good music stand selling for SGD$10!! If not for the fact that there’s a weight limit for luggages, I’d have bought that immediately. :S :S

Ke Hua North Road, supposedly a “happening” place in Chengdu. Lots of eateries and roadside stalls there. Roadside stalls there sold stuff from fashion accessories, to toys, to puppies, to fruits and vegetables. Didn’t buy anything but it was an eye opener. 🙂 Doubt you can find a similar place in SG like that.

Anyway, went to ATT karaoke with (Li Ying, Henry, Yan Qin, Teck Hwee, Yi Long, Jia Hui, Edmund, Hwa Swee, Huzz and Mr Ling) around 9pm.

Place similar to KBox, but bigger. Though the way you choose songs are different. ATT has a dedicated computer screen at the side for you to pick your songs, control the volume, add in sound effects, etc. Of course, everything is in Mandarin and we had problems using the system at first but after a while I got the hang of it and kept selecting songs for the rest. I also threw in a few English songs (Westlife’s More Than Words and Uptown Girl; a1’s Like A Rose; Trademark’s Only Love) and 2 Hokkien songs (Chen Lei’s “Hong Jin Tao” and “Hua Hee Tio Ho”) Lol. I didn’t want to sing at first, but then it ended up fun so I sang a few songs too. Lol.

And we had Budweiser. Tasted like Guiness or Carlsberg (I can’t remember) but at least it was better than Tiger or ABC.

Reached home around 1.30am after buying McNuggets to reduce the effects of alcohol. They cut the water supply!! 🙁 Didn’t bathe that night (rather, morning). 🙁 However, when I was about to sleep at around 3.30am, I heard sounds from the toilet pipes and turned on the taps, and water burst out of it. -_-”

McDonald’s Ke Hua North Road, 1.16am

Woke up around 9.30am and didn’t feel like sleeping coz I stink. So took a bath, and wanted to sleep after that, but ended up helping Li Ying send her stuff, ate lunch, watch a movie (Swing Girls) before taking a nap. But still felt pretty tired after that.

Though I must say, sunday afternoon was super peaceful. 🙂

So is office today. =X Though I’m feeling horrible because of my stomach (diarrhoea and no appetite). 🙁

Cheng Du, Friends

Chengdu Day Tour

17 July, 2007 1 Comment

Went on a day tour around Chengdu 2 Saturdays ago. We’d signed up for the tour as we had some places of interest like Wu Hou Ci and Du Fu Cao Tang, that we haven’t visited.

Yong Ling Mausoleum
This was our first stop. We met our tour guide there – this young woman who is a third year university student. I forgot her name, but well, this tour group was kind of small, hence they didn’t rent a bus for the whole group. Instead, we travelled in smaller groups in mini-buses.

Anyway, the Mausoleum was a memorial place for one of China’s emperor. I can’t remember his name =X But that Mausoleum’s kind of cool.

Wu Hou Ci
Next stop was Wu Hou Ci – a memorial place for Zhu Ge Liang, Liu Bei and a few other people who are mentioned in 三国演义 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

Qing Yang Gong 青羊宫
Basically a Taoist Palace where you can get your fortune told by priests. Directly translating the name would mean “Green Goat Palace” and there really was a “green goat”.

The green goat

Zodiac

Then we had lunch. 13 Sichuan Dishes! What happened was the waitresses kept serving the dishes, one after another and we had to hurriedly finish those that were served before so that there would be enough space for the other dishes. lol.

Du Fu Thatched Cottage
Du Fu Thatched Cottage! It used to be the former home of Du Fu, a poet.

The tour guide gave us discounts for a Sichuan Opera show at night. Glad that I didn’t miss it, coz it’s an experience of a lifetime!

There were Chinese musical instruments ensemble, Sichuan Opera, Skits, a puppet show, Er Hu and Suo Na solo performance, hand shadow performance and the best was “Bian Lian” – the famous show where they change their masks very quickly.

View all the photos and videos here.

Friends, Interesting, Life, My Story, Past

My Story: Swimming.

17 July, 2007 No Comments

When I was 7 or 8, I went for swimming lessons every Saturday afternoons at the neighbourhood swimming complex.

When I first started learning, I remember going for lessons with my mum’s friend’s son who’s one year older than me, share the same religion and we studied at the same primary school.

He was like a big brother to me and after swimming lessons, my sis, mum and I would sometimes go to his house and play computer games. There was this hotel game where you build a hotel and manage it – very similar to the Roller Coaster Tycoon / Zoo Tycoon series of games. He taught my sis and I how to play it and all 3 of us would always have fun.

After a few months, he stopped these swimming lessons. I continued these lessons. I’d only see him in school. But we wouldn’t talk at all.

Well, life’s like that, you stop talking to people, you grow up, and you aren’t friends anymore.

I’d often see him at some SSA events and all, but unfortunately, except for that few seconds of staring that shows recognition, I didn’t get to talk to him at all.

I also saw him at the last IT fair (where I got my Samsung YP-T9) working and he did a double-take when he saw me. I wondered why.

So yesterday, I found his blog and then friendster and I must say, I’m glad that he’s doing well in photography.

Anyway, I’d blogged about this because of the many friends that I had when I were young, and he’s like the only one who I treated as a big brother. And when I was a kid, you feel cool when you have an older friend around. Maybe one day we will be friends again and he can share his photography tips with me. 🙂

Cheng Du, Friends

Weekend.

17 July, 2007 No Comments

You know how sometimes you look forward to weekends because of certain positive factors? Well, last Friday I was looking forward to my weekend and it really didn’t disappoint.

Friday was good. Went to Peter’s Tex-Mex Grill for dinner. Had this tortilla beef salad which was just the right serving for me. You know how sometimes you’re hungry but not that hungry to finish one whole meal? That salad was just right for me. Plus the amount of vegetables in there made the whole dish healthy.

Went to Ikea – Chengdu on Saturday morning. I’ve been quite interested in going to Ikea Chengdu for quite a while as I missed eating the Swedish meatballs there (=X) and I always have fun visiting Ikea. I haven’t been to the Ikea Tampines store since it’s opening, but the location of Ikea Chengdu always reminds me of it.

Our first stop was Ikea’s Restaurant and Cafe where we had our lunch. Just like the one in Singapore, you pick your food before queuing to pay for it. And in the menu, they included a few local dishes. Over here, the dishes are stuff like Kung Bao Chicken Rice.

The whole Ikea is almost the same as the one in Singapore, except for the fact that everything is in Mandarin. I guess the Ikea standard’s the same all over the world. Had great fun there. Lol. Innocent stuff like soft toys became obscene after Henry‘s doing. Let the pictures do the talking =)

Went to this place called 锦里 Jin Li after that. It’s mainly a tourist attraction I guess, since it’s situated next to Wu Hou Ci. Since the Chengdu Day Tour, we’d planned to go there to do some shopping. So there we went.

Made this pendant thing where they write your name out on a rice and put it in to a bottle. It used to be quite popular in Singapore a few years back but was quite expensive back then and now. In fact, when my sis checked the price of it just a few days ago, it cost SGD$12 + whatever amount for the string. Over here, the lowest price was SGD$3 + whatever amount for the string. Cheap eh?? Huzz and I made one each with both our names on it 🙂 ~~Though for mine, the glue kinda came off, so I’m planning to visit the place again and hopefully the person would be able to fix it back properly.~~ Unfortunately, mine dropped off somewhere in the house 🙁

Also bought a 笛子 (di zi: Chinese flute, usually made of bamboo) for SGD$36. Those professional kind. Quite cool lah. And it’s way worth it compared to the not-professional one my aunt bought for me in SG (which costs SGD$50).

Had a blackout on Sunday morning. Many of us thought that it was because we didn’t pay the electricity bills. The internet went off the night before and we also thought it was because of the bills =X We’re kind of interesting eh? Only pay bills when the electricity’s cut off. =X
Played badminton after that.

Happy 2 months! 😀

Cheng Du, Friends, Life

Shoppppping!!!!

11 July, 2007 No Comments

I know I’m supposed to be blogging about my Chengdu day tour, but oh well…

Carried about 2kg worth of stuff with Jia Hui and Yi Long from the office to this “Business Centre” in the morning. It was a great walk there, because when we reached there, the lady told us that the nearest place to send a parcel was at 紫荆广场 (Zi Jing Square), which is basically near where we live. -_-” Oh well, partly my fault for not checking out the place before hand even though Henry said that we are able to send parcels there. 🙁

So changed plans and I ended up following Jia Hui and Hwa Swee to collect the rest of our passports. Of course, we went to the post office to send our stuff first. Mine weighed about 2.8kg. Much heavier than expected I guess. I hope everything will get through, else it’ll be very troublesome 🙁 .

After collecting the passports (the SG guy whom we saw last week was there as well haha), we took a cab down to Tian Fu Square. It’s been quite a while since I went there, and hence was able to see new clothes on display. I don’t usually shop unless I have something to buy, but since we’re going back to SG soon, and I haven’t really bought anything for my Dad and sis, I decided to go as well.

Lots of shops were having discounts to clear last season’s clothes. Haha! I ended up buying 3 tops – one from Giordano, one from Converse (50% discount!! Dry-fit top!! SGD$10!!) and one from Meters Bonwe. The Meters Bonwe one is for my sis. 🙂

Couldn’t find the Beijing 2008 stuff that my sis and mum wants. They didn’t have it there. Oh well. And the couple rings that the group of us saw before we went to Jiu Zhai Gou was also out of stock there. haha.

I had great fun today, because I’ve never really gone shopping with friends in SG. Lol.

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