Chinese New Year

Secret War Journal[23 January 2012]

Ah, so Chinese New Year had arrived.

Though I had fun during the Chinese New Year, I cannot help but notice that the Chinese New Year spirit in Singapore has died down relatively, compared to previous years. Am I the only person to feel that?

If I am not, I wonder why this is so. Is it due to the economic uncertainty? Or is it due to the shorter duration of holidays?

No matter, what I like most about Chinese New Year would be the reunion dinner. Sometimes, I guess, we just need a reason to meet up together as a family. It is the one time of the year where the whole extended family get to meet up, apart from my grandmother's birthday.

I think we have a lot of stuff to catch up too, young and old. Sadly, I was unable to taste Grandmother's delicious mee sua again. Leroy, leroy, Grandmother is too old to cook already. Dang, selfish me. Hahas.

Another major change was that gambling during Chinese New Year toned down considerably this year. I think that is one factor that cause the dampened festive spirit this year. O.o
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I wonder how is the red packet collection from everyone else? As my own tradition, I am not opening them until Chinese New Year comes to a close! ;)

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Credits for photo: My cousin who took and decorated them. :)

Board and Kites

Secret War Journal[21 January 2012]

Morning rites

Today, I went to pay respects to my grandfather and my mother. So much had happened since the last time I came to see them. It has been only a month since; I had so much to say, so much to tell. Yet, when I came before them, I feel as though I have not enough time. Wanting to make good use of my time there, I was almost at a loss of word. I feel so useless then. Why can’t I say what I want to say in that short time?

I realized now, I was trying to say three sentences at the same time. My mind still could not sustain three threads of thoughts for such a long time.

Such a fool I was.

"Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out." - Anton Chekhov

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Broken strings

I guess I had no time to mop around over my inability to say what I wanted. I just have to hope they are hearing my thoughts whenever it is directed at them, no matter where I am.

I have a tight schedule today but I didn’t tell people that. (Now you know. Aren’t it a bit late for that? Haha)

I went to the temple with my family, I left alone. Next destination – Sengkang Community Centre.

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I received news that for today’s event, Johnston and Keller would not be able to join us. I can understand, Chinese New Year is round the corner, preparations had to be made. Nevertheless, I feel bad to call upon Meldon to organize such nature of outing when there are so few of us who can make it. After all, I am partly, if not mainly, responsible for the existence of the outing.

The original plan was to play kites and board games the whole day. I would be joining them in the afternoon but I had thought with 4 players, it would be enough to entertain each other until I arrive. But with 2 backing out, playing kite seems rather meaningless and it is difficult to play challenging games with only 2 players. You would need a minimum of three players.

By the time I arrived, I sensed that they were a bit exhausted though they commented that I look exhausted too (Tired from life or work, I wonder). Despite that, we managed to play a good round of Settlers, Munchkins and Monopoly Deal. At the end of the day, what’s important is that we had fun. :)

I guess, after all this, it was the way it was meant to be. It is better this way too; it is more comfortable talking Japanese-related stuff with them than any other people. It did help to put at ease, talking about such cheerful things. :)

In a blink of an eye, it was evening already. As we were about to leave, it started to rain. We decided to wait for the rain to subside by playing a few more rounds of board games, only to be rewarded with a heavy shower.

Since Meldon had pressing matters, he is volunteering :), we decided to run in the rain to reach the train station. I think we really had quite a bit fun doing that. Personally, it reminds me of my primary school days. Such innocence we had then. Hahas!

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CNY Goodies!

Seeing them off at the train station, it is now time for the next thing I decided to attend to. It is time to pay a visit to my cousin’s house. My aunt had prepared goodies for Chinese New Year for my family! Thank you!

I feel bad that I am visiting my aunt’s house because she prepared something, is this world really about such matters? Is it?

I had a nice chat with my cousins and caught up with drama series that were currently being aired. Hahas! It had been such a long time since I last watched television. :)

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Before heading home, I stopped by Cynthia’s house to settle some matters. It didn’t take long, I welcomed myself back home after that.

MOE Bursary Merit Award Ceremony 2012

Secret War Journal[15 January 2012]
Today is a good day. At least, it should be. :)

I am once again an recipient of the MOE Bursary Award Ceremony! I am so happy!

I wanted to upload pictures taken that day but apparently no one uploaded them yet. So I'm afraid there's nothing else to post except for the good news. :P

Starcraft 2 En Masse

Secret War Journal[14 January 2012]

I realized ever since the end of “A” level, I had been going out to play LAN with many of my friends.

Well, on the bright side, I had been playing Starcraft 2 with my friends. Starcraft 2 hones the mind and the mind games involved is really refreshing for me. Well, I cannot see that for everyone else though. Hahas!
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So what is the link of the introduction to what we are discussing today?

I have to admit, I just played LAN today again. Opps?

For today’s round, we have Johnston, Trevor, Nigel and two other friends (sorry, I’m not sure how to spell your names)

We played a total of 4 matches. Each match was a team battle, 3 vs 3. After each match, we would shuffle the team players for more diversity and balance. :)

I would say this is the first time I managed to play a very serious Starcraft 2 games with friends. I really enjoyed the experience. :)

Hope we play again in the near future! Ciaos!

10S101 Class Chalet 2012

Secret War Journal[8 January 2012][Long post]

Actually, I am not sure if this is the last one but it sure felt it was the last one. O.o

The Original Plan

I guess there is no harm to tell you what I had planned at first. Pei Shi’s and Debbie’s birthday presents were way overdue since last year.

But! Before you jump into conclusions, we had bought the presents. We just needed an opportunity to pass to them with all the stakeholders present, to be fair.

Actually, we just wanted to witness their reaction when they open the presents. :p

With the class chalet, the opportunity presented itself, well sort of. Since Laura’s birthday recently came too, Pei Shi was planning to pass Laura’s present before the Class Chalet. Covertly, we were planning to pass to Debbie and Pei Shi their presents then too.

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Or so we thought,

Lai Yin was… I guess not used to such stuff. So the plan failed. We had only a few minutes to concoct another plan which I would leave the details for later. Hahas! :)

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What actually happened…?

Then came another setback, this one rather hilarious too. :p

Laura overslept. Pei Shi must be pissed because that was the whole point of the meet-up – to pass her birthday presents. Hahas!

For a moment, I thought her phone died because her phone was unavailable and she was not aware of the gathering point. Thankfully (ironic as it sounds), she was sleeping and did not turn on her phone.

Since we thought we are going to be the latest for the Class Chalet, we told Laura to meet up somewhere nearer to the Class Chalet.

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While we head towards the new meeting point, let me spend some time to describe to you the wrapper for Laura’s birthday present.

Why? You might ask. Well, it is very… unique. :p

The wrapper is made of paper (duh?!) and it is brown in color. Nothing special yet? Well, that’s the point! It is a simple paper bag, think take-away paper bags in Burger King. Hahas, a novel idea I tell you (in a certain accent)!

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We met Laura on a bus stop where a shuttle bus would bring us to our destination. Upon meeting her, we passed her our present for her. Unfortunately, she did not wish to open her present in our presence. Thus, I was not able to witness her reactions to the presents we bought for her.

The journey on the Shuttle Bus was a blur for me because I sort of fell asleep on the bus, being tired these days. Hahas.

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So it begins…

Oh does it? I would think that at this point of time, after much beating about the bushes, as a reader, you would be wondering if I was just trying to be funny and just sprouting random nonsense just to delay the climax of the day.

Well, sorry to disappoint (or amuse) you but all these events really occurred on that day. Such is life. :)

Arriving at the chalet, we expected ourselves to be one of the latest group to arrive. Much to most of our surprise, there was only… Bryan.

Yep, only Bryan. That is because he was tasked to check into the place at the designated time. Guess that made him the earliest to arrive, by default.

That is…interesting. Nevertheless, it provided me some time to explore the place somewhat undisturbed due to the lack of people in the vicinity. (*insert evil laughter*)

Oh, did I mention that the moment we arrived at that place, it started to rain? Queer, isn’t it?

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False start? No more,

Alright, I would stop torturing you (and myself from the excessive typing) by letting the pictures do the talking from this point! :)

Starting the BBQ!

Pei Shi and me doing a silly face (can't believe Debbie caught this on camera but I think it's hilarious!)

So I got bored and went to take some pictures with Timothy. Say cheese!

I have no idea why this picture is so small!!! >.<

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Ah, so the group pictures had come streaming in, enjoy! (And all our candid pictures too...)

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At around 9:30, it was getting late for some of us as we all had work tomorrow.

Laura's father was nice to bring us to a populated area for the rest of us to flag a taxi. Thank you! :)
It took some time but we managed to flag a taxi and I guess everyone was already tired from the Chalet and needed a rest for a packed tomorrow. :)

Me? I had a rather candid conversation with the taxi driver. I think he found it awkward to talk to me in front of my other friends as he talked a while before going silent when the rest boarded the taxi. Nevertheless, I gained some insight from him through our short conversation. Hahas!

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"As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round." - Ben Hogan

Let's Talk NTU 2012

Secret War Journal[7 January 2012]

“A” Levels results are coming soon, I am getting nervous. This coming Monday would be the release of “O” Levels results. Somehow, that made me worries about my “A” Levels results. Hahas!

Well, I guess it is soon time for reality to kick in and start thinking about the future!

One of the few talks I managed to find time to attend was the session conducted by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) named “Let’s Talk NTU 2012”.

How I knew about such an event? NTU sent us a letter to all of us to raise awareness as well as the flood of emails by Brightspark to inform us of such an event. It was quite irritating later on because all the contents are essentially the same thing but I guess the organizers were worried that no one would attend their talks.

For today’s event, I would be attending the talk with Debbie, Cynthia, Laura, and Pei Shi.

I guess it is without doubt after the talks and the word-of-mouth that NTU is excellent in the Business and Accountancy Degree. The direct honors program is also another plus for the Nanyang Business School. (Note that all courses in NTU offer this program too) Hmm, perhaps I would enroll in that school should I decide to undertake a business degree. Hahas!

Apart from meeting many friends during the events and understanding the various courses a little better, there is nothing much to note for the talk.

But dang, I am still undecided on which course I should gun for! (if I score well, that is) Any ideas?

P.S: There is another exact same talk on the 28 Jan 2012. Feel free to see for yourself then!

Intern Union -- IDA

Secret War Journal[3 January 2012 - 6 January 2012]
Another week has passed! I hope this is a short post because I have a lot of things to write about, hahas!

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New Interns

As mentioned earlier, Wen Rui and Johnston had officially started work as Intern here from this week onwards. :)

This brings the total number of Meridian Junior College Students working as Intern to 4. With that many of us around in there (relatively), we could form our own student union in there! Hahas!

I am just worried that our mentors would think we are distracting each other. Let's hope not. I would like to think with more of us around, we could help each other in terms of moral support and improving each other's skills.

Helping each other in specific work may be more difficult, given the sensitive nature of our work. (Especially mine?) But I still believe there are ways to improve each other's work without needing to disclose too much information. (After all, I live with secrets everyday and I still get things in done in the real world.)
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Wen Rui seems to be the busiest among us right now. However, I believe I would be much more busy than her in the near future once my side shift into high gear. :)

Johnston's first week seems similar to Joan's and mine. In addition, his mentor seems as friendly as mine. Wohoo! We must be lucky. :)

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MPS

Meanwhile, on the eastern side of Singapore, I am back training as a case-writer!

This week, there are more volunteers than ever!  I am not sure it was due to one week break than everyone had but wow, the room was filled with volunteers! Voluntarism in Singapore is indeed rising, for this particular activity anyways. Hahas!

It is a really much more enriching an experience than typing, I feel that I get to know how's the sentiment like on the ground and the various issues that people experience.

You should volunteer too! ;)

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"Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it." - Henry David Thoreau