Netbook and freebies

Well, so much for waiting a couple of weeks.

Today, after my rather odd interview with KK hospital, I met up with my parents for lunch before my mom suggested we go take a look at the Netbooks again. I already more or less had my heart set on a Samsung N120 if I were to get a netbook, mostly due to it’s weight, size, matte finish, speed, and battery life. The sound system on the N120 is also pretty good for its size and range. All in all, this is pretty much what I need to pick up, chuck in my bag, and walk off to and from lectures.

This 160GB 1.66GHz 10″ little wonder set me back about $700 with an upgrade to 2G RAM and a small pile of free gifts. I think the freebies took up more space than the netbook. We have here a USB keyboard vacuum, earphones, two microstatic cloths, one Toshiba retractable mouse, and one of those ball things you attach to the bottom to help it cool down.

Since I paid for my own computer, mom bought me something as well to bring to Melbourne. This little digital photo frame. We actually got it pretty cheap since the store owners gave us a discount. The plan is to load it full of photos of me my family and friends, then display it on my desk for extra motivation to study. =)

I might be heading down to Melbourne again in early December to do a little recce work, find an apartment, and hopefully get to make a trip down to Monash to attend the FOBS (Foundation in Biomedical Science) day. It’s supposed to be one where we get to mingle with staff, faculty and students, as well as get a short tutorial on FOBS to prepare us for the test on week 2 or 3. Apparently, we need an 80% to pass, otherwise we’ll need to retake it. =\

Not looking forward to the test.

Orchard Central Escapades

I have always put off going to Orchard Central since it isn’t exactly in the heart of orchard road and at least a good 10 minutes walk in the sun from anywhere I would usually park my car. But after my dad watched a short introduction of the place on tv, it was only a matter of hours before we would all be hauled over there to nose-poke about.

Orchard Central is one of the new malls on the far end of Orchard Road, designed and constructed in collaboration with the National Arts Council. As such, the place is reeking with design, artistic whims, and installations of all sorts. We even got a little Art Trail map from this helpful girl on the first floor which takes you around all the 7 art pieces scattered on the different floors of the building. There are also performances going on, with a three person band playing the evening we were there.

One of the outstanding features of the place is the long convoys of escalators running on the outside of the building, reminiscent of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, just with no protective shell around you. It’s actually pretty terrifying. We couldn’t go all the way up, and some of us discovered our fears of heights on the journey.

This escalator was found on level 5 or 6 i think. It goes up to maybe the roof…

We headed to the bit of the building choc-a-block with food. One of them was this cute little Ben and Jerry’s place with a giant peace sign made from a metal frame and lots of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream tub lids. I thought it looked yummy…

This is the view from our restaurant. The grey jagged wall directly opposite us is in actual fact the rock climbing facility in the place. It’s TERRIFYING.

As you can see, the rock climbing place actually starts on level 3 or something. Adds to the whole freak out factor.

The wall outside Ben and Jerry’s was constructed from old VCR players stacked on top of one anther and spray painted in gold or silver. really really cool.

The lift doors were glass so you can see everything as the lift went up or down. Also made it possible for the people outside to see your fear stricken expression as the lift travels downwards at a freakish speed.

A really cool map of the place.

This is one of the art pieces in the mall. Functioning as an escalator from the outside to the second floor of the building, the piece was formed from a series of 294 pictures taken of the Istana gardens and composited on glass panels. Really pretty.

I like this shop. It’s got lots of cute little soft toys and sells alot of interesting nonsense. I like the little giraffes and hippos at the back of the store sewn from bits of patterned cloth…

They also sell poker chips, which led me to the discovery that I really want a set of those.

So, that was the end of our trip to Orchard Central yesterday. But…

Today, my mom and I both decided we didn’t have enough time to see all the shops yesterday and went back right after lunch. Shopping was horrendous fun! I bought 3 new blouses and a pair of jeans. All really really pretty. =D I LIKE THEM LOTS.

After lots and lots of shopping and viewing all the shops in the mall in 3.5 hours, we headed to this place on the 5th floor which seemed to sell some derivative of fruit. I assumed this was fruit juice and offered to treat ma to some watermelon juice to fuel our shopping weary limbs. However, we found out it was actually a fruit tart place. So we ended up with a pot of tea (with which came a little pink tea cosy) and a banana and chocolate tart. The tart was DELICIOUS. The tea was really fragrant.

food tends to taste better after a hearty day of shopping. =D

The past 3 weeks…

Finally, I’m home! After a good 3 and a half weeks down under, I’ve decided that Australia is a very very very windy and cold place right now. =\

This post will be extremely image-heavy. So click only if your connection can handle lots and lots of garbage from me and wonderfully large pictures.

Convocations, celebrations and conglomerations

And so, the NTU ADM class of 2009 has finally convocated.

Well, we did so on Thursday. I’m a tad slow on the updates. Hence today’s photo-ridden monstrosity of a post. It’s been a long journey to this point. Admittedly, little did I know 7 years ago, sitting outside the office in St Nicholas that I would amount to anything of value at all. Now here I am today. With a completed honors degree in fine arts. We never know where the path we walk on will take us. All we know is, sotong prices will increase within the next 15 years.

I don’t regret coming to ADM, though my path ahead might take me far from these people I have grown to trust and adore. I’ve forged many friendships, weathered many storms, survived tumultuous deadlines and events to come to this one point when it all ends, and another path begins.

Convocation was over in a blur of brown and aquamarine, which, when worn in large numbers and after several weeks of hanging dismally by my cupboard, suddenly doesn’t look too bad. We had the lovely honor of being part of the first ceremony of the year, and had our convocation graced by President SR Nathan and the 100,000 dollar mace which doesn’t have any foreseeable purpose other than fend off pouncing undergrads.

I beside Jieying, Sufang, and Firdy on the other side during the convocation!

And Denise for a while. Lol. Lots of these photos come from Facebook. Kudos to those who took, uploaded and tagged the photos!

The Fwah group posing with our Suprematism showing.

The graduation gift from the NTU Alumni Office this year was a universal power adapter. =\ Poignant gift, upon some thinking. Thinking about it, most of their gifts this year have to do with traveling. Might be a little nudge for us to venture overseas and away from the rather frosty job market here.

Didn’t take many photos during the convo. But dear came down after the ceremony to give me flowers! My favorite flowers too! Even if it was a lil bit late.

Mommy bought me a graduation bear too! He’s wearing my faculty’s colors. =) Adorable little thing. I’ve been getting lots of soft toys lately…

Grad Bear (working name) and gerbera bouquet! They made me smile long after the convo ended. =) Thanks dear.

Friday night was then the ADM graduation bash. It was held at Velvet Underground. It was my first time at velvet and quite an experience. Pretty cosy for a party really.

Made up for the lack of pictures taken during convo with a plethora of ones taken during the grad party. We’re going back to ADM to take photos with our gowns sometime in late August. =) Must toss hats!

Today, dear and I went to Suntec today for lunch at Sundanese and to play the kiap kiap thing at the arcade again. Lol… Sudanese wasn’t too bad I guess. Tasty. The kang kong was really tasty. Though her preference for purple things was a bit unsettling (eggplants!)

So we headed to the arcade after that, spending a little over 30 dollars on the Candy Land sth sth machine. Basically, you time a scooping thingy to scoop sweets from a rotating track below. The scooping thing will then retract above a small platform where you dump the sweets. The platform retracts and extends repeatedly, pushing sweets over the edge of the platform and into the awaiting hole below where you can grab them with your grubby hands. A small lever just below the platform can be triggered by falling sweets, spinning this jackpot thing, slowly building up to the point where you get the jackpot prize.

Understand?

Lol. Anyway, seems to be dear and my favorite arcade game at the moment. During our last encounter with this machine of money robbery, we won Flappy the elephant. This time, dear won me a HUGE Tigger!

And as usual, Tigger has be to welcomed by the slightly larger welcoming committee.

Who then have to routinely check him for flu like symptoms and trample on him for luck and some strange initiation rite.

Today was a day of gifts too! Bear got a new shirt! Kinda new anyway. It’s dear’s shirt. Now I can hug Bear to sleep and he’ll still smell like you. =)

Bear looking at his shirt.

A little bit of struggle…

Tada!

SO CUTE. And smells yummy. =)

Sigh… DEAR… I MISS YOU. =( Call me or I’ll bite you.

In A Nutshell

The past couple of days have been exhausting.

Xuan’s birthday was tonight (or yesterday) and the rush to get all the games ready as well as the video and buying the present… Woot… Glad it’s finally done and everyone’s happy. I hope. =)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY XUANY!!!!

We had to distract Xuany today before his big party. So we headed to PS to play arcade and have some lunch.

Lunch was teppanyaki at that Sakae place in the basement. I didn’t really have much of an appetite today (coming to think about it). But we still guzzled down lots of food.

Dear came along too! And went nuts playing the funny sweet-scooping game in the arcade. She ended up scooping up a big bag of sweets as well as a couple of toys…

And the jackpot prize! Lol… She won me a big fluffy grey elephant. =) So cute…

Flappy the Elephant on the way to dinner! Squished between the seats of the car.

And mesmerized by the sights and sounds of the world outside of the storeroom he was kept in for ages and ages.

Flappy comes home!

His welcoming party arrives.

And gives him a big welcome hug… As well as a check for flu-like symptoms.

When all’s clear, it’s bed time!

Yeap… Today was really long… Glad everyone had fun. =) Will blog more tomorrow. Tomorrow is another long long long day.

Thank you dear. =) For Flappy, for coming today, for supporting me when things got tiring and for being with me through it all.

Half Year Mark

So we’ve made it. The half year mark.

There’s still that crazy flurry of excitement. There’s still the tingly buzz that lingers after every kiss. There’s still that soft ache whenever you leave. I still love you.

Happy half anniversary dear. =)

Been pretty busy these couple of days. I expected our 6th month to be a little more extravagant than just a quick and slightly late dinner. But I was recently hired by Double Negative as an anything and everything assistant.

The people in the office are great. My little room consisting of 5 desks and my single chair has a great view. The food isn’t too bad. The company is amazing. But…

The job, not as emotionally fulfilling as I thought it would be.

Will blog more about it come end of the week.

I’m on a one week trial to see how I like the job and how they like me. It’s only been two days and I’m already exhausted. And miss my girlfriend to bits.

Have been trying to squeeze in some time to look up graduate diploma courses as a backup if I don’t get into med school this year. A grad dip would give me the year’s worth of sciences that I need to apply to anywhere in the world, freeing up my options horrifically. And also, gives me better grounding for the GAMSAT and MCAT.

I think it’s a pretty good next step. But the trick now is finding a course which will take me, someone from a non-science background. The only courses which would let me do something as outrageous as this is in Monash, but it’s closed to international students… Need to check with them if begging helps..

Sigh…

Destination Unknown

Not entirely sure why this post is entitled as such. The words just kept wafting about in my head while the cursor lingered over the title field.

So…

Despite being school-free and jobless, I still find myself rather and surprisingly busy. Juggling between giving tuition, preparing for tuition, looking through video archives, compiling videos, job-hunting, panicking over universities, panicking over jobs, and acting like a generally school-free and jobless person kinda takes up most of my waking hours.

Next week will be exciting, I envision.

The word exciting teetering between that and utterly depressing.

If I get word from the Universities, I would start hearing from them next week. Next week also marks the end of the June holidays for most kids in Singapore and hence one of two things:

1. The malls will be suddenly quieter and more peaceful
2. I’m going to start work

I’m starting up my revision on the GAMSAT material as well. Whether I get in or not, always good to have that all down to a pat.

I more or less am pretty confident that I won’t get a shot a medical school this year. Or ever, for that matter. Sometimes, really really really really really wanting something, doesn’t make it so.

The worst is probably the wait to find out.

Some photos from last week’s Father’s Day.

We headed to China Club for some good ole chinese food. The place itself was over 50 floors above the ground, making for some great views shrouded in a blanket of haze.

A running theme in the restaurant was this red communist star. I should have worn my Vietnam shirt here!

DBS is so short from here…

Strange scallopy, egg rowy, brownish, whitish thing we ate. =\ Some liked it, others didn’t. I think it tasted overall kinda funky. Strange… Strange thing.

Giving papa his present! Not sure why his mouth was open during this shot. Hahahaha… We got him a mini golf bag thing with wheels to put on his desk (need to remember to give him the astroturf that comes with it too) and a set of pajamas.

This is upstairs! It’s a different decor from the rest, sporting a more oldish, Shanghai-ish kinda feel. It also smells like old lanterns.

Unfortunately, China Club (according to mama) isn’t open to the public. Need to check that out again though. The meal left us with a rather hefty pricetag and not too satisfied tummies.

Right then. Enough updates. Time to get ready for tuition.

Ian & Rachel

Some photos from the wedding. Not sure what I can or cannot put up, so it’s mostly not related to the couple.

The bridal car going to the bride’s house in the morning! And trailing photographer cars. (yes, all three at the back are part of the train. plus one more already at the bride’s house)

Ian kor kor in the shot we took in the high speed car chase down the PIE.

Horde of photographers

More of the horde.

The Grand Ballroom at Hyatt.

Macs in action! All of us rushing to import, edit and sort thousands of images in a couple of hours.

Family photo!

The family now twice as big!

yayyy

So we just got back from Ian’s wedding.

Despite it being a totally tiring day lasting over 16 hours non-stop since 7.30am, it turned out great anyway.

First things first though.

Today (or rather, yesterday now), marked our fifth month!

=D

Sorry we didn’t get to do anything special. We both had horrifically busy days respectively. But the half year mark will be awesome. lol..

Hopefully I’ll get to put some photos up tomorrow. Pretty funned out now.

Wore my red dress! Shall let you see some pictures in a bit (though I never figured out what you found so fascinating about a kong long in a dress) once I get to hunting down my iPod wire which has miraculously gone missing again.

I was put in charge of creating two videos, scanning through literally thousands of photographs, hundreds of video clips, and coming up with a 6 minute presentation within 2 hours. Stress. Not to mention the song they chose was only 3 minutes-ish so I had to set aside time to cut the song so it would last 6 minutes (with some nifty fiddling with waveforms and such).

Now with my two older cousin’s married, I’ve already begun getting the “Oh you’re next” comment from the previous generation. I still have another 6 or 7 years to go before getting around to their age. Plenty of time. To earn enough money and move to somewhere where I’m not an illegal being.

Weddings make me sad sometimes.

Knowing I would probably never have something like that makes me sad. I’ll probably never have all my family and relatives around me, supporting me and the one I love. I’ll probably never wear a white gown and cut a styrofoam wedding cake. I never dreamt of being a bride when I was growing up. But I guess, seeing people close to me getting married, the smiles on the faces of others, kind of makes me wonder.

Of course I wish I could make my parents happy. I just wish what made me happy and what made them happy were the same thing. But they aren’t. And probably never will be.

I’m happy now. Having you to love and love me back. I just wish I could share this happiness.

Ouchies

Unbelievably, I’m still jet-lagged.

It’s 9.45pm and I’m falling asleep on my laptop.

Today was interesting. I had lunch with my parents at Suntec where we went to get Long’s watch guarantee stamped. Lunch was an assortment of foods we carefully chose after perusing the stalls for the ones with the longest queues. But the wait was definitely worth it. The hokkien mee, the chicken rice, even the teh peng. All amazing. =D

Dear, I’m bringing you there soon. -pats head-

My week has been good and packed so far. On Monday, I met up with the animators for Kushinbo lunch and Star Trek! Animators and one film maker anyway. YY, Sara, Grace, Denise and I idled away our post-university lives at Kushinbo, sweeping away row after row of hapless sashimi, waiting to watch Star Trek.

Now, I haven’t followed Star Trek before, but the movie was AWESOME. For anyone who has done that strange star trek sign to the people who have heard the phrase “beam me up Scotty”, lovely. The guy who played Scotty was awesome! One of my favorite actors. =D

I miss hanging out with the animators…

Went out with Wendy on Tuesday! We had lunch at Ajisen Ramen at Bugis before taking a walk over to the new mall opposite Bugis – Illuma.

Managed to take this quick shot of the trippy interior before being stopped by security.

We then made a trip over to this ulu little place in Chinatown. The Casual Poet is a small cosy cafe tucked away on the 3rd floor of an old shophouse along New Bridge Road. It serves light snacks, all day breakfast, and an entire array of nice drinks. The setup itself is really nice, informal, and you actually feel at home, even if it’s your first time there.

Wendy’s latte and my AMAZING ice lemon tea. Well… I liked it anyway.

The welcome sign!

This is the entrance to the stairs leading up to the cafe. We were worried we got the wrong place, since on the second floor was some strange reflexology place or something…

Highly recommended. I love the place.

And yes dear, I’m bringing you here too. =D

Today was the start of clean skin too! I had an agonizing 2 hours of extraction, laser and chemical peel, leaving my face feel like a raw tomato. It hurt like hell too, despite the copious amounts of numbing cream lathered overly generously on my face. Still felt like fire sparklers pressed against my face. Still felt like a hundred ants chewing at my skin.

Urgh.

Well, now it’s over. I don’t think I’ll be going on roaccutane. The nurses advised me to see how the laser and chemical peel worked out before deciding again. Now I have a series of 6 bottles I have to religiously smother my face with every morning and evening.

=\

Hope it helps. Really.