End August'10

The second last day of August. Signifies the time of preparation is almost over. I'm left with the memorization of a list of formulae for Friday's paper. September arrives, a month long of possibly life changing activities and events are coming. Not sure if I'm ready, but I'm prepared to score at least straight Bs. That's the minimum i'll have to manage to continue studying on home ground.

This morning, I was woken up by a simple line after noticing myself sitting at a blue marble chess table at a void deck. A short, dark figure came up to me, saying that she(going by the voice, I guess the figure was a she) and three others were coming to get me. I woke up right after.

A day ago, I had another dream. This was rather weird, but yet it seemed very possible. I was at a road crossing at a city with sky scrapers with no vehicles on the road, and only a few other people walking along the streets. Suddenly there were fighter jets in the sky, but they weren't targeting anything, just flying in the sky. They were grey triangles, with borders painted green, yellow or red. They landed with their vertices facing the sky.

I woke up, rolled around in bed, yet I was still in the dream. When I fell asleep again, I was in some government building, being led into a conference hall as a minister. The prime minister went up on stage to give a speech, when someone in the crowd stood up and pointed a gun at her, demanding that all officials leave the hall, leaving the ministers and himself in the hall. We sat down in a circle, and got down to business. In fact, the discussion went on without any hostility. The discussion had been going on for 30 minutes,when things took a turn for the worse. The man started demanding things that seemed impossible for us to do as a government. I can't remember what he demanded, but we managed to resolve other stuff he brought up on behalf of the people. At some point, he took out his gun again, and I took mine out in an act of defence to the prime minister. She took my gun and threw it on the floor. He fired a shot which missed, as I knocked her off her seat. We both fell to the ground. Before I could reach out for the gun, he shot me in the bottom thrice(I know it's a weird place to be shot at), one penetrating my right wrist. I woke up right away, somehow still feeling the pain in my wrist, with disappeared after awhile.

I went back to sleep again. This time, I was a student in a school, who was attending a sports class. I was transferred from another sport, to swimming. There were two groups, but I did not know which to join, so I just went to the nearest group of bags at the pool to put down my belongings, and went to a hall one floor up to join the cohort. An instructor noticed me and asked me to go bring my belongings back up, and join the students who were getting changed. I did not bring my swim attire that day, so I could only go as far as the second activity, which was to have my body mass recorded. It was a good thing, since the swimming training was really tough from the looks of it.

Well, that's about it. Tomorrow, I'll be going back to my Secondary School, and maybe my Primary School if no one's going for lunch tomorrow.

18 days to the end of 3.1

It's been far too relaxing, there's just 6 days to the exams. YOG's over, so I should be into the study mood by now. More or less done for the modules, except for the part on remembering the formulae.

Drove alone twice this week, and it sure was fun. The afternoon might just be the best time to drive, as the roads are mainly occupied by buses, taxis, and a few other vehicles at any one time. Chances of being horned at by an impatient driver are relatively low.

Nothing much have been going on this week, but I'm sure once this weekend is over, things would start pouring in, so I had better try to clear as much as I can by Monday. Might be returning to the secondary and primary schools on Tuesday, some of our Filipino friends would be landing at Changi this Wednesday, Thursday I'll probably be doing some last minute memorising for the first paper on Friday. The weekends would be spent in school.

Mid August'10

So far, August has been great. Not too stressful, not too relaxed, just the right pace.

On Saturday I went for my first fireworks photo shoot with classmates and friends. Learnt quite a lot of stuff, but found it really hard to apply. I was given a piece of black paper, something that was used if I wanted to shoot just one explosion in the night sky. Most of us used a remote, as the shuttle speed was set to the user-defined setting, also known as the BULB mode, where one would just hold down the shutter button for as long as he or she pleased. At the start, I simply thought all I had to do was to just press, and release. For the first wave of fireworks, all I had were photographs of nothing but black. As the time went by, I guess I did better, managing to catch some of the explosions, with 2 to 3 good ones. The segment where the Phoenix mother ship, with the torch bearer on-board, was escorted by her 10 Dragon Boat escorts, was definitely the coolest hands-down. However, the fireworks simply sucked. Compared to the National Day Parade's fireworks, the arrangement for the finale was more disappointing. Yes, the variety was there, but the duration just simply wasn't.

As I was unable to get my hands on the closing ceremony ticket, I shall be joining them again on the 26th.

The coming week was spent solely on our final year project. We did make some progress, and all that's left is the report, some experiments to determine the finalized product, and the manufacturing.

Yesterday, was probably the most eventful day in August. It was also the day I was blur as a sotong. In the morning, I woke at 8am, and took my time to turn on my laptop. It took me 10 minutes to realise I had a dental appointment at the National Dental Centre 9am, and I had not done anything, except to turn my laptop on. As a result, I arrived at 9.20am. When asked for my Identification number, I recited my Student Card Number. Twice. In addition, I let out a loud "huh" when I realised I was reciting the wrong set of numbers. In the end, she simply passed me my queue number. 5 minutes later, I was in. 10 minutes after that, I was back out, getting my appointment. For some reason, I blindly requested to have my appointment pushed back to 5th October from 30th September, although I was able to make it on both dates.

I took a bus home, and it rained heavily just as I made my transfer home. As I left home in a hurry earlier, I brought nothing but my gate key(I had it detached from the key chain as I went for a run the evening before), phone, and wallet. Without an umbrella, I waited 15 minutes for the rain to reduce its intensity before I walked home, only to find myself locked out at 11.15am. My mum had taken my relatives to the museums for a visit, and would only be back at 4pm.

I took an umbrella, went to take a bus to my dad's workplace. 10 minutes after arriving at 11.40am, I drove us out for lunch at a market nearby, before doing some grocery shopping, and headed home. At 2pm, I went to the Jurong Regional Library to do a quick research on some stuff related to the final year project, from 3pm to 3.50pm. I had thought the few of us would be meeting at 5pm instead of 4 in school to prepare a surprise. After some confirmation, it was indeed 4pm as stated a few nights before.

Once in school, I found myself going back out to purchase a few stuff at King Albert Park. 40minutes later, I was back at the venue at 5.25pm. We were preparing a birthday surprise for our club mentor. He came by the back door. I happily took my time to paste the photographs onto a large card. He asked a friend to get some cash ready to purchase some refreshments to break fast with our fellow Muslim members. He walked past. We saw each other in the eye. He went in. Awkward silence. Well, at least the night went extremely well, and he apparently forgot about the card, until we brought it in to be presented to him

Today, our group had a 3-hour meeting at the library to plan for our design and the manufacture of our product. We even met our lecturer and supervisor who were there to get a few books! I went home, and slept the afternoon away after a short revision. Woke up at 5.30, before going for an evening run. Covered 8km in 50 minutes, by far the best timing this month.

This afternoon from 4.30 till 5.30pm, I revisited an old dream. It felt kind of weird, almost as if I was dreaming in a dream, yet I felt awake the whole time. In the dream, I was with my neighbours, relatives and parents, going to Malaysia on a holiday to stay at a bungalow. Here's the thing. Apparently, I was the only child, and the only one who looked my age, my parents looked a few years younger. My neighbours are supposed to be around my age, but in the dream, they looked like 5 or 6 year olds. Everyone else was the same, except that the cars we travelled in belonged to the 90s.

We arrived at 9am, and at 12pm, a young child wanted to trek along an abandoned railway to the country side. instead of by car, with 3 toy pushcarts stockpiled with snacks, drinks and clothes. We were going to stay at a country club till 6pm. My parents said that we had visited the place before when I was younger, except that now they had built a country club near there(they did not even mention my brothers, who were apparently non-existent in that dream... The railway hike experience was a revisit of one of my dreams when I was somewhere between 3-5 years, where I had this white cart with a yellow seat on one end and a long, blue handle on another).One way, the journey would take an hour. This was the thing. We had to walk along the tracks, and about a kilometre to our destination, we had to pay a toll at the first booth. The guard stationed there was short, old and grumpy. The second booth sold drinks and snacks. The journey there seemed rather easy. Until we reached the toll booth. the kid ran past the guard, and as our carts were all connected, we were unable to stop. He started to chase us, and he eventually caught up when we stopped at the second booth to buy drinks. We paid him, and continued on.

Why I had thought it was a dream in a dream, was simply because the country club looked like the Singapore Zoo and Botanical Gardens combined, and it was in Malaysia, facing the sea. What's more, the place even had a golf course, with some holes located at the gardens and the zoo! A friend hired a buggy for us to travel around in. I decided to walk through the zoo, and we caught an elephant feeding session, before I hopped back on so that we could complete a tour of the place.

We went back to our starting point, which was a canteen facing a large swimming pool. Not too far in the horizon was the beach. We had a nice afternoon chat with some tea, coffee and biscuits. At 4pm, there was a warning. Yellow lights were lit and an air raid siren was heard. My uncle told us that the place prone to sudden gusts of wind, a result of the vast open area of the country club. In a moment, it came, and the whole structure shook as though there was an earthquake. After the winds stopped, we saw water sprouts appearing near the beach. I counted out loud for everyone. There were 6 or 7 of them, and they were big. We did not feel any danger, so we went for a short walk nearby. I followed, but went back after awhile. Back at the canteen, I saw someone familiar by the balcony, and went out to confirm it. She was roughly 1.5-1.6m in height, and wore a red shirt. Maybe she was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans as well? I went up, and yes it was her(Apparently, I have never seen this girl anywhere before, and somehow my subconscious picked her up to be someone I knew, and yet I din't even say, or hear her name once in the dream. Sadly, I was unable to remember all her facial features.). We had a good chat, sat down, and continued our conversation over coffee. She needed to go to the wash room, so I followed. Something unique about the country club was that, the taps were shared, except the toilets, changing area and the showers were not(just like Makan Place @ NP, though the colour scheme used was different). When she came out, I learnt that she was there with her family, so I guess it wasn't really a coincidence afterall.

At 5pm, we parted ways. We promised to ring each other up once we're back in Singapore so that we could meet. I did not get to return to the canteen to see if the weather had improved as we were going to trek back to the bungalow. The journey back was tough, especially at the start. The guard at the toll gate was there to stop us, saying that the railway suffered some damage, but if we wanted to carry on, we had to be prepared for the worst. The kid was upset, but stubborn and he wanted to keep going. The adults contemplated our options. A quarrel ensued. 30 minutes later, we decided to set off at 6pm. We had a few more carts so that the adults could sit in and enjoy the ride back instead of going on foot. I linked all the carts together, and we had an engine to help. Somehow, halfway through, I simply broke down, badly. I had no idea why. Even if there was a reason behind it, I can't remember. After we set off, the journey was great. a stretch of the slope that was there had collapsed, and along the way we were able to see the sea and the horizon! It was 7.30pm when we reached the bungalow. We sat down together for dinner, and at 8.30pm, my aunt asked me to the porch, and we had a conversation about my conversation with that girl from the afternoon. I can't remember the details about almost every conversation from the dream, but that one, was filled with lots of advice. I only managed to remember the last part, where she said that if I wanted to, she could send me back home so that we both could see each other the following day. I agreed, and the next moment, I found myself awake, at 5.30pm.

Tomorrow and Sunday, it'll be intensive revision all the way till the end of next week, as August edges to an end and September arrives.

It seems not having the usual conversation for just one day, makes me feel as though something's missing. Maybe with my tone and words, you might find it rather boring? Every moment in text, was lived like there was no tomorrow.

National Day Weekend

Happy 45 birthday!

The recent weekend was kind of special. On Friday, I went to purchase some gear for taking the fireworks over the 2 weekends. On Saturday, went to the flyer with my relatives. In fact, it was our first time. Brought all my gear, hoping to see things I had never seen before. Indeed there was, and we saw students arriving at the F1 pit building, and on the way down 20 minutes later, we saw them making their way to the floating platform. That evening we went to Long Beach for a seafood dinner. Enjoyed it alot, and I tasted prawns for the first time(as I was afraid of the taste of the prawns since young). A prawn surprisingly tastes similar to the crab.

On Sunday, we had a gathering at my uncle's place for lunch. Quite a pleasant drive there, and that was the first time I parked the car perfectly in 1 reverse attempt, and at a car park my dad had never driven to! Went to Clementi to buy dinner and snacks for a soccer match later that evening. We had instant noodles for dinner. The next day, well, easy going morning, but as the time got later, things just kept getting better.

Woke up at 9.20am, surprised that my dad had not gone to work. 30 minutes later, I realised it was the nation's birthday. Lunch was simple, took a family photo after aeons before going to Hort Park(wrong timing) in smart casual attire, which was a wrong decision under hot and humid weather conditions. Went home, changed and went to Commonwealth where we took a train to City Hall to meet my aunt and uncle. Adjourned to the Singapore Recreation Club(SRC), but we had to make a couple of detours along the way. Kind of impressed with the two guys in charge of an exit at City Link. We managed to enter after leaving city link from an alternative exit at 7.20pm after the floats cleared the waiting area and the barricades were temporarily opened. Watched part of the parade live, watched how my dad offered advice to another member who was impressed we knew about the 1/3 rule of photography and videography. During the finale, it was as though I was watching a scene from the Gundam Seed Anime being played in front of me. The red fireworks that swept across the sky from the left to the right of the skyline at the start, was like the thousands of nuclear warheads being intercepted in the anime series.

During that time, I was someone who looked like her (except she was taller and whose voice had a higher pitch) sitting beside me, using a phone of a similar model but of a different colour, taking shots of the pyrotechnics with her family. Had the urge to help her like my father did, but decided not to, since it might spoil the experience for them. Moreover, a voice was telling me to continue waiting patiently, to walk on.

Today was spent on watching the encore telecast on the internet, chatting with a friend whose face I have never seen, who I have never met. My marathon training began today, with the 8-kilometre route. The timing wasn't up to my personal standard, but it was fine, since I had just recovered from a flu and minor knee injuries. Tomorrow, is the day I begin on my intensive revision for the final exams.

Meeting somewhere between December and February. The decision which might make or break it, just like the mere 5 minutes I experienced at Bedok Bus Interchange more than 2 years back.

Supposedly The Last Day Of School

Overslept and woke up at 9.44am. So I missed the last lesson of the semester, and also missed meeting up with the first group of students who were on their way to Yuan Ching Secondary to attend the celebrations. Wanted to meet Gabriel and the others there at 10.30, but was told by Qi Long and Andy that the guards just won't let them through. In the end, no former students returned yesterday(a first in at least 2 years).

In the afternoon, went to city hall, before walking over to Midlink Plaza and Funan to get a shutter remote and a tripod for my brother(turns out he didn't need the tripod afterall). The walk to Midlink Plaza was perfectly fine, except for the return journey to Funan. I had always known that Bugis was just beside City Hall. By train, it's 2 to 3 minutes. On foot, it's 5 to 10 minutes. However,I always got lost in between.

Went back to school for an appreciation ceremony(did not expect it would end so fast) not for the certificate, but for the small reunion, and the food. Went home after that, and till now, I have not started to upload the hundreds of photographs I have.

Next year, if there's a similar event, I'm definitely looking forward to being the driver for their transport!

Break That's Close to 3 Months

The upcoming break is almost similar to the one I had during the post O Level period after leaving MI back in 2007. The only difference is that, there's stuff to do at least up till the examination period from 2nd to 3rd September.

Today, I submitted everything that's due and required for the final grade calculation for every module. Tomorrow's a self declared holiday, since there would only be an hour of school, and I had been skipping school in the morning on the last day of the first semester for the past 2 years, so might as well make it that way for the third.

There were 2 presentations today. The first, which was graded and worth 5% for a module, was still rather unsatisfactory, though there's some improvement from the previous one on Monday. The second presentation which was to be evaluated and recorded in my CCA records, was definitely better as I had prepared, though I had to refer to a script.

The second presentation was an edited version of my part from a graded group presentation back on Monday, where we had to present on how we could encourage people to save the environment.

Here's the speech that I planned(in an hour), but did not memorise. It's not exactly what I spoke during the presentation, but it's close to what I presented.

"Everyone, we have gathered here today, because, our mother is very sick. So sick that the only way to cure her, is to reduce, or better still, care for our environment. Mother Nature is crying out as I bring you this message.

We have attended Live Earth, taken part in earth hour, and joined groups on fb, pledging to reduce our carbon footprints. However, have we done anything? Even right now, standing before you, I am media.

Papers, magazines, posters, ads, documentaries, movies. These various forms of media have been infused into our daily lives, for they can be seen and heard anywhere, anytime. What else? I’m sure you must be tired of turning on the tv, and the first few super-short films you see, is an ad, with the line,”DO NOT LITTER”, being played three times over.

These forms of media send a message, to engage all to help save the environment. S’poreans love contests, yes? Spend an amount at this shopping centre, and you stand a chance to win a hybrid car!(COE not included). There was a nation-wide contest to award the household that chalks up the greatest savings in their utility bill for the month. Campaigns to make you buy bags every first wed of the month. Drive a hybrid car, and you get a little of your money back.

We have heard, seen, and experienced. Now that you know what the organizations have been doing, what can you, as an individual do? Save the trees, go paperless. To all aspiring and current Iphone users who burn incense and hell notes, there is a new application that allows you to burn gifts to your family members in heaven with the touch of a finger! You can burn anything from 10 million bucks to a new car, private jet and even a cruise! Examinations on computers, the driving schools are doing it. You get your theory results within seconds after completing the test!

The 3Rs. Cut down on driving by going public. Of course, if you drink, then please don’t drive. Reuse your water. Wash your car with the water you washed your clothes with. You have no idea how strong your household detergent is. Lastly, bring your own bag to the supermarket. Now that you know what you could do, bring those messages home to your families, for the words of a loved one always mean more sense than the words of a celebrity, or quotes from a newspaper.

Saving our mother. do we even bother? Why worry about the next generation if we are enjoying life as it is? That’s true mother nature. We are wrong. She is our mother, our source of life."

The Feeling of clearing One's Debts

I have cleared my debts! I have submitted part of an assignment that's 3 weeks overdue, and 12 tutorials that were due as early as April, each worth an estimated 1% in the final grade calculations for 2 modules. 1 more would be "paid in full" tomorrow. 2 presentations due in the afternoon and evening, but I'll just take time out to prepare for it in the morning.

There're many things that I don't know, many things that worry me, many things that push me on. I feel lighter, however. It's the start of the month, and I'm enjoying a good start. Got a feeling this month would be good, with ample time to prepare for the final showdown of the semester, coupled with many opportunities waiting at different corners.

Next month? Don't think I should look that far for now.

Another month, and it's a year. History repeating itself? Could possible be the opposite.

August 2010

It's August! The month where things would only become more intense, but the pace feels slower. A short break from the reality of going to back to school for a month perhaps?

My laptop crashed early this morning, but managed to get it on Safe Mode to recover most of the files. However, after reaching home, a miracle occurred. It came back to life! Could be due to the overwhelming space my documents, pictures, movies and songs occupy in the hard disk which caused it to crash, though now it's gotten way slower; I could only open up to 5 tabs in 2 browsers at any one time, the media player takes more time to start up, and I have successfully transferred almost everything to the hard disk, leaving me with the reformatting. Can't bear to do it owing to the amount of time I need to spend to reinstall various programs, though I get to upgrade to Windows 7.

Today, I completed 2 presentations with my group, and submitted the final assignment for a module. I was extremely unhappy with the shabby performance for the first presentation(since it's just 5%), however, we did not have much of a choice since I was supposedly the only member in the team who was able to draw the designs into a Computer Aided Design(CAD) program. They did most of the work, all I had to do, was to follow and read(something I did not like, but had no choice if we wanted to do well for the panel presentation). The third panel assessment went well, except with a couple of errors and suggestions on how we could improve. We started about a minute late, but ended about 10-20 seconds to 10 minutes. It was encouraging during the first 15 seconds when we ended our presentation with nothing being said by the supervisors and Technical Support Officers(TSOs).

Things to do by this week:
Submit:

2 presentations
13 tutorials

32 days to the final examinations. 30 days to their arrival.

Reaching home, watched the first 30 minutes of Inception, and I couldn't watch it anymore. I must go to a cinema to watch it. It took me awhile for the details and stuff mentioned during those scenes to sink into my head, before I realised I had actually experienced those stuff before. Perhaps, if I really did finish watching it at a theatre, I might be able to come up with an idea or two, how I could interpret my dreams(which almost always seem to come true one way or another)?