Yes people, it's been AGES since my last update. Been lazy to upload those Hong Kong pictures la. Oh well. Was reading a couple of blog posts that arose as one in response to a certain someone's comment on 'slackers'. Interesting, thus I was spurred to update my blog. haha. no link but wth.

hmm. I was influenced to treat a certain someone (whom I don't quite like, if I may add) better, but failed miserably. For one, it doesn't feel very nice to be thrown off balance by some unexpected comments or remarks that certain someone may make. Not to mention those already so notoriously famous msn nicks that make (notice the present tense?) people sit up and take note. And not in a good way either, if I may add. Somehow, this certain someone makes for an interesting lunch/dinner time topic of discussion with different groups of people, even appearing (more than once) when we go off track during project discussions. It gnaws at me inside when one of us inevitably bring her into the conversation, but apparently my propensity to gossip often overthrows my conscience. On one hand, I think that I should get to know this certain someone better, but my other hand (and both feet) are telling me that I would not want to do so. hmm. I guess I should first resolve not to gossip about that person. Then again, it ain't nice to call other people 'slackers'. And if it was meant to be a joke, none of us got it.

Ok. Updates:

Mid Autumn Festival
Serene and her sister decided to call for a Mid-Autumn Festival celebration/gathering. As usual, a gathering organised by Serene meant for us to skip our breakfast and lunch and head to her place with an empty stomach and ferocious appetite. As usual, the food didn't disappoint and we were filled to the brim with various kinds of food, which consisted of the typical steamboat and teppanyaki fare, fruits and highly unusual mooncakes. What do I mean by unusual? Let's see... She had 8 different flavors - Germany Blackforest, Chocolate, Tiramisu, Raspberry Cheesecake, Korean Ginseng Chicken, BBQ Pork, Yam with Mochi centre and this snowskin mooncake with koniyakku jelly centre.

This was the weirdest tasting one:

...while this tasted pretty good:
After dinner, fruits, cake and mooncakes, we gathered up our lanterns and proceeded downstairs for our Mid Autumn Festival celebration. We spent AGES setting up our lanterns at the void deck, before a not-so-long-but-not-that-short-either walk to the nearby Punggol Park.

Here's a shot with all our lanterns lit (before Serene's went out):
Had a great time re-living those childhood and teenhood days where we used to carry lanterns during Mid Autumn Festival. Kudos to Serene for organising a MAF celebration! MAF 七！
BU4391 - IT in CONSTRUCTION
My big 'one hour' group presentation and report for my IT module is finally over. Thanks to a bunch of excellent group mates with 'never-say-die' spirit who rallied together the night before the presentation to churn out both the powerpoint and the report (kudos to Claryce for a job well done!), our prof complemented us for doing a good presentation and a comprehensive and interesting report.

To think that we only started work about 9 days earlier. We're good!

This project ranks as one of my most nerve-wrecking rush to complete work ever. The presentation was set to be at 0900hours on a certain Wednesday morning; 11hours before that, we were debating whether we were on the right track. -_-" Thank God we talked it out and reached a consensus to bulldoze our way through with our points of discussion. Turned out to be the right decision. =)

KTV
Met up with my fellow WCIs a couple of days back for KTV. Yeah, you heard it right. It was my first time singing K with them and I must say I had a pretty good time. It's amazing how 4 people of different ages (the largest age gap being 8 years) can sit down for a meal and spend 4hours exercising their vocal chords together.

4 individuals from different batches who are connected by virtue of being fellow CIs;

3 individuals whom I haven't met for about 4 years and would probably not have met if not for the January dinner meet-up that was organised to celebrate another CI/Officer's 30th birthday;

2 individuals who were my (feared) ma'ams and guided me from the time I was a cadet to the time I joined them as a CI.

Yes, there were some stinted conversation and awkward silences. But despite that fact, it's still amazing how we can get together and sing our voices hoarse with each other. I sure look forward to the next KTV session. Who knows? Maybe we would even sit down and play mahjong some time in the future. Really.

Dissertation
I guess this is the pet peeve and brain drain of my fellow faculty mates, especially during this month, thanks to the deadline which we have to submit the '1st draft' of our individual 10,000 words dissertation. Many have the word 'STRESSED' printed as you see it here on their foreheads. Some have yet to settle on their topics, while some are frantically arranging 'dates' with their supervisors and doing their literature reviews and what-have-yous. Yours truly has the privilege of being part of a research team, thus is lucky in the sense that the main area of study has already been settled. However, the prof in charge of our research team happens to be a hell of a busy man. Thus work progress is slow and I've yet to settle on what exactly to write my dissertation on.

Wasted my time today, no thanks to my prof who 'made' me come all the way back to school just to glance at my data. We were supposed to retrieve more data sets for me to work on from the antique laptop in the control room, but our collective effort was in vain. Why? Let's see... First and foremost, the data in question turned out to be in another laptop. And I discovered that fact, thanks to a male staff, after waiting for close to an hour for the thought-to-be-right-data to be sent to my (get this!) mobile. Why mobile, you ask? Cuz the laptop is so antique, it cnt read thumbdrives and I resorted to using intra-red to send the thought-to-be-right-data to my mobile, which meant it took AGES for the file to be sent. And 50% through, the infra connection went cranky. -_-" I so felt like murdering my prof who - no. 1: set me at the WRONG laptop to download the WRONG data; no. 2: left me to wait out the data transfer; and no. 3: made me come all the way back to school, not to mention canceling my blading date with Xian, for close to nothing. And I said 'close to nothing' cuz I did have a nice lunch and dinner and bought a bag, but really, that's not the point.

Still, thanks to a wonderfully entertaining dinner with Adel and Hobbit, consisting of various jokes, 'IQ' questions, braces discussion (!!), bitching session and the works, I soon let off my steam.

To quote Adel,

"Nothing cures stress better than a good 'ole bitching session!"

To end off this blog post, I'd like to introduce to you the wonders of 'facewarp', an interesting software application on Sony Ericsson mobiles:

...the professor:
...the big-mouth:
...the big-nosed:

A sidenote: See the 'the professor' pic? My IT groupmates were so stressed rushing the powerpoint and report through the night, right up to our presentation at 0900, that they thought their eyes were playing tricks on them when they saw my (newly changed) 'the professor' display pic on msn.

All took a second glance, but only one questioned me about the weirdly proportioned head with regards to my body. The rest merely assumed that they must be seeing things wrongly due to the stress and lack of sleep.

Who says we didn't work hard for our IT in Construction presentation? I rest my case.

josh, signin off