Staying in liao

Been quite a busy week

Attended the Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) preview seminar conducted by Adam Khoo on Monday. It feels pretty like some of the MLM talks I had been to b4 (I’m not in any MLM!!!) But some of the things which he said actually coincides with what I had read before in a Napoleon Hill Book. To summarize the useful stuff I had picked up from this seminar:

Set clear goals (it is ok to set goals which may sound ridiculous now)
Plan how to work towards them (its pointless to have goals without action)
Take ACTIONS!

I liked this quote: “Success is not a want, it is a MUST! Do whatever it takes!”
I dun advocate stepping on other people or doing unlawful or unethical stuff la, do whatever it takes means going out of your comfort zone to do the things that you have to do. Its good that I’m taking HRM now too. It is also emphasized “stepping out of your comfort zone” to get some of the tasks done.

Done an interview with HWA on Thursday for the HRM project. Skipped 4 periods of lessons just to conduct this interview. Luckily I managed to stun BC’s car to go there. Ha ha ha. Its so ironic in a sense that when BC was around, I never went to HWA with him, but when he’s away then I have to go there.

Will be starting my retreat from this week onwards, meaning that I will not be going home till exams are over. Anyway I feel it’s getting quite pointless to waste so much time to travel home n back when the only incentive of going home is just to see my dog. Everyone is not around most of the time. I feel so alone when I go back. Might as well feel alone but still be productive in school when I stay in over the weekends. Can’t really study well at home anyway.
No Life.

Back to Company...

Went back to Flextronics this morning for the interview I’m supposed to do for HRM. Its been about 2 mths since I last saw my colleagues. Most of them gave me the surprised look when I sneaked up on them. (it’s the 7th month now) It’s pretty fun to go back once in a while and lunch out with them.

Been pretty stagnant in fyp. Tutorials are not being done as I would prefer it to be. In short, I had been slacking. Was not quite motivated to stick to the monk lifestyle (stay in sch to study till 2300 everyday) since dear is not around to accompany me. Luckily Eric has exactly the same modules as me, and he is one of my ‘god’ frens. So mixing around more with him has actually spurred me on to put in more efforts in my studies. (to keep up with him)

Think I have grown fatter over the last few weeks. Must start to step up on the intensity of my runs. Also gotta start preparing for my IPPT. Hopefully I can retain my gold level. Ha ha

Not happy...

First week of school is over already.

I had been startled into doing some soul searching by some events lately. But there are more important things to do at hand.

Got a ‘C’ for my IA. This really throws a huge wrench into my endeavour at getting a 2nd upper. I had done my fair share of work during IA to at least warrant a ‘B’. Even my frens in the other departments have gotten ‘A’ when they had did less work than me and my EEE IA mate in my department (he got a ‘B’).

The only conclusion is that our stupid NTU tutor did the damage.

Anyway, he’s got a lousy reputation that even my bro had singled out him as the sup to avoid for FYP during FYP selection (my bro din know he was my NTU sup for IA then). Speaks volume about him huh. Dun wanna waste my time bitching on this worthless sh*t

Anyway, I din know that we can appeal against this result just like the normal exams until it was too late. So nothing can be done to remedy this now. The only thing that I can do now is to score as many A as I can in the final year. This lousy grade for IA will be my motivator.

For this semester : 7 modules
Target : 6 A (the last one being my biz minor, a min B would suffice)

Well, back to the soul searching part I was talking about earlier.

Din really enjoy myself during the FOC, but truthfully speaking, this year’s FOC is the most organized among those that I had attended so far.

I was the videoman for the camp. I dun get to mix around much with the people, partly due to my job, and the other factor being that I’m not sociable. It doesn’t really affect me that I dun have much frens sticking around with me most of the time, cause I’m pretty much a loner. But during events like camps, when u see people in groups having so much fun together, more or less it does affect me as I realize that I dun have anyone around me, and I’m not having fun. I’m an outcast.

This is something that I have to do soul searching on. In the midst of my pursuit for excellence in every tangible thing that I do, I missed out on one of the most important yet intangible thing in life. Socialising.

Humans are social creatures, that’s why civilizations are formed. To be able to survive, one must be strong. To be able to succeed, one needs more that his individual strength. And that comes in form of networking. Or simply put, you need friends to back you up in your ultimate quest. (unless it is something that can only be done by yourself alone)

I need to open up more and social more. I dun want to be the loner standing at one corner of the auditorium during convocation when everyone else are busy taking photos with their frens. I need to do soul searching.

Back from Redang!

Haven been updating my blog regularly since I finished my IA, since most of the time i spend blogging is during office hours on IA.

Anyway, a quick update on wat has happened in my life in the last few weeks

Went to KL on 18 n 19 June with Dad, Mum n shan. Pa n Ma were going there for some health talk (sounds like MLM to me, din bother to find out more) and I made it clear to Dad that I won't be joining him for the talk, so it was shopping n sight seeing for me n shan.
It was on this trip when I realised that sometimes its better to handle your holidays yourself or someone whom u know u can rely on. There was huge timing problems with Dad and his frens. We arrived 2 hours early for our departure bus trip, and arrived another 3 hours early for our return bus trip. All thanks to Dad not getting the proper timing with his frens who organised this trip. I had to waste another 2 hours running around KL just to accomodate to Dad's request.
Otherwise, the trip was pretty fun.

Lessons learnt from KL trip:

1. Always do your homework on your destination before you go there. It really HELPS a lot.
2. Never let people who dunno a shit about travelling and scheduling to liase for your transport, they will just simply burn your precious time in huge quantities, and they still think they are always correct!
3. Never travel along with people who dun have the same mentality on travel as you. Unconsensus during travel is simply a waste of time and
   spoils your mood. (those tai-tais really can drive you nuts)
   

Just came back from Redang a couple of days back. It was pretty ok too. Shan did the searching and booking of the resorts, as well as for the bus transport as well. We saved probably around SGD60 this way. Stayed at 'Redang Bay Resort', which was pretty good, compared to the Pelangi Resort we had stayed at 2 years back. Redang is still as great, just that it is sad to see those needless pollution going on, and the effects of global warming which raised the sea levels. The coastline have receded quite a bit since my last visit. The dives were pretty good. Finally got to see a sea turtle after so many dives!

2nd Last Day of IA

Tml is the last day of IA. Had a farewell lunch with my colleagues at Jack's Place. Quite a coincidence my frens and I patronized that restaurant at the start of our IA and to end the IA with a meal there as well.

Baked some cookies to give away to my colleagues as a parting gift just before I leave. Specially packed 4 small bags of cookies to give away to my mentor n sup in the 2 dept. Spent 3 nights to make the cookies. Made 2 batches of cookies on 2 nights, and the last night was spent packaging them. It was fun, but pretty tiring to bake them in small batches cos of the small oven that i used. The taste is there, but the presentation is a bit off target. Ha ha. At least not too bad for a first-time baker. Thanks to Dear for pointing out all the mistakes that i made on the 1st batch. Will try out some of the recipes in the cook books that dear had borrowed from the library. The food in the pics look good!

Will be going to KL this weekend with dad mum n Dear. It will be my first visit to KL as far as I can recall. Just a short trip to eat and shop. Sort of like a celebration to end of IA. Hopefully I can get to walk across the sky bridge on the Petronas Towers.

End of IA !!

Its the final week of IA. Its really amazing how time flies when u are not suffering (note: i din say enjoy, i just say NOT SUFFERING). Going to leave my company soon. Gotta take a few pics of the office and with my colleagues. Gonna miss some of them. I'm thinking of baking some chocolate cookies for my department. Sort of like a farewell gift. Afterall they had given me quite a bit of guidance and helped me a lot. Maybe I getting a farewell card for my mentor n sup as well.

Had an uneventful weekend. Saturday was spent rotting at home doing nothing. Basketball on Sunday was lerthargic, slow and boring. Even the trip to sentosa was no good either. Poor weather and no Ais-Kream for the eyes. Half a day of tanning on the beach din even give me a slight shade of red! The only redness that I have on my shoulders and back is from the abrasion on the sand. The only interesting thing is the sedap Green Thai curry that BC let me try at HarborFront after we left the isle. Its the first time that I tasted green curry, for I had always tot it looked yucky. Now I'm getting interested in Thai food again. Ha ha ha. But Jap food is still my fave!

Think Ah Di is having some health problems lately. The patches on his skin is getting worse, and he keeps on licking and scratching at it. The medications that i had got for him seems not to be working, or did have the chance to work on him. The bitterants I apply on his wounds to prevent him from licking does not deter him for licking at the wounds too. I really hope that its just a minor problem, for he is an old dog already, anything serious would have far fetching consequences. Gonna take him to the vet soon.

Growing Up

Was reading JS's blog a couple of days ago, when he mentioned about a basketball match we had against some other sunday basketball team, which was like during the sec sch days. Makes me reminisce about the good old times when JS, CS, Bek n me would gather every sunday to play bball then. It was nice to have such a close bunch of frens loving n doing the same things together. Now, CS is always missing, Bek has already given up playing bball. Only JS n me are still playing, infrequently. Its sort of like a reminder of how much we have grown, and have our own world now. So there's less time for each other. But their places in our hearts will never change. Meeting up less doesn't mean that we will drift apart. Though there may be lesser common topics to talk about if we are all doing different stuff. I definitely miss those days when we would always hang out together, but we have all moved on. Well, so much for Growing Up.

9 days break

Had 2 of my wisdom tooth extracted last Monday, and was ‘rewarded’ with a 5 day MC. So in total I had 9 days off from work. Shiok!

The surgery wasn’t as bad as I thought it to be. Couldn’t feel a thing after the anesthetics kicked in. The only painful part was the dentist trying to stretch my mouth. Otherwise it was a relatively simple n fast surgery. But the pain started to act when the anesthetics wore off, and I was almost down with a fever on the first night. Luckily I got better after dinner (porridge with some fish. I couldn’t chew and had to swallow directly)

Had a swollen jaw for the rest of the week, and spent most of the time at home, playing games. Ha ha. Slack all the way. Thanks to dear for taking care of me during this period. (not to forget the chicken porridge she cooked for me on Tuesday as well)

Went to JB with dear, BC, Ivy n Adrian on Friday. Spent half a day in there, shopping, buying CDs (games, music, video) and of course, EAT the cheap n nice seafood! The buttered Cray fish was heavenly

Bought a Jdorama there: Last Christmas. And oh boy it was a good show. Nice music, story and good acting too. Would recommend this to all Jap culture worshippers.