Random Updates.

Thanks for the comments people, that post is pushed all the way to the depths of time (those with keen eyes should be able to spot it).

Looking back, it's really crazy what people will say when they get all emotional. But hey, I don't regret making those comments and I really feel so much better after writing them out.

By the way, anyone read/saw this magazine produced by the CAC called Art Jam? I've asked about five people and they said they had never heard of it, much less read it. Somehow the low readership makes negotiation for advertisements an issue that we forsee.

And that's what I'm facing as Vice-Chair of the CAC Business Team. It's the unofficial title though. Haha.

I hope that I won't let my boss down since he placed such confidence on me.

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Passed my Basic Theory Test for driving.

I can't believe how ridiculously expensive each practical session is. A hour long session costs close to 60 bucks. No wonder they said that getting a driving license is getting more difficult now, you got to have the money to get one!

Then again it makes sense, if you don't have the money to sit for a license, most likely you can't afford to even buy a car.

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Saw another version of 'Wonderwall'. And I think I prefer this version over the original version, it's feel of emotion. Yeah I know that I've talked about this song before, but I really love it, 'cos the lyrics is able to connect me emotionally.

'There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how'

Still seeking my Wonderwall.

UNmotivated

Kinda of strange writing this entry on a Sunday night when I still have tutorials to complete.

Tutorials are coming in fast and I can't seem to complete them on time. It doesn't help that some of the questions cannot be understood.

It all boils down to the issue of motivation. Danny will require some sort of stimulant to stun myself into the studying mode.

Let's hope that it isn't a quiz or a test.

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Anyone with the same problem of missing mouse cursor while looking at certain blog skins with white background?

I thought it's only for an isolated blog, but I found another with the same problem.

Minefield

I won't go in depth but recently my house suddenly feels like a minefield, one wrong move and *boom*!

And it's all because of a basket of groceries.

I don't know why can't everyone sit down and talk, raising voices and flaring tempers doesn't solve anything - it makes matters worse.

I guess I'm doing my tutorials at the McDonald's near my house, it's not very safe here, at least for tonight.

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Met up with Wenchuan before my Basic Theory Evaluation at Jurong Point. Exchanged our experiences in the different FOCs we're involved. Somehow he's sounded more fun, then again GLs always have the fun.

Passed my Basic Theory Evaluation which means that I'm primed for my Basic Theory Test on the 29th. The instructors are super 'cheena'. I asked one of them whether the evaluation will be a good gauge of the actual test he gave me a face that says "Eh boy, I dun understand u leh' before saying:

"Yes, you can only have 5 wrong."

My english that got that chim meh?

And here we go...

Met up with the usual gang of Galers on the night before the start of school. Spent little and ate a lot as Joyce is unable to finish her udon. Jingjing came back from Germany and bought some chocolate to share. Curtiz got tanned being a lifeguard during his trip to the States.

Galers that didn't appear in the photo, please turn out for the next outing. I want to see your pretty/handsome faces!

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I think it's because there isn't any tutorials and it's the first day of school, I saw many familiar faces at the new Canteen A (or is it Foodcourt A now?).

I guess MSE really does QC their lecturers, with exception of Zhao Yang and Chen Lang, they are pretty decent. At least they don't speak in some undecipherable language.

Super long weekend, National Day holiday on monday and classes canceled for MSE day. Too bad my passport had expired or else I'll be out of the country over this weekend.

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Speaking of National Day, I almost missed the parade on TV. I seriously think that this year's parade was being overshadowed by the Olympics in Beijing.

Is it me, but I always dislike the mass display performance in between the military parade and the fireworks. To me, it's just a mass of people doing different formations with simple choreography.

And I seriously think that they should replace the combined schools choir with something else. It's so damn obvious that the songs are recorded, hardly any of them moved their mouths at all! Unless they somehow mastered the art of singing without opening their mouths.

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Castovia Seniors Dinner on a friday night. A good mix of people - main and sub coms.
Old man jokes seems to be the talk at my table. Moral: Never be late, you never know what those waiting will talk about.

Tons of picture taken, I guess CAC people like to cam-whore. Go look at the comments in facebook. Following are pictures that feature my handsome face and are interesting.

Dinner's at Ajisen Ramen, wonder why, of all places, did they picked Bugis for it.

Some of those in the pageant joined us soon after. Mingjun putting his training in good use.

Pak Lun up to his usual antics.

Wei Jie is turning into a Max soon. Pak Lun is turning into a classic ah beng soon.

This person taking our photo sure has a special method of doing it. He does it at a strange angle and never told us to look into the camera.

Luckily, there is more than one camera.

I'm still waiting for the post-FOC treat...

Sai Kang Warriors Outing - 1 Aug

First day of the Seventh Lunar Month - good day for a Sai Kang Warriors outing!

Even though I enjoyed the first Money No Enough, I think the second film is absolute thrash.

The film can be summed up into three parts:
Part 1 - Blatant product placements (product advertisements) one after another
Part 2 - 'Yay I got rich!' followed by 'Oh no, now I'm poor and in trouble! =( =( =(' and 'Now I know the real value of money.'
Part 3 - Sick mother got kicked around by family. Mother dies. Whole family regrets doing that.

Supporting local films is one thing but supporting a lousy local film is another. Save your money and watch 'The Dark Knight' (a second time if you had watched it already).
Too bad Victor isn't treating us the tickets. Haha.

Headed down to Cafe Cartel for dinner after the movie.

Doesn't this remind you of an OG outing?

Somehow, they staff managed to squeeze all of us into four tables.

The place seem to be 80% staffed by PRC people (which is a norm by today's standard), some of them looked like they have some trouble communicating with us.
Now this guy always get arrowed to refill our drinks. And because we're one bunch of thirsty people, once he refilled a jug, he has to refill another like after a few minutes. Got to make your 10% service charge worth it.

And seeing that it's the village head's birthday, a cake was definitely needed. Happy 25th 23rd Birthday! I think the staff couldn't get what we're saying and so placed all the candles onto the cake.

Look how frightened Benny and Victor are! Murderous village head on the loose! Must be the wrong number of candles...

Headed down to the tau huay stall near Selegie Road for supper.

Somebody is obviously camera shy.

There wasn't enough seats, so they ushered us into the back alley. The smell is there is 'interesting' if you get what I mean.

More of such outings? Why not?

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Q: When do you know it's time to leave a place?

A: When three different staff asked you about a certain missing handphone with three different stories.

Met up with Shining for some catching up on the previous day and we didn't rot.

Recall the PRC staff earlier on? Yep, they're swarming Pizza Hut as well.

CAC FOC '08 - The Sai Kang Warrior Edition

Got involved in the FOC as a sub-com programmer. In short, I was there to help out with the activities that the freshies will be taken part in.

The days are rather fuzzy, so I'll try to fill them in.

20 Jul - Day 0
Took in charge of a station involving milo. Someone said that I look damn serious when giving instructions. Well, you can't blame me, I got a serious/sian face by default and MJ said that I am 'MONSTROUSLY FIERCE!'. The night ended really late, around 3 am if I remember right. Didn't got much sleep before the next day starts.

21 Jul - Day 1
Started the day with Tour de NTU and was stationed at the Chinese Heritage Center. Honestly, that was like the first time I had actually stepped into the building itself. Breakfast of McDonald's didn't lived up the hype, when the McMuffins came, it was soggy and cold. Games involving carrying and lifting are really dangerous as seen by the casualties at my station. Isaac injured his back again, which happened last year during one of the beach games station.

Pool games were canceled due to the lousy weather. I was so looking forward to pool games as the same thing happened last year. Wow, two deja vu moments.

Fright night preparation started at 4-ish pm. Seriously, how is it possible to scare people when the sun is still up?

I know that comfort is an issue, but I think scaring the freshies should be the main priority. Certainly sudden movement or screaming don't work, so chiat, Nigel and I posed as cult members playing taidee, who's lacking another person. I hope that we managed to spook some of them.

22 Jul - Day 2
So what happened again...

Oh basically slacked the whole day because I was doing the last stop of the amazing race. Went down to watch the waterbomb wars and waited like for hours before they started the whole thing.

And then there is Lionel who wants to crash the camp. He managed to get hold of Cuimin's number and bugged her the entire morning. And even though Joyce scolded him, he's still pretty persistent. I had to lie to him in order to get him off my back as well. But he still managed to find Cuimin's og because Joel actually told him their position. Nobody actually filled me in as to what really happened after that.

The van had it's tire blown out and Sheena, Victor and I have to make our way to the Singapore Flyer by bus and train. Sheena's really interesting to chat with, which made the waiting time all the more bearable.

After the whole thing ended, we got a lift on Wei Jie's van (which is fast and can't be stopped) all the way to Sentosa.

The accommodation is really an issue for the night. Short story was that I made some noise and they go around trying to find place, but in the end there was a shortage and the whole male sub-commers have to sleep on the sun benches beside the pool. And someone said that it won't rain lah.

23 Jul - Day 3
Now who said that it will not rain?

Luckily we managed to save the bread or else the freshies have to eat stale currypuffs for breakfast. The heavens must be smiling at us, because the rain cleared up soon after that and beach games commences.

Another similarity this year's beach games has with last year's was that the entire day was cloudy and windy. Those who went down into the water must be cursing when they climb out of the water.



At least I got an easy station to manage which only involves flipping of large cards with the main coms' faces. Luckily the freshies are cooperative enough when it comes to allowing the programmers to decide who actually got the cards.

Somehow I managed to escape from doing any of the beach telematch stations and walked around to watch the fun. At least this year's final station looks fun - building a raft to save someone from another island across the beach.

There's one thing to note, never ever wear army sandals to a freshmen camp. I nearly got my sandals switched last year. This year, mine got switched and I ended up with an ultra pair of sandals. And mine was a relatively new pair which I got near my ORD date.

Now for the killer - Initiation Night. The thing was conducted in the muddy fields where the waterbomb wars were held. We practically stood throughout the whole night for close to 7 hours. My legs are nearly gone after the whole thing was over, like many of the programmers too.

If you know that both sides are going to eat the banana at the same time, like the scene in the Disney cartoon, Lady and the Tramp. You don't bite them quickly, you slowly do it so that you can avoid kissing your SP.

Ok, maybe that's their intentions after all.

24 Jul - Day 4
Luckily, someone canceled the day games scheduled in the morning so the we managed to have some decent sleep.

I went home to get myself dressed for the night before heading back to enjoy the torture of the male freshies. I think this year, they pulled out all the stops. Taking off shirts are the norm. I don't think I should go into details here but I think some of the sadistic GLs and Seniors actually enjoyed doing those acts.

Had a great dinner (some of the main coms can vouch for me haha) at Pariss followed by clubbing at DXO, which I don't really enjoyed - I'm not the clubbing guy.

25 Jul - Day 5
It's the last day and Cluedo (I don't really know what the final name was) was finally upon us! I'm actually looking forward to this day as I found Cluedo has the most interesting concept. Basically, it's a real life RPG, with hand crafted weapons. Luckily there isn't any costumes, or else outsiders will thought they had landed themselves in a cosplay fest.

Wonder why hardly anyone attempted the Shadow Master quest because it's an easy quest, requires only two steps and it's MY freaking station!!!

But this game shows promise and I think that for sure it will be repeated next year after some tweaking.

Finale was a let down if not for the video. Go check it out!. I somehow think that the seniors got a kick out of it more than the freshies. Perhaps because we know the actors personally. I love the Final Fantasy, Ultraman and Jianshun's nerdy prince parts.

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Okay I hope I didn't bore anyone with that write up on the camp. Amongst the sai kangs, I did have fun during the slack moments. Cold jokes, card games and talking cock sessions rather than the sai kang moments are what I carry back from the camp.

Here's to the sai kang warriors!