The Memorable Things of 2009

Last day of 2009 is here. Most people would be thinking what they want to achieve in the next year. I think back and there’s many things that change my life one way or another. Let me list out an item out of every category.

Phone: iPhone
Not that I want to promote their phone but there are many things from firmware to hardware to ease of use of iTunes on the computer. It just works! I’m using a Samsung phone currently and I’m experiencing so much difficulty syncing my information from phone to computer. Recently, Samsung has updated their software to the so called “Samsung New PC Studio” which spots a new look, additional functionality but gives me the same kind of headache. Interface that lags a great deal and hangs fast if you are entering a directory with lots of songs. Apple, on the other hand has made everything rather smooth. Of course, the older generation may be incompatible with the new memory intensive applications but I need not endure with the frustrating experience of waiting after every click. FYI, I don’t own an iPhone, I just occasionally play with my brother’s one.

Book: Mitch Albom – Have a Little Faith
I consider myself as a Buddhist partially because my NRIC said so and inherited this from my parents. Every year I go to the temple to pray for a few occasions: new year, Vesak Day (sometimes), grandparents’ death anniversary, end of year. It has become a routine thing and I never thought much into why I’m keeping this religion. A few catholic and christian friends came to me to persuade me to convert to their religion and I always find myself questioning some principles of the religion, like why non-believers will go to hell? To quote what Oprah on her show, “If there’s somewhere remote where people have never heard of Jesus, but all their lifetime they have been doing good deeds, they can never be salvaged? They will go to hell?” This are the things that I thought would never be justified. However, Mitch’s argument is kind of different. Through a progressive change, his point of view on religion has changed dramatically over time. I thought perhaps there could be just one god if it exists. People just choose to see God differently. He described how faith could be a beautiful thing and yes, to some extent, I agree.

Song: JS – Officially Missing You (Tamia)
Is it the trend that singers start popping out everywhere on youTube? That could be the case but this one that I heard, oh they are good. Visually appealing too. ^.^ It’s not the kind of Mariah Carey or Christina’s hits that can make people feel ‘Wow’. I think their sweet voices are kind of nice and it’s still resounding in my head. Haha.

Event: 15th JCRC handing over ceremony
It isn’t just a ceremony to me. In my mind, I was thinking that it marks the end of year 1’s commitment. All the meetings, discussions, emails, event participation and banner painting… would be gone. It was supposed to be a load off my chest but on the other hand it made me feel a sense of loss too. A struggle between continuing on improving my studies, relationship or hall commitment. There wasn’t any life user manual to teach me where to go, I had to decide what would be right and hopefully wish it was. Well, after a semester, I think it didn’t go very wrong. I just need to try harder.

There are some other things that I couldn’t fit in a category. The other day I was looking at my Facebook status. Oh, I’ve got 710 friends and I think I know at least 95% of them. That probably didn’t sound too realistic in the real social life. How do you sms or call so many of them? I guess it matters more on how to keep the existing ones in life. This semester, my roomie cooked things for me and bought food to share with me. Well, I thought it’s a really nice thing that you can do for a good friend. I think this is what I can learn from him.

Since young, I always hate my brother because he is always the big bully in the family who will always demand to get things he wants. Proud, impulsive and impatient. He doesn’t like to lose out in anything and therefore, I will be giving in most of the time whether I like it or not. I thought since I didn’t like him, I will think that he probably thinks the same way too.

However, one day this year, my mum tells me that my brother always tell her how I help him out on studies and giving him different opinions of things on how he should work things out. She said he appreciates it much. I was taken aback by that. Is that the brother who is always quarrelling with me, the one who said all those? I just did not think that I would influence him in any positive way because I did not think I have to or should be doing. Because sometimes I get annoyed at always being on the losing end as an elder brother by getting slapped back by his response after giving an advice. I was touched but still, with my ego, I just didn’t admit so. Ha, sometimes little things do matter.

There’s also this little book that I jot down things that happen. I’m not the only author for that book but looking back, it’s fun to have it around. Sweet or bitter, it’s the things that we call memories.

Okay, what a eventful 2009. Happy new year everyone! 2010 is going to be a better one! =)

Mid December Already

It’s already mid-December. Soon there’ll be another link on the archive that says 2010. Many years since I wrote the first post on this blog.

I spent some of the time when using my laptop rearranging the files on my computer. I just cannot stand messy files on my computer but not so much so on my physical desk. Weird right?

Kudos to scrabble team who emerged champion for hall 9! =) G O O D JOB! Hope that there’ll be more champions for other games. Hope pub sec will have enough banners to allocate for painting the champion banners.

Just celebrated my friend’s 22nd birthday. Since he was targeting a phone that he has been talking so much, I thought it would be fun to give him presents relating to that except that. I’m talking about iPhone 3G here actually. So we bought him screen protector, phone casing and even added brochures and things to lead him into believing that he’s going to get that. We did achieve that mischievous effect but turn out that it was a bad timing to be so…

He couldn’t get to register his core subjects because the school system crashed. Just after the celebration, he realised he lost his phone. I hope it’s not the case that his LG phone took a little walk since it realised that we were talking about iPhone as its next replacement. Sigh, next time better think twice before playing this kind of joke on people’s birthday. If not, perhaps induce negative Karma on ourselves. Ha.

I was chatting with another friend and I realise some people may think of me rather differently from what I think of myself. Partly due to the part that in a group, I enjoy listening to people and seldom voice out opinions unless I’m very comfortable with the group. That part of me hasn’t seem to change…

Back from Malaysia

It’s the 2nd time I’ve been to Malaysia. This time I was there in Desaru. It sure takes a hell long time to travel via coach to there. It felt like twice the journey of going from Hougang to NTU and back again if not worse. Probably the hot weather made it more unbearable than the arduous journey that I have to sit through to reach that spot on the map. The heat gets trapped in the coach and I feel like a roasted chicken in the “microwave” coach. Ha. But it was quite worth the money ($60) to relax after a stressing semester of studies. Somehow, the time just seems to pass slower in that area. It sets your heart at peace when you set foot on the sand of the beach, with sea breeze lightly brushing your cheeks. It doesn’t have to be far, just somewhere off Singapore will do. LOL.

Somehow for me, uploading pictures to facebook is always very troublesome. It fails me many times. I do not think that it is due to unstable connection. Anyway, the blog here should be more reliable. Ha. Much thanks to the organiser that we really have plentiful of food to barbeque. Stingray, cheese sausage, sambal sotong, crayfish and chicken wings etc. Not forgetting my all-time favourite of barbeque -  BBQ marshmellows! So much so that I think there were surplus of food especially the fish balls. Xueshen (the one on the right) showed me his tummy after the BBQ – looked much like a 5 months old pregnant lady. I suppose that’s all right if all the food comes just right for your taste! Ha..

There were some candid moments in the room though. I was shouting loudly that I was going to take photo of my friend when he was in shower so that he could prepare for it. Here’s what he shows me. LOL. Profile-picture worthy!

Anyway, the main focus of this trip should be go-karting. Remember the one in Escape Theme park? Yes, similar. I was expecting a really much larger terrain for go-karting. I was even hoping for some cool slopes. There was none. The only thing that excites me was the speed. You can literally go up to super high speed. The turning is kind of hard to master. However, despite the numerous advice of slowing down at curves, I sped up instead. I can feel the tyres gripping hard on the ground, just that I don’t feel that attached to the vehicle when I accelerate at turns though. It makes utmost physics sense. Ha.

There were many other things we did that night except sleeping. Gossips as usual were on the agenda for every group gatherings. Actually, there isn’t much to gossip about. Most of them you can actually confirm visually. Spent time talking with this year’s freshmen. Hearing their problems kind of remind me of my plight last year in terms of academics. Well, we all got to be forward-looking, shouldn’t we? Tomorrow will be a better day. Till then, I’m sleeping now. Yawn… More updates through facebook then.