As my journey beckons. . .

Shift of stars. . .

2012-02-04T15:33:00.005+08:00

Our Chinese New Year celebration did not just stop the moment we leave our hometown. After all, according to tradition, Chinese New Year lasts for 15 days. Plus, we're still in the holiday mood. Just yesterday, we gathered a few of our friends in Singapore for a small steamboat dinner.

It was a nice gathering. And I actually thought that my Chinese New Year was turning for the better, until. . . .

. . . this morning. What a short lived happiness! Okay, I'm not a superstitious freak or anything, checking my horoscope today was purely triggered by a notification from the app that reads something like, "Some stars are shifted today, you should check your horoscope!" And for some reason, everytime this happens, surprisingly the readings are accurate. I know because something happened right before I read this that concurs to it. If it's the other way round, where I read and something happened, then maybe it's some sort of "placebo effect" or I'm just letting my mind think in a way to fit the reading.

So the mild case of blues. It was a birthday. No, I don't hate someone that much that when it's his birthday, I'll be so sad about it. More like, it sorta kinda reminds me of something unpleasant. I wish my words will be heard? Okay, that's about what you get. Not gonna further elaborate =(

Moving on to something more delightful, we have a new game in the house, and it's currently the most played game in the house. For the past 5 days since I brought the game back from Ipoh, we have been playing it every single night! That deck of Monopoly Deal that usually keeps us entertained during our TV sessions are now collecting dust, sadly.

Mahjong!! Yup! I brought a set of mahjong back all the way from Ipoh, right after Yok Yin and Sean suggested that I do. One of the best things I brought back from Ipoh yet! And of course, we're not addicting to gambling!! It's just fun playing mahjong!

Judas strikes. . .

2012-01-30T19:28:00.005+08:00

So the Chinese New Year holiday that I had been looking forward to is finally over. But there's just something about life that destroys your mood in proportion to how much hope you put in. This year's Chinese New Year was quite, erm, shitty. Yea yea it was supposed to be all fun as long as you get to go home and chill with your family, but really it wasn't. Here are some of my random thoughts about this year's Chinese New Year:

1. If its too much work or pressure to cook a seven course meal while having so much cleaning to do at home, mum, I love you even if you cook instant noodles for reunion dinner. Cut yourself some slack and make a simpler meal! After all, a meal with just rice alone, when enjoyed together with a family is worth so much more than an extravagant meal that robs away your smile while preparing for it. I understand the sentiment of "All our kids are coming home for dinner, we need to make something sumptuous for them". But really, we don't care as long as it's with you(mum and dad).

2. If you have been chasing over a girl for more than a year and all she's telling you is "We're in an open relationship", and when you asked her what that means and she said "I don't know", you have been friendzoned hardcore. The translation of the phrase "in an open relationship" is "I can't find a boyfriend now, so I'm gonna keep you on the hook just so that I have a company to help me kill time while I look around for a boyfriend". That bitch is just toying around with you. And none of that really matters to me you see, because as your bro, I will just tell you what I can and let you be until you learn your lesson. However, if you're too damn busy chasing after that bitch that you start treating your bro's like trash, the phrase "Sorry bro" means nothing and you are a fucking prick.

3. All of us are working at different places and we 3 brothers don't get to see each other a lot. However, if you are too busy wagging your tail chasing a bitch that has been toying around you AND YOU SEE HER EVERY FUCKING DAY, then I question your invention of the "bro fist". Simple example, where the fuck were you when Jia Pin and I were patiently waiting for you to finish your "dinner with relatives"? Knowing the fact that Jia Pin is going back on Friday and I dont't come back so often, you chose to ditch the both of us for a whore you see everyday who toys around with you. Go fuck yourself.

4. So I may not be the calmest person(proven by point 2 and 3). And sometimes I may act on impulses, trying my luck with things. My apologies for that. On the other hand, I did not just talk, I walk my talk. Behind every impulsive action is a genuine and sincere feeling. I'm sorry I portray it otherwise.

5. The last 2 days(Saturday and Sunday) in Ipoh was total disaster and boredom. And yes, there was a ticket waiting for me to go back on Saturday morning and I did not take it. I chose to extend my stay. Contradictory to the description "total disaster and boredom", I felt it was worth the effort. When was the last time you put in everything to do something you like? I took a shot and it didn't go well. Again, my apologies for any "casualties".

6. My niece is amazingly adorable! Don't believe me? Here's a picture to show.

Babies are the real kings/queens. The moment she started crying, everyone had to drop everything they're doing and attend to her. Then again, the cute little smile you get from her after fixing whatever that's wrong with her is priceless. Not only that, her arrival to the world immediately rose everyone's rank in the family. My dad is now the "grand-uncle" and I'm and uncle.

7. Aside from taking a few pictures of my niece, my camera had pretty much been just free weights in the bag. Therefore, to avoid the overwhelming redundance of my camera, here's a picture of myself during Chinese New Year.

I need darker jeans.

8. For the past few days, I have been having chestaches, despite the fact that I have not been exercising or doing sports. The last time I checked with the doctor, he told me it's because I over work my chest muscles doing sports or exercises, guess he was wrong? I always thought it's more related to my mental health. Whenever I don't feel too happy or when I'm moody, I get chestaches more frequently. I guess I was literally heartbroken? LOL pun!

9. It's very ironic that this being the year of dragon, but dragons are predicted to not have a very pleasant year. I'm not saying that I'm already giving up on 2012, it's just a statement I see going around during Chinese New Year. Typical superstitious facts.

10. I wrote most of these in the bus, and I figured 10 random facts will make it look nicer than 9, hence this is just to boost the number up one =P

An excuse to visit the zoo. . .?

2012-01-20T12:58:00.001+08:00

So its that time of the year again!! If I have to list out my favourite festival of the year, I guess this year(yes it changes every year for me) it will be the Chinese New Year!! For some odd reasons, this year I'm really looking forward for the reunion dinner and everything else that follows. Well I guess probably because it's been very very long since I last went home? The last time I went home was in October! That's more than 3 months!

Anyway, apparently I'm not the only one who's all hyped up over going home for Chinese New Year. Our house was filled with excitement early this morning, with everyone anticipating their journey home after today's work. As for me, there's something worth hoping for in this trip home, particularly after a phone conversation last night =). YEAP, can't wait(*winks*)!!

Anyway, speaking of reunion, we had a small gathering at our house in conjunction with our housewarming a few weeks back. The main purpose was actually for us to gather our friends around to meet up in the midst of everyone's busy working schedule. For everyone who came over, we really appreciate it!! We really should do this more often!! A once-in-a-while gathering is always nice when everyone's so tied up with their hectic schedule!

Anyway, with much anticipation towards my bus ride home tonight, I hereby wish everyone a very happy and prosperous Chinese New Year!!

P/S: Since I know a certain someone might be reading this, my personal "CNY wish" is that my trip to Taiping this time is successful? =P

Non discrete flow. . .

2012-01-02T14:23:00.003+08:00

So here's an obligatory post of the new year. Nonetheless, I don't really feel anything too special about the new year. I treat time as a continuum, hence the transition of one discrete year to another doesn't really mean too much to me. Probably events like this do not appeal to me because I'm single right now, but still, my 1st of Jan 2012 is of no difference from my 31st December 2011. It's not like just because the number of the year switch, everything will change immediately. Change is gradual, and continuous, hence I don't really see the need for new year's resolutions or anything of that sort. I personally believe that self-improvement should be done regardless of whether we're in the middle of the year or the end of the year. If you realised you've done some terrible things in June, you don't have to wait till next year to atone or change, that doesn't even make sense.

Regardless, as more or less of a social protocol, I wish everyone a Happy New Year. May the new year brings new hopes, new joys and new opportunities in everything you do. As much as I have been blabbering so much like an old man about how I don't "celebrate" new year, we did have quite a feast yesterday.

Since Sean and Yok Yin came back from Hong Kong, we(or rather I) have been craving for some homecooked food. According to Yok Yin, I've been spoilt too much ever since we moved in together, as she has been cooking for us almost every weekend and when she went Hong Kong, it felt like forever since I last have some nice homecooked food, thus I've been bugging her to cook for us =P. Aside from that, we invited Alice, Ming Li and Pei Yee over for a small gathering and one thing leading to another, we ended up with a feast with quite a lot of dishes being cooked by Yok Yin.

So I guess that was more or less about my New Year, or rather, that was more or less about my past few weeks. Oh, actually there's more. As a "reward" for helping Daniel and Bin take care of their rabbits while they were back in Austria,

Daniel bought me some alcohols. I really did not mean for him to buy something for me, but Daniel was stubbornly insisting that he buys me something, and since I really didn't wanna be rude to reject his good intention, I requested for a bottle of Baccardi from Changi(tax free) when he came back to Singapore.
In addition to that, Daniel also bought me this "wine"?. I really don't know what type of alcohol is this, all I know is that it's an apricot flavoured alcohol that is quite strong, about 42% alcohol.

So those were more or less my "Christmas presents"? Many thanks to Daniel for the alcohols.

Vanished into thin air. . .

2011-12-23T07:14:00.001+08:00

So life has been very mundane recently. Aside from some lunches/dinners with some friends, it's just eat, sleep, ~~play~~ work. And it's about to get even less interesting when this coming weekend draws near. Everyone is not around, friends are going back or having plans with their spouses, heck, there's not even enough people for badminton! Like, it is the one thing that do with human interactions involved every weekend, and it's being taken away from me now =(. Though I won't go as far as to say life "sucks", it's just, not interesting. There's nothing to look forward to at all and its routine as heck.

Nonetheless, I did pay an "obligatory" visit to Orchard Road during this Christmas season. Went there with Jo last Saturday for a movie at Cathay Cineleisure, and while we're at it, we walked around Orchard Road looking at the decorations. Sadly though, the decorations are disappointing this year. Compared to my first visit to Orchard during Christmas, this year's decorations are as plain as white bread.

I was quite disappointed with myself for that night's photos. Sure, the decorations are not that attractive, but I was quite clueless myself, as to how to shoot in such a crowded place. Most of my shots turned out quite bad, and the only one that I find acceptable, after much compromise is this. Damn, I really need to learn how to take photos in congested places. That's why I always prefer taking nature's scenery compared to city shots. I can take my own sweet time without worrying that I'm blocking someone's path, and there won't be so many people in the frame, making it harder to compose. But surprisingly in this photo, the squatting photographer does make this photo more interesting =)

But well, at least I had a great time with Jo, walking around chatting and catching a movie. We watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, a movie starring Tom Cruise. As usual, I'm not gonna do a movie review or anything of that sort, but I'm gonna say that it's a decent movie. However. . . . . . . OH MY GOD Tom Cruise has put on some weight!! There are a few scenes in the movie where his belly is so obvious! No wonder there is no sex scene in the movie like in a typical western action movie! Just kidding!!

And since its the holiday season, look what I got as a souvenir from Su Yun who went Bangkok for holidays!! A can of Chang beer. Thank you so much Yun! Shall keep it and drink it on Christmas!

Having said that, there is something bothering me these couple of days. A sudden disappearance of a friend has put me in confusion. Puzzled and lost about the matter, I am a bit worried. Heck I even had a bad dream about it just now. Sigh. . .

So disposable I am. . .

2011-12-10T23:48:00.003+08:00

Tissue paper!! The thing you use to clean shits off your ass, wipe tears of your eyes. . . and when you're done with it, it's flushed down the toilet or thrown away as rubbish. Apparently, and unfortunately, that's how I'm being treated most of the times by my friends. People come to me when they're down or sad, I guess because their other friends are "too close to be bothered by their shits", but when tears dry up and shits got cleaned, I'm flushed down the drain, as disposable as a piece of tissue paper. The saying "a friend in need is a friend indeed" is a total bullshit. Most of my friends won't even remember they have my phone number stored in their phones when they're happy with their life, but when life gave them lemons, I'm never gonna hear the end of it.

It's not that I'm complaining that my friends are coming to me when they need me. I never turn down my friends ever. It's just that, why am I contacted only when I'm needed? Where the fuck were you when you were doing so damn well with your life?

So this year, I'm gonna hang my sock up on my door on Christmas and hope that Santa has an extra "true friend" he can spare me!

A short and random rant.

P/S: I like the picture I took of the sock very very much!! Credits to Ker Jia and Rui Lin for the housemates gift for everyone in the house!!

The Monday of Friday. . .

2011-12-05T22:19:00.003+08:00

It's December!!! December is like the "Friday" of the months, and after inspiring singer Rebecca Black's song, I'm sure everyone knows the days of the week better! =P December used to be my favourite month as a student, because it's the holiday month every year. Of course as an undergraduate, we also love May, June and July, but ever since the earliest of my schooling days, December has been a holiday month!! Don't get me wrong, despite the usage of the phrase "used to", it's still my favourite month, its just that, I don't get any holiday from it anymore, hence, it almost feel like it's just like any other month. Nonetheless, December will always be a very festive month, as it is the start of the festival train! Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year and to those who care, Valentine's Day.

Anyway, enough with the obsession with December, it's not exactly the main topic here. Carrying on with the tales of our awesome new house, we've got visitors today(and yesterday)!!

The "BB Club" members visited us!! From left to right, we have Raymond, Wei Ting and Ying Yan coming over for dinner just now! It was sort of a meet up cum visiting our place kind of dinner. Since we have guests and its a weekday(we don't have time to cook), we decided to order delivery and eat in. As you can see in the picture, pizza was on the menu tonight, and so was golden pillow curry. Unfortunately, we felt that the quality of the golden pillow curry dropped since the last time we had it.

Regardless, we had an amazing time chatting and dining together, and our house was filled with boisterous laughter most of the time. One of the benefits(amongst many other disadvantages as well) of working, is that we don't have to worry about assignments, homeworks or tutorials. Thus, our evenings and weekends are fairly relaxing, except for the weekends where I decide to do some work. Also, in the picture, aside from our guests, Sean and Yok Yin, we have our housemates Rui Lin(in red), Ker Jia(in blue) and Pang Chong!!

However, once the evening ended, it's always quite a dread to think about work the next day =( Therefore, good night and till next post!!

Home Sweet Home. . .

2011-11-25T20:13:00.005+08:00

Friday!!! The best day of the week, any week of the year!! Yes, even if it's Friday the 13th, 'cause I'm Asian and that shit doesn't apply to me!! Finally, an evening where I could chill at my new place! Let me try and recap, on Monday I was free but I didn't bring my camera home, hence I had to use Sean's camera for a short post on my blog. On Wednesday, I had a board game night with Daniel and gang and it lasted till quite late and last but not least, yesterday we had our first "weekly movie night" at home!!(more on that later). Don't ask me about Tuesday, 'cause I don't really remember.

Anyway, here are a slightly more detailed update on my new home! Finally brought my camera home and here are some pictures:

First up is the television section of the living room. Yup, our living room is kinda divided into a few sections, 'cause it's quite big! One of the best thing about renting this place is, it's fully furnished!! And I'm not talking about just tables, chairs and couches. I'm talking 'bout LCD TV and stereo system! Isn't that amazing!! At this point of time when I'm writing this post NOW, my iPhone is hooked to the stereo system and playing songs! No more listening to songs from laptop speakers, be it the built-in or external ones!!
The elevated floor section revisited!! As you can see, that's my table there, and this is the whole area between the bedrooms and kitchen. And in front of this part of the house is a dining table, just beside the tv section of the living room. Combining these 3 sections, the living room is actually quite huge!

Not only that, there's a small balcony beside the living room. Before we moved in, while we were viewing the house, this was actually the place that attracted me the most!! XD Imagine sitting there at night with an ice cold beer!! Epic drinking spot!!

A closer look at the TV and the speakers. This is where we watch all our movies now!
To hype up the atmosphere at home even more, there's a small "poster stand" that will show what movie we will be watching in the following week!! Haha cute right!?! Sean's idea!!

With such a cosy home, I'm actually looking forward to come home after work everyday!! Maybe it's just because it's a new place, but heck, I don't care, I should appreciate this feeling while it last! Having said that, I'm actually in dilemma. As much as I just wanna chill at home tonight, Chong Eu and gang actually asked me to drop by his place for a drink with some of our friends.

Hmm, decisions decisions. . .

FZ'ed. . .

2011-11-21T23:25:00.002+08:00

Sneak preview!!!

My new workspace!! No, not at the lab, at our new house!!!! Yay!! I've finally moved in to the new place, together with my housemates: Yok Yin, Sean, Ker Jia, Rui Lin and Pang Chong! And because there are quite a few things I wanna talk about, I thought I'd write a short short post about my new place. I wanted to write more about it, but the thing is, my camera is left in the lab, and I have yet to bring it home because of various reasons. Therefore, I borrowed Sean's S90 to snap one photo so that I can write(weird habit of not blogging when there are no photos).

Anyway, that's my new workspace in my new house. Fortunately for me, I did not need to spend a single penny on anything in the photo. The landlord left us MANY MANY things aside from furnitures! Yay for saving money!

So yea, I've finally moved in, and I'm loving my new home. It feels so good having the whole place to ourselves and not having to be confined in a tiny tiny room whenever I come home. I'm actually looking forward to come home now! No more long long hours in the lab just so that I can use the internet!! And no, its not just about the internet that makes me want to come home, it's also the people I get to see when I come home, the things I can do at home like making my own dinner, and everything else you like about YOUR home! Best part it, I even can work from home, due to the sudden change of environment, you can work better for quite some time until you get sick of the same working environment again.

Anyway, that's not all for this post. There are some things going on that I don't like how it's turning out. I don't really know how to explain, but I guess, being the good person, has really never resulted in any good conclusion. Bah, I really should write only when I can find the proper words. Abrupt ending to this post right. . . . . . NOW!

Then, and now. . .

2011-11-14T21:58:00.002+08:00

Alt + f4. . . . I guess that's it. Probably we're done with it. It's ironic, the thing that gave us the best time of our lives, now gives us the worst possible conflict. Trying too desperately to rekindle the moments we once had, that's where we failed if you ask me. Life moved on from us, and without even realising it, we were so static, trying to cling on the past so much. It was literally a decade ago. Things that are as far back as a decade ago, will certainly be different when done now.

And today, I learned it the hard way. Apparently, some of us outgrew it already. While some takes the effort to desperately make it work, others just take things for granted, can tag along whenever its convenient. This is also a failure in our part. And my god, I really don't make any sense now do I?

It's funny how much things can change within a day. Just this morning I was writing about how excited I was about moving into a new place. And from there, my day just went down hill.

This? This was just a bullet in the head when my throat is already slit; meaning, it doesn't really matter. It was bad enough as it is(today I mean), this is just the opposite of "the cherry on top of a sundae". From the sudden loss of something I have been anticipating, to an unexpected departure, then now to this, my day literally couldn't get any worse anymore.

Fuck this shit, I'm going home to sleep.

The few of the million things. . .

2011-11-14T09:11:00.004+08:00

So last night, I had a few thousand things that I wanted to blog about. Sadly, I have no internet at my current room, and now, I forgot more than half of the things I wanted to say. Nonetheless, that will change very soon!! One of the many things I want to share is: I'm moving to a new place next week! WITH INTERNET CONNECTION! Finally! Just the thought of not having to come back to the lab on weekends just to use the internet, be it for work or personal reasons, makes me all hyped up about moving. Though I have to say, it will be quite a hassle packing(yes, I have not started yet) and shifting everything again. And yesterday was one of my soon-to-be housemates, Yok Yin's birthday.

Birthday girl wanted Thai food! And since we were at our new place finalizing some administrative stuffs with our landlord, we decided to have dinner nearby at Jurong Point. Oh, by the way, our new place is just behind Jurong Point. Hence, gone will be the worries of not being able to make the last bus after a late/midnight movie in the cinema!!!
When we were young, birthdays were awesome. Parents and friends treated us like kings and queens, and we wished that we can celebrate our birthdays for more than once a year. However, as we grow older, we, or rather, I, wish that my birthday doesn't come often! Like I've mentioned before, after we get to the age of 21, we don't really need to age anymore!!
But, unfortunately, that's not how time works. The least we could do, is not to buy a cake with your age written on it! =P Haha! After dinner in Thai Express, we went ahead to grab some coffee/dessert in Starbucks. All so that birthday girl could get her slice of cake.
And before the night ended, here's a shot with everyone who came for dinner minus the photographer, yours truly.
Interesting quote of the night. . . do you remember why we're best friends?

Aside from Yok Yin's birthday, there were actually more things I wanted to talk about, but sadly, I forgot, or rather, "that ship has sailed off". The writing mood actually comes when I know some people are actually reading my blog, especially. . . XD

Last but not least, here's a flirty quote to end the post with:

Are you a camera?
Because everytime I look at you, I smile =)

But, regardless of how cheesy it sounds, it happens =) Also, by that argument, being a photographer, I guess many people smile when they see me? XD

And I can't believe I'm using meme in my blog now =S.

Beer Bear Bored. . .

2011-11-10T15:00:00.003+08:00

So when I click on the bookmark for my blog in my web browser and I'm required to sign in again, it means I have not been visiting/writing much on my own blog. Thus, just to keep myself logged in to my blog, here's 2 things:

First, I FINALLY brought my camera home after LONG LONG LONG time. All this while it has been sitting in my lab because it's cold and dry there, and I spend more time in my lab than in my own room(sad huh?). But anyway, why would "bringing my camera home after a decade" be interesting at all? Because. . . . now I can show you a something in my room that I've always been meaning to snap:

My iPhone holder graduation bear! Haha! Okay, it's not really an iPhone holder. Got this bear from my friend for my graduation(Thanks!) and it has been sitting on my bed doing nothing for a while. After a few weeks of having tea with this bear and talking to him about what he can do for me in my room, I've finally figured out how to put him into good use! I'm just kidding, I don't talk to him LOL. But yea! I figured that I can rest my iPhone on him as shown, while I watch a video/movie lying down on my bed! Gone were the days where I had to hold my phone to watch a video in bed and having the phone smack right on my face when I doze off!! Of course I don't usually watch a whole two-hour movie in bed, just short drama series like How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory or even South Park!

On to the next thing. Last Saturday was the SPMS Alumni Club's Opening, and being an SPMS alumni, we were invited to O'Leary's Sports Bar and Grill for dinner(?). Basically it was an event where food were served, guests come and go, a lucky draw, and oh, to me, the more attractive part of the night was the free flow of beer. Just normal beers though. Regardless, I went mainly because I had nothing better to do, and I thought I'd drink a few beers on a Saturday night.

The thing with this event is, I don't really need it. I mean, I work in NTU as a research staff now, and so do my friends from Physics. Hence, I see my professors and friends from Physics almost all the time! If there's one event I need from the Alumi Club, is to get me the heck away from them! Haha, I kid.
So yup, there weren't anything much to talk about that night. Things were pretty boring. We just went for the dinner, had a few drinks and head home. Honestly, not to sound nerdy, I thought I was better off in front of my computer that night. Well, at least there were free food and drinks? That's like the most desperate of consolation I can find.

The stars have spoken. . .

2011-10-27T09:09:00.003+08:00

On a very rare random day where I check my Horoscope, I got this. It seems like the stars know how stuck/unproductive I am, and remind me to buck up!

Craving for feathers. . .

2011-10-24T14:25:00.005+08:00

What do you call it when you're getting something for 3 times in a week and you're still craving for more?!?! Obsession? Or does this behavior qualify for the use of the word "addiction"? Whichever it is, it seems like I can't get enough of badminton recently!! Maybe it's because my life is so mundane and boring that I have nothing better to do aside from sports? Or somehow the mood for badminton has suddenly gushed out like hot water from geysers? My guess is, a combination of both, considering the fact that recently my life has been lacking activities. Everyday I spend my time in the lab and that's it, though I did manage to catch a movie with Josephine and Chong Eu last Friday, but that's about it for my past 2 weeks of entertainment.

Anyway, as I've mentioned earlier, for the last week, I've played badminton on three separate days: Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, and I'm still craving for more!! Somebody feed me with more badminton games please!! Nonetheless, that's not the reason for this post. This post, is to highlight my first attempt at sports photography but not with my camera. Long story short, Daniel organised a badminton tournament for the SPMS graduate club, which involves only graduate students and staff. Therefore, I joined the tournament as a mean to support Daniel's competition, in the doubles category. My partner was Michael, our Russian PhD student, which played badminton for the first time on Thursday itself. No!! I'm not putting the blame on him, we had an amazing time playing badminton, regardless of the outcomes of the matches. Oh crap, I nearly forgot about the photos I took with Daniel's Sony DLC, here they are:

The lighting in the Sports Hall was really dim, for photography at least. What's more, the white balance was a bit off. As the organiser AND player, Daniel had his hands tied throughout the whole night, hence, I did not bother him about changing the settings in his camera. I tried my best, but I really did not manage to find where to change certain settings, and there were matches going on, hence I just made do with whatever I have; mainly the shutter speed and aperture size.
Under these circumstances, I guess I didn't do too badly. At least I manage to get a lot of shots with the shuttle cock still in frame, be it leaving or approaching the player. One thing that I wasn't too satisfied with, was the colour balance.
As I've been shooting without any flash, I had to compromise on the noise level by jacking up the ISO. Fortunately, Noiseware Pro is magic.
Aside from my first sports photography experience, I noticed that throughout the tournament, the professors were really enjoying themselves very much. Most of the time, the hall was filled with laughters among the professors before and after each game.

On and all, I guess the tournament was a huge success, by the amount of fun everyone had. As for the outcome. . . . . Daniel and Bin won every category, so, that's. . . . a LITTLE bit awkward. But, nobody really cares. It's not like the prizes were expensive goodies or whatsoever. The prizes were just towels.

Before I call it a post, a big thank you to Yok Yin for renewing my faith in my racket by rewrapping the grip for me. On Friday night, I bought a new grip for my racket, after it slipped off my hand twice on Thursday when I was playing. Apparently, I learned that I suck at wrapping racket grips, and on Saturday, I was cursing and swearing the whole time because I wrapped it too thick and the racket lost so much power. Thankfully, Yok Yin came to the rescue and offered to rewrap my racket for me on Sunday before we play, and it worked wonders!! Precisely the reason why I'm craving so much for badminton!!! Aside from the reason that I'm trying to drown myself in exhaustion as a mean to escape all the shits in my life.

[F]inding [M]yself [L]ost. . .

2011-10-17T09:29:00.006+08:00

So here I am, back in the office on a Monday. Oh, the blues. . . Anyway, like I said, I went back to Ipoh last weekend, to meet up with my two closest buddies ever. In conjunction with our birthdays that are close to each other's(Mum and Jia Pin's on 7th, mine's on 11th and Juan Mun's on 15th), we organised a get together together with our parents, and we've decided to treat our parents to dinner.

Dinner was great, food were awesome and the companies I had were amazing. What more could you ask for for an awesome dinner?
Utmost gratitude to Juan Mun's dad for booking a place for us, as we're all so far away prior to Saturday night, it wasn't really convenient for us to do the booking. Also, the seniors are better at choosing dishes! =)

As much as things are mostly enjoyable back home, there is a tad bit of disappointment to certain things. Some of us seriously try too hard to impress others, leading to misprioritizing of certain things. I wouldn't say my time back in Ipoh with my bro's is a let down, but there are a few, "Goodness will you stop that!" moments. But I guess I'll just leave it at that. Nothing is perfect and honestly, I'm seriously running out of words to write now. I started writing this post on Monday, and it's Tuesday now.

So, I'm just gonna pen off with a food for thought: "If the right thing to do makes you unhappy, will you do the wrong thing to try and stay happy as long as possible?"

The weekly battles for the crown. . .

2011-10-14T10:12:00.002+08:00

Introducing, our new obsession. . .

The Settlers of Catan board game! 'Cause we're so bored working in the lab all the time, we play board games! Pun!! But anyway, the 6 of us from the Statistical and Multiscale Simulations Lab(my previous lab) have recently been playing this game every Wednesday and whichever possible weekends. No, I'm not gonna do a board game review, I'm not THAT bored. Pun again LOL.
But basically, this is a very complex and dynamic game which exercises our minds a lot. You can't play the game alone and expect to win, because it's not possible for you to have all the resources, at the same time, trading with other players will risk them getting what they want and winning the game when they grow faster than you. Hence, it's a game where you have to strategise and trade smart.

And as if the game was not interesting enough, we went ahead and spent some money and bought ALL the available expansion packs for the game. Each expansion actually gives additional features to the game, making it even more dynamic and complex. However, that is not all!! We can combine different expansions, bringing some(not all) features of different expansions into the game, which will give almost endless possibilities of the things we can do in a game.

We love the game so much, we try to play it as much as we can. After all, we spent about SGD300+ in total for the game. Nonetheless, each game takes a very very long time, thus preventing us from playing TOO often also. Therefore, like I said, we play every Wednesday evening, and if possible, the weekends. More interestingly, we've recently shifted from playing in the lab, to playing at Daniel's house, as shown.
Daniel's house(the condo he rented) was really beautiful and comfortable! We enjoyed hanging out there so much that we decided to have our board game evenings at their place in the future.
What's more, Bin is one of the most awesome bakers I know! Second to my mum of course. The previous Wednesday we were there, she made us apple crumble! And it was delicious!! Totally made our board game evening much more yummylicious!!

And with that, I'm off to my miserable life again.

P/S: I'm going home to Ipoh tonight for the weekend, and hopefully it will be an awesome weekend with my bros Juan Mun and Jia Pin.

Thank you for remembering. . .

2011-10-11T18:51:00.004+08:00

This will be a very very short post, to thank some of my friends for remembering me today =) Aside from Jia Pin, Juan Mun, Tricia and others who genuinely remember today, I'm really happy that I got a phone call from Jenn from KL. And of course,

Thanks Su Yun and Mei Mei for remembering, and making the trip to Canteen B with a cake for me =) The least I could do was to embarass myself with that "Happy Birthday" sunglasses. And of course, thanks for the polaroid! =) Love you girls =)
Aside from that, I wish to share the news of my awesome friend being featured in Nanyang Chronicles this month for his "unique style" in the Nail That Unique Style contest. Though they spelt his name wrongly, Mr LEONG Chong Yen is famous now!!

Though my birthday is just like any other day for me, but it was pretty disappointing when the few of your closest friends didn't even bother wishing you. Of course, I'm not gonna cry like a little bitch, but really, I think I should not expect much from them anymore =)

Recess week, recess for the weak. . .

2011-10-02T17:21:00.005+08:00

Recess week ended. Not that matters to me, I'm a working adult now, so, I ain't getting no rest! However, I did take 2 days of leave to go back Ipoh from Sunday(reached in the morning) till Tuesday(leaving at night). To summarise my trip back: It kinda sucked, one of the worse trips I've had. Elaboration: I went back with the intention of "fixing something", and it turns out, not only did I get my leave wasted by not being able to do anything about it, it will be another long long long long while until the next chance for me to "fix it". In addition, my supervisor, Prof Koh from NTU's father passed away on Saturday, and the wake was from Sunday till Wednesday morning, and because I was in Ipoh, I almost missed the chance to pay him a last respect. Thankfully, I managed to rush to the wake after I reached Singapore on Wednesday morning. My condolences again. Overall, trip back was pretty much wasted. Nonetheless, I did manage to have an unexpected meet up which I enjoyed very much, so, it wasn't all THAT bad. I would say, it's like you went to a restaurant, where the appetizer and the main dish were horrible, but at the very least, the dessert was sweet enough.

Abrupt transition: My photography skills has been deteriorating. Due to the lack of shooting(taking photos when you're out with friends doesn't do much as a practice IMHO), I've been drooling over my friends' photos while thinking that I'm falling behind in terms of shooting skills. When I was in Ipoh, Chong Yen and Kok Xian had a small photography project that I missed(now you see why the trip sucked soe bad? I missed so much without gaining ANYTHING!), the "Learning is Everywhere" photography contest organised by NTU. They even had a very good model! Sigh, what a loss.

Regardless, I'm still not giving up in shooting, and I'll shoot whenever I have the chance. If everything goes well(keeping my fingers crossed), I will be planning a trip to London next May(HIGHLY dependent on my next work contract). But for now, I'll have to make do with small events with my friends:

On Wednesday, I had dinner with Yuen Yee, Lip Chung and Siew Loong at Tony Roma's @ Suntec, to celebrate Yuen Yee's birthday last Saturday. I know, this photo doesn't look much like someone who's having her birthday, but who knows? Maybe she's sad that she's older? I mean, we ARE at the age where we can enter every the cinema for any kind of movies, casinos, strip clubs and what not. Hence, we don't really need to age anymore!
I'm not the biggest fan of ribs, thus, I had their. . . . crap, I forgot what they're called. Mini pork burgers, that's what I'll call them. And appearance is deceiving! This plate consisting of 3 mini burgers, fries and some salad is actually very filling!!
So if that photo is too depressing to be accepted as a birthday celebration photo, here's one with more smiles on them =) We asked a few of our high school friends who are working in Singapore along too, but because everyone's got different working times, it's really really difficult to get a time where everyone is free, even for dinner! Such a sad life we're leading. Phase transitions are always the reasons we lose friends along the way in life.
However, there are always worthy friends who will put in a lot of effort to stay in touch with us, regardless of what we're doing. Here are 2 examples of those friends that I have =) Really proud of myself for having such friends. Okay, enough with the "grandpa mode". This was on Thursday night, where Yok Yin, Jolyn, Raymond and Ming Li decided to get together and treat everyone for dinner after their first month's salary.
We went to Brotzeit @ Raffles City. However, it was so packed there, it was really difficult/awkward for us to be moving around, much less taking photos. Hence, one person is missing in this photo, Mr Raymond Lee =( Sorry Raymond, I had to wait for you to go to the toilet so that I have some space to take a photo of everyone else =(.
Food was great in Brotzeit, however, the German beer was better! Only had one pint of it(because I wasn't the one paying), which is approximately 500ml. And German beers taste so much better than the normal beers we normally drink!! So much more taste, so much smoother. Like! Thankfully the amount I was allowed to drink was restricted the other day, because really, after my trip back to Ipoh, I could use a malfunctioning brain a couple of days?

However, I'm not gonna talk about that right now, as I'm starving right now, and I'll be on my way for dinner with Kok Xian. After three days of eating outside(Friday was with my research groupmates), I could use a few cheap meals in school! Ah crap, repetition of sentence structure. Fail English. Bye!

Sick barbeque. . .

2011-09-18T16:42:00.003+08:00

It's 4.40pm and I have no idea why am I still in school now. It's not weird for me to be school on a Sunday, but today, my plan was actually to stay at home and rest, as I woke up with a sore throat and cough, until I decided to come to school to use the internet for an event. And well, it's as if things couldn't have been more wrong, when I got to school, my body temperature rose, and the "event" that I came here for, was erm, "cancelled". Nonetheless, when a rational person would just give it up and go home, I gave in to the thing they call "hope".

It almost felt like the situation a year ago, putting something else ahead of my own health, again. Why do I always do that? Have I not learned enough? Whatever happens to "once bitten, twice shy"? Instead, I'm like, "continuously bitten, never shy", and I always trap myself in a vicious cycle. In fact, "bitten" is not exactly the right word to use, but there ain't quotations that have a milder words and mean the same thing that will make my writing more fanciful. Yup, as if my fingers aren't shivering enough from the air cond(which I, ironically have been saying is set to too high of a temperature when I was in a better condition) in the lab while typing this, I need to put in more jibber jabbers. In this case, it's more like I was the bad, or rather, "not so good"(desperate attempt at self consolation here) guy previously. And now, it must be the work of karma, that bitch.

And noone knows about this, not a living sould knows about what's going on with me. I've got no courage to tell anyone about what happened. Not Jenn, not Jia Pin, not Juan Mun, and not even Yok Yin knows about this. Yes, they know that I've been quite down(some of them), but I really never dared to tell them what was the cause of it. It's not because I'm afraid of any snide or judgemental comments from them, it's because I don't know how to tell them, or I'm very confused and lost myself. And sadly, the chestaches are coming again. Hence, aside from vaguely ranting here in my blog, I guess this time, I'm on my own? Someone even told me I'm very lost and I'm not myself anymore, to which I reply with silence, 'cause I don't know myself.

Wow, who could've guessed a guy with a forehead hot enough to boil an egg can talk so much? And it wasn't even the purpose of the post! Anyway, now that I've written so many words, I guess I should balance the post out with photos, though they might not be distributed evenly throughout the whole post, still, whatever works. So here goes:

As mentioned, Raymond, Grace and Chee Kean were having their housewarming party yesterday, a barbeque by the pool. Hence, we were invited and I brought along my camera to snap some friends that I have not met for a long long time.
And of course, a few desperate attempts at food photography, which, I think didn't turn out well. I wasn't too happy with myself. Heck, I AM not happy myself. =S
Food, food.
One of the hosts, Raymond, working hard to keep the guests fed throughout the whole night.
Even though towards the end, Sean took over the barbeque pit after realising that we have a lot of food left but limited charcoals.
Here's a bunch of people that I have never seen for very long. Actually, it's just Andrew, Pui Ee, Yin Mun, Quen Seng and Vway Hau. I see the rest quite often.
After most of the other guests have left, we helped clean up and went up to their house for some chit chats, red wines and interesting footages of Chee Kean the night before.
Last but not least, my personal favourite shot of the night, Yin Mun with my 50mm f1.8 lens. Yea I chipped off her hand, but I'm having troubles composing half body shots with that lens, hence, I'm quite happy with this.

With that said, what should I eat for dinner? Should I just skip altogether?

Transit. . .

2011-09-16T12:30:00.008+08:00

Shrouded in darkness, I am lost, I don't know what can I do, I don't know what should I do. So I made a mistake, but what am I supposed to do? I don't know I don't know I don't know!! As usual, times like this, I wish I could turn back time. The shitty thing is, life doesn't work that way Whei Yeap! How many times until you finally learn?! Seriously. . .I'm just crying over spilt milk right now.

On another totally unrelated note, here's a short short record of what happened today. One of my friends that I met during my exchange in Canada, stopped by Singapore on her way to Manchester from Japan. She chose the flight that transits in Singapore because she thought it was a good idea to meet up with us, which was very sweet of her. Hence, Josephine took the time to call us out for dinner before she flies off. Unfortunately, I was the only one who could make it. Regardless, we had quite a nice time catching up, and sharing some local delicacies with Aya, our Japanese friend.

Jo and Aya. We had our dinner at Esplanade, where we took a photo before she left for her flight. It was really nice to meet up with friends after a year, and it was really sweet of her to think of meeting up with us.
Speaking of local delicacies, how can we forget about 'ice kacang'? In my opinion, 'ice kacang' is the pride of Malaysia/Singapore food, of course, I personally think my aunt's ice kacang is the best!! She puts in longan and watermelon pieces for us!!
And, of course, satay. Jo described it very well to Aya, by referring it to 'Singapore's version of Yakitori'.

Sorry for the very very short post. I just got back from Chong Eu's place after having a few drinks with a few friends. I thought I'd write a short post about our meet up with Aya, because tomorrow there will be a housewarming party at Raymond's house, and because of that I would like to get this post up as soon as possible, plus the fact that I'm quite unhappy these few days, and I need to get some loads off my chest.

I guess, with this, I'll pen off and go to sleep.

Mid Awesome Festival. . .

2011-09-14T11:11:00.011+08:00

So, there are a shitloads of things in my mind recently, I guess I'm currently paying the price for the decisions that I've made previously? And it is the point of time when I start to doubt my own decision, was I too hasty in deciding last time? Or it's just me being sour for not being able to try the other options? Heck, I'm even starting to feel like I'm being punished for being happy for quite an "overly-extended" period. You see, it was the first time in a very very long while since things in my life have been running quite smoothly for some time. In fact, there were times when I pause n question myself, "Why is everything going so well? Is something bad gonna happen soon?". And true enough, things never last.

The past few weeks, though masked by a few shreds of eventful happenings, were not really that happening. My research, for instance, is one thing that I'm so lost at. Others, well, let's keep them for some other time. This is not the reason for this post. Enough with being strayed, the real purpose of this post is, aside from trying to keep this blog alive, is to share some of the happier things that happened.

Ta-da!! Finally, the movie by Kakilang Production has been successfully uploaded to Youtube! Or you can just watch it here. This is the lower quality version of it. The HD version, was split into 3 parts and they're only available on Facebook, so I can't(or I don't know how to) embed it here. Regardless, if you prefer to watch the HD one, the links are here, here, and here(in that order). As for what did I do, I helped shoot a few short short scenes while our main videographer was not around, and I helped choreograph some of the scenes. Interesting trivia of the day, can you spot me in the video? Yes, I'm not bullshitting you, I'm one hard bastard to spot in the video(one of the many many scenes).

Also, Monday was Mid Autumn Festival. Well, I'm no big fan of these traditional festivals, but they do give me a chance to get together with some of my closest friends here for a meal whilst updating each other on all the craps that has been happening under the Sun. Hence, on Sunday and Monday, I had dinner with two separate group of friends, and for both groups, I bought some ice cream mooncakes by Swensen's to share with them.

Sunday night, we had dinner at Thai Express, Jurong Point, and as you can see, the photos above has no watermark by me. The photos that night were credited to Kok Xian, the guy on the rightmost. As I did not bring my camera that day, I have to resort to borrowing some photos from him. Speaking of Kok Xian, notice his photos up there? I'll show you guys something interesting at the end of the post =P
As for Monday night, I had dinner with Su Yun and gang. Unfortunately, I did not manage to take photos of anyone present, because we only had a simple dinner in the crowded Pioneer food court. Nonetheless, there are still some photos of the mooncakes.
Personal favourite? Durian ice cream mooncake!! Weird thing is, I'm not a huge fan of durian, but the ice cream filling of the mooncake, was really good!! Tastes like real durian!
And oh, according to Su Yun, we have to eat pamelo during Mid Autumn Festival too. I didn't know about that. Courtesy of Carmen's "claws", the pamelo was nicely peeled.

That's pretty much it for my Mid Autumn Festival. I enjoyed it quite a bit, I always enjoy spending time with these bunch of friends. At the very least, my worries/problems will be forgotten during that short period of time. However, when I'm back home alone, there they come again =(

And now, I'm late for my lunch with Trish! So, here's the photo that I promised, and adios!

Kok Xian doing meme face!! How alike are they? You decide.

Of Independence and Liquors. . .

2011-09-04T19:06:00.003+08:00

First post of September, and I'm lazy as shit, so I'm just gonna narrate my way through the photos.

The Malaysian Students Association(MSA)'s Merdeka Night was yesterday night, and I participated, along with some final year and graduating friends of mine. In theory, this was supposed to be a celebration of Malaysia's Independence Day. In fact, the Merdeka Nights when I was in my Year 1, 2 and 3 were carried out with that thought in mind. Hence there were always performances(mostly sketches) related to Malaysia, most of the time we mock the politics in Malaysia. However, as this "tradition" was passed down "generation after generation", the purpose of the Merdeka Night has turned from "celebrating Malaysia's Independence Day" to "prom". All they do during the Merdeka Night are dress up, watch some random performances and take photos. Sure, they did some parody of the politicians in Malaysia by naming the organising committee members after them, but there wasn't really any follow up to that so it was quite a pointless thing to do.

But anyhoo, it's not like Malaysia really deserves our time and effort in celebrating its Independence Day. I mean, c'mon, after 54 years of so called independence, we don't feel like that's the case at all!! We still feel like we're being occupied by some screwed up colonialist who doesn't give two shits about the country's well being. All they care about is to exploit the country for their own benefit. Independence my ass.

Okay, enough with that wretched country, let's get back to the "prom night".

I brought my camera along, thinking that I'll be able to take some nice photos of my friends all dressed up. Unfortunately, I only have like 2 or 3 photos of my own after the whole night. Reason being, I was too busy snapping for others, and I was a bit reluctant to trouble other people to use my camera to snap for me, as the lighting was bad and it was not easy to control a DSLR with a flashgun without fail shooting a few times first. But regardless, I had fun taking photos of all the beautiful guys and girls there. This one here is one of my favourite shot, not so much because of the subjects, more because of the new way of editing I'm trying out. I can't describe it in words properly, but I'm taking a different approach in post processing my photos, and I'm quite happy with this photo.
The thing that I have to learn now, is to learn to control the wide angle lens' distortion when shooting people.
Well, most of the time, if I stand far enough, everything will look fine, just like in this picture. This is by the way, a photo of the whole production crew. The director, Chong Yen is standing on the left of the me inside the photo, while the main videographer and video editor, is the guy all the way to the left of this photo, the dude having his L lens straped to his back.
And again, the distortion when we get a little bit up close and personal! Notice Soon Ngen's arm, the dude on the left.
Overall, I'm really glad that we put in effort to do this, and I was quite pleased with the final product. I'm not sure if I'm able to share it here, but I'll try my best once it's available on Youtube. Su Yun here, is one of the most impressive actress in the movie. Though her scene was a very short one, but she made it even shorter by finishing the filming of the scene in 2 takes!! Like a pro!!

And the night did not end just there of course!! We proceeded to some "after party" in one of our friends' room, and that part of the night, will be another story, which will probably not be told in detail, due to some events that transcended. Basically, we went to Chiz's room to drink, and some of us(this time not me!) got totally wasted. The most epic thing was, we drank from 12am to 7am. =)

Ooopps, look at the time now, I'm sorry for the abrupt end, but I've gotta head out for dinner now. Till next post!! =))

Bar bee kill. . .

2011-08-29T20:34:00.006+08:00

DISCLAIMER: Thank you Kok Xian for allowing me to use his photos, all the photos in this post are by Mr Lee Kok Xian.

Finally, a post!! I have been meaning to blog for so so so long, but because 1) I have been occupied with a lot of stuffs, mainly my research, preparation for an interview this coming Thursday and helping out Kakilang Production, 2) I have no photos and I don't feel like writing without photos to show. Regardless, I am so desperate for a post, that I decided to steal a few photos from Kok Xian on the barbeque session we had among our gang of friends, consisting mainly of the Kakilang Production crew and some other graduated friends.

Barbeque was awesome! Food were awesome, since all of us were willing to pay a bit more to get better food, it was all worth it. Love the salmon and the stingray!! And of course, barbeque will never be complete without some booze!!
We bought some beers, which was okay, but Choon Siong brought the killer, the whisky in his hand. Some of drank sooooooo much that night, and were very much wasted, but the worst of them all was, sadly. . .

. . .yours truly. =( It's not like I did something very bad while being drunk, I was pretty much under control, except for the fact that I couldn't walk straight and I puked, but still, I'm quite ashamed of myself for being soooo drunk that night. It was my first time puking for drinking so much, and I will definitely not let that happen again! Reason I drank so much, well, I was particularly happy hanging out with this bunch of friends, and I got carried away and drank too much. Hey, at least I'm not drinking because I was sad!(desperate attempt at self consolation).

Nonetheless, that was one of the most enjoyable time I've had over the past few months, after all the life transition hardships, things that occupied my mind, my guilt, and all the previous unnecessary dramas. I guess that outing was really something I need =)
And here is a quick glance at everyone there! Thanks a million to Sean and Yok Yin for bringing me back home, Kok Xian for the photographs, Chong Xian for buying all the awesome food and last but not least thanks Chong Yen, JUST FOR BEING A BOSS!

The bro's before ho's bullshit. . .

2011-08-12T08:07:00.007+08:00

It's been a while, though the lack of update of my blog is unforgivable, at the same time, it is inevitable too. The past week has been quite packed, I had to leave work at 1730 or 1800 on the dot for some other activities. On normal days, I would stay in the lab until at least about 2000, just because:

1. I have nothing better to do at home. There's no internet at home and the cellphone network reception is so bad that it renders the idea of getting a mobile broadband moot.

2. Who wants to travel during peak hours? The NTU-Pioneer shuttle buses are always packed and full during peak hours, resulting in long waits for subsequent buses(which will probably be full too).

Nonetheless, for the past week, I have better things to do outside after office hours, and I was forced to take part in the "daily push and shove event". Mostly, I had to meet up with some friends who came back from travelling, namely US and China. Aside from that,

I took part, no no, taking part is not exactly the right word, more like, I went to take a look at the Malaysian Freshmen Orientation Camp. I didn't exactly take photos there, this was just one of the very few shots I took when I had my camera with me that time. Thought the photo turned out not bad, hence I played a bit with some effects.
Organised our first group graduation photoshoot around NTU, but failed due to the rain. Regardless, we still did our best and took some indoor shots. Improvision FTW!!
Did our second group convocation shots around NTU, this time, outdoors.
Thankfully for the weather, we were quite happy with the photos we took. And millions of thanks to our photographer, Leong Chong Yen.

Aside from that, I was a very very angry person yesterday. I'm starting to feel that the phrase "bro's before ho's" is nothing but a myth. I used to have so much faith in 2 of my closest buddies that I've known for 10 years, until yesterday when 1 of them decides to forsake me because of a few girls. It was really the most disappointing event in my life, to hear your close buddy for 10 years say "I am choosing the girls over you". I was like, "what the fuck?". Throughout the whole of our friendship the 3 of us know that we can tolerate any amount of swear words in our conversations, any kind of jokes we throw at each other and every pranks we play on each other, but this is the one thing that the 3 of us understand that it's quite intolerable. No, I don't mean that "neither one of us can get a girlfriend", but getting a girlfriend doesn't mean you have to abandon/forsake your closest friends. And this has been the one thing that made us so close to each other, we never throw anyone aside when either one of us has a girlfriend.

Nonetheless, I was proven wrong yesterday. The worst part is, the girls that I was abandoned for, was partly introduced to him by me and another friend. To think that I am now the outsider that was cast away by you, to hell with that dude. And last but not least, you're not even interested in those girls that you forsake me for, dog!!

ConGRADUAtion. . .

2011-08-01T11:28:00.000+08:00

Finally it's my turn!! And I've decided to steal a few minutes of my office time to write about my convocation, just a quick one, where the photos will speak more than me. I have been very very occupied for the previous week, with my parents and Jia Pin and Juan Mun coming down to Singapore for my convocation, meeting Prof Koh before he flew off to Thailand last Wednesday, and being the photographer for Alison's convocation. I wish I can say that I am finally free now, but the truth of the matter is, I have a lot of research work to catch up. Hence, this is my guilt-filled post during office hour!!

My bro's for life!! These two guys here has been my closest friends for the longest time. 10 years of brotherhood and we're still close to each other. Put it in a more girly term, my "BFF's". Even Xeph commented on our photo on Facebook, saying how he's amazed that the 3 of us are still so close despite the distance and the years. Well, friendship is all about commitment and frankly, a pinch of luck. =)
Mum and Dad came to Singapore too! Since this is one of their VERY VERY VERY few vacations, I spent most of my time with them and bring them to wherever they want, walking with them regardless of how tired I was after the convocation(they went back to hotel early to sleep while I stayed with my professors and friends). It was the least I could do for them.
Aside from just walking around, since one day before my convocation I received my salary for July, I treated my parents, Jia Pin and Juan Mun for dinner. The place I brought them to was a place that Suk Kwan recommended me when I ask her where should I bring my friend for a "date" a year ago, but unfortunately, due to many twists and turns of events, I always did not manage to eat there. However, finally, I managed to bring my parents and friends to Ah Loy Thai at Shaw Tower, Beach Road. The food was great, not excellent, but for the price we paid, it was REALLY good value. Would definitely go there again. The best part of the place is, dessert is just opposite the restaurant! Tom's Palette has GREAT ice creams, and the day we went there, the lady who attended to me, was awesome!! Great service and great ice cream!!

So that was pretty much for my convocation. After the dinner, Jia Pin and Juan Mun had to take the flight back to KL, and after sending them off at the airport, I brought my parents to Clarke Quay for the beautiful nightview there. They were really fascinated by the beautiful lightings there.

And before I move on my friends' convocation, I would like to slip in a few words of gratitude towards two of my mentors, Prof Huan and Prof Cheong. Thank you Prof Huan, for being the most caring and committed professor towards each and every student's need, be it personal or academic. And Prof Cheong has my utmost gratitude for being an awesome supervisor for 3 years and for being patient with my mediocre abilities.

And aside from my own convocation, I've been busy attending my friends' ones too! Here's Yok Yin with her BIG bouquet of flowers from her mum and her fluffy teddy bear from Sean. The sweetest part is, Sean took a long lunch break to attend her convocation. These two are also two of my closest friends =)
And on Saturday, I was Alison's "personal photographer" for the whole day. So I followed her to her convocation, waited for her to come out from the ceremony and in the evening, took photos of her and her parents around NTU. As my future "portfolio", here are a few shots that I would like to share.
Arranged the timing to be in the evening, hoping for a beautiful sunset, too bad we weren't lucky enough. Regardless, the sky was not too bad when the sun was on its way down.
An out of the ordinary zooming shot of the graduate =)

A portrait shot of her with all the gifts from her friends. Speaking of gifts, thanks Alison, for the souvenirS from the States! Appreciate them =)

With that, I wish all my friends congratulations on their graduations and here's a short quote to end my post on convocations:

Graduation is a mountaintop where you can get a clear view of how far you've come. . . and a glimpse of the new path spread before you, so full of possibilities. Pause. . . reflect. . . and celebrate!

Square hats and flappy gowns. . .

2011-07-26T08:59:00.004+08:00

Nothing much has been going on lately, hence, I even let the opportunity to write during the weekend to slip away. In fact, I'm facing some problems with my research work, it seems like I've reached an impass, and still figuring out how to get things done.

Regardless, it's that time of the year again!!! The time where family and friends flock over to attend their family and friends' graduation ceremony. Yes, it's the convocation week!! Yesterday was the first day of it, and I attended the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Convocation, originally with the intention of taking photos for Jeremy and his girlfriend, Irene.

Jeremy even brought together his graduation gown to take a matching photo with her. Of course, there's always an extra guy, and in this case, its ME! =P
Of course I'm not such a spoiler!! There were already photos of them together before that!
On the same day, Prof Cheong treated us to lunch at the Executive Cafe, in celebration of Jeremy's publication in PLoS ONE. Congrats Jems, and thanks Prof for that awesome meal!

Anyway, this is just the beginning of the convocation week, so stay tuned for more!! What's more, my parents and my two best bro's, Jia Pin and Juan Mun will be attending mine!! All hell will break lose! Last but not least, I pray hard that the clear blue sky will stay on until Saturday at least, where I will be the photographer for Alison's convocation!!

Welcome to the work force. . .

2011-07-15T18:24:00.003+08:00

I've been meaning to write about my start of work, but I just couldn't find the time. After all, I'm working in a research area that's very new to me, hence, I had to spend a lot of time reading and catching up on all the theories that I need to know. Regardless, it's Friday and I think I deserve a few minutes to blog! Hence, a very short update of my new working life:

My card has transitioned from the red student's matriculation card, to the blue staff card. Nonetheless, I'm quite unhappy that the division I belong to was not shown on my staff card, because I'm actually more proud to be part of the Division of Physics and Applied Physics compared to NTU.
This is my new working cubicle in my new lab, 2 doors away from my old lab. I have my own cubicle now, and I have an extra monitor to use!! This makes my readings much more convenient(I won't say efficient), because whenever I'm referring to two reading materials at the same time, I don't have to tab in and out checking for equations etc anymore! I can just show one on one screen and the other on the other screen! My locker is also directly above my table, so I can stick pictures on it!! The photo you see here is the photo of Jia Pin, Juan Mun and me taken at Jia Pin's house.

After the first few days of work, I do feel both the pressure and the fun in this new "life". After all, I get to see both the scary and nice side of my boss on the first day of work itself. The scary side is that he's a demanding person, he expects quality work from us, and he turns into a monster and scolds his employees when he's not satisfied. The nice side of him, well, to put it simply, he sent me home from work when coincidentally we both left the office at the same time.

In addition to the new working environment, in this first month of work, I'm actually in a bit of a financial crisis, because after 2 months of unemployment, I have exhausted whatever savings or leftover money I earned from my part time jobs during my days as a student. But. . .

. . .thankfully, just yesterday, I received some money from NTU, which is the money they still owe me since May for my H3 Lab taxi claims. With that amount, I think I can survive until my first payday =)

Aside from the routine life of going to and off work, I have also started to exercise regularly. I would go to the gym an swimming pool alternately everyday, just to make sure that sitting in the office will not give me a belly regardless. Aside from that, my life is pretty much boring, with just work and exercise in the daily menu.

Of enjoyment and resentment. . .

2011-07-10T11:02:00.006+08:00

Yesterday was one of the best outing I've had with my best buddies in NTU. It's been so so so so so long since I've had an outing like yest, hence I really had a lot of fun! Surprisingly, I have very few words for it here. I thought I would be so excited to blog about it, but weirdly, I can't seem to find many words to write about my excitement from yesterday.

Regardless, I had a really wonderful time, and such a day definitely deserve a place in my blog. Hence, I'll be taking the easy way out, and let the pictures speak for themselves.

We went Orchard for the movie Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. It was my second time watching it, but the movie was just half the outing. By the way, thank you Siew Loong for the free ticket =P
Dinner was awesome at Popeye's!! Sean got his first month's salary, and decided to treat all of us to dinner yesterday! Really generous of him.
A group photo taken by a passer-by.
After the movie, we walked around Orchard and Far East Mall, where the guys wandered around aimlessly and the 2 girls went around to shop =S
Another shot at the dinner treated by Sean!

This gang right here is some of the very few closest friends I have in NTU. They have been the one who made my life in NTU/Singapore so much more memorable, be it, Raymond's lame jokes, Yok Yin's "motherly" characteristics or the beer sessions with Chong Yen. I love these guys =)

However, now that we're all working already(except for Chong Yen), it will be an uphill battle for us to keep in touch or hang out so closely like we used to. Nonetheless, these here, are, my friends for life definitely =)

On another related note, while we were happily strolling down the beautiful street of Orchard, it was the Bersih rally yesterday, and I don't have much to say about it(not gonna waste time on a hopeless cause), but still, I will say:

I RESENT THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT!

to the absolute core. If you have been following the news in Malaysia, you'll realise that the government is everything they said they are not!! They claim that the rally will disrupt public peace, but the fact that matters is, they were the one who sealed of Kuala Lumpur, conduct roadblocks throughout the highway for no good reason, causing jams everywhere and disrupting the lives of the people. The Prime Minister is the biggest joke of all time, first saying that he would allow the rally to be held in a stadium, then denying them access to all the stadiums in KL. This shows what kind of cowardly and lying bastard we have as a Prime Minister. Shame on Malaysia. It's really pathetic, the state of our government, is really pathetic. However, as much as the government is to be hated, part of me, too, despise idiotic citizens who failed to see what is going on now and still chose to vote for such a government. Open your eyes you blind turds!!!

Why I love. . .

2011-07-07T22:39:00.004+08:00

Sometimes after a very long break, we lose touch with things that we do on a daily basis. For a second, after a very long holiday(since May), I almost lost the feeling of being indulged in Physics. It's actually quite ashamed for me to say that I felt this way, but hey, I get rusty kay. However, whenever I'm with the Physics Division of NTU, this "detachment" doesn't last for long. In our closely bonded division, we often spend time with our professors, be it for lunch or just some chit chat over a cup of tea/coffee.

Today my friends and I spent some time talking to Prof Cheong, my FYP supervisor after lunch, and we talked about some different topics in Physics, e.g. Particle Physics, General Relativity, etc. Not that we did an in depth discussion on each of the topics, but just discussing about the various fields of Physics and the things that are still out there for me to learn, reminded me why I love Physics so much. The endless possibilities and the vast amount of knowledge out there for discovery. Ahh, I feel rejuvenated somehow. That is why, my professors have always been my favourite lunch "kaki's", because talking to them always gets me inspired and I always find more things to love about Physics.

On another note, I was treated pizza today!! Yay! Thanks Chong Eu, you really shouldn't have to go through so much trouble, just because I helped you carry a few boxes of stuffs. Regardless, we had a good time and I enjoyed every second of it! Photo was taken with just my iPhone, since I din bring my DSLR out.

But "Milo Girl" has been reminding me that I have NOT fully recover from my cough and slight sore throat, so I should watch what I eat. Yes ma'am!! Will drink lots and lots of water kay!! =))

On YET another note, can't wait fr 23rd July!!!! =)))

Under the weather. . .

2011-07-05T18:19:00.010+08:00

I am currently:

Sexy(my voice)
Irritated(my throat)
Coughing
Knocked out

Yes, I have been sick since last Tuesday, the day before I took the bus back to Singapore. If I recalled correctly, I had fever + sorethroat on Tuesday, sorethroat and cough since Wednesday and for some weird reason, fever decides to visit me again today afternoon. Go away dude, you're one of the worst guests in my life. Ah, if only that works.

I hate being sick for so long, this is actually the first time I'm sick for so long =( Usually by the next morning, I'll be as fit as a fiddle again, and all the fried food, ice creams, cold drinks and cakes will never need to leave me even for a day. Unfortunately this time, I've been looking out for what I eat and drink everyday, and it sucks! What's life without the freedom to devour anything you want?! That is why I will never be a vegetarian, not even for a day!

Well, fortunately for me, one of the "sick food", is actually one of my favourite food, hence, it's not THAT bad after all.

Yes buns!! I love eating buns and breads! Mostly because when I was young, my mum always bake different varieties of buns for us at home, and after coming overseas for study, I have no such luxury anymore. Mum is now too lazy and busy to bake already =(

Having said all that, my eyes are actually getting tired already just by staring at the computer and typing this out. That's the shitty thing about being sick, every part about you is weak, even the eyes =S However, here are two photos I want to share before I pen off, and a quick update on one of the small photography project I attended organised by Kok Xian.

Not an excellent shot, but I actually did not take many shots of people that night. We were out on Saturday night doing stars trail photography. I'm too tired to steal a decent photo online and explain, so google if it interests you. However, I realised that I actually don't have the equipment to do a stars trail photography. I need a remote control for my camera because we will be doing super ultra long exposure shots of the stars, like an hour or something. Thus, without the remote, my set of equipment is quite a no-go for this project.
That is why I didn't shoot much. In fact I even left early because my cough was getting so so so much worse. Served me right I guess, for taking beer when I'm having such a bad cough =S Regardless, here's a random photo that Chong Yen took of me, and I thought he controlled the flash pretty well, its something that I am learning to do, so this is more like a "note to self" thing.

Well, that's all from me for now, it's back to bed with thick jackets and blankets for me now. Till next post!!

Phase transition. . .

2011-07-03T13:56:00.006+08:00

So I've shown you guys the photo of my old room, taken with my relatively new Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. After much trouble for the past few days, I finally have time to write about what I really wanted to, but first, a picture:

A panoramic shot of my new room. it is a smaller room compared to my old room in NTU, hence the need to do a panoramic shot despite my ultra wide angle lens. Forgive the pink bedsheet, as it was a secondary bedsheet I took from home(didn't want to waste money buying new one). And the good thing is, its on the 12th floor!! Hence, is very cool inside and there's no need for air cond(hope I'm not proven wrong in the future).

I have been living in my new room for the past few days, and I would say, I'm getting used to it I guess. For the first two or three days, however, I was a lil' bit lonely. I can't just call up my usual dinner friends like Sean and Yok Yin because everyone's staying out of campus now and it is not as convenient to meet up anymore. Regardless, we still managed to meet up for badminton yesterday in NTU, all thanks to Chong Yen for organising it.

Moving into the new room, it signifies a new phase, and once start work on the 13th July, I will have successfully transition into a new phase of my life. Meanwhile, I came across this great video of Steve Jobs giving a speech at Stanford University in 2005, and I thought it'd be a good speech to share with whoever's reading this:

I wasn't a big fan of Steve Jobs before this, but after using the iPhone and following some Apple news and, most importantly, brainwashed by my buddy Chong Eu, I admire him more now.

With that said, my cough is irritating me and I think I'll pen off here. Till next post~

3 in 1. . .

2011-07-02T02:03:00.002+08:00

Here's a very short and random post:

"Milo tastes better and better everyday and Maggie mee is more and more delicious as time goes by."

Despite the past few days being the most chaotic days ever, with loads and loads of happiness, a whole bunch of anger and sadness coupled with a wee bit of "loneliness due to a new environment", the happy moments always make everything worth it. That is why, hell no I'm giving up.

Last but not least, action speaks louder than words, and in this case, I'm very sure that my action speaks MUCH MUCH louder than some other people's words. Period.

The ghost in my life. . .

2011-06-30T06:02:00.004+08:00

I'm back in the Lion City, only to find myself haunted by both my past, guilt and lack of control.

My Past
Have I not suffered enough? For many many many many months, I have suffered and hurt so so so much. Why is it that when I've finally have the courage to move on, my past became my hindrance towards a future? Life's unfair I know, and that sucks, but to this extent? Am I not allowed to have a future just because of something I can't change?

My Guilt
No, I did not lie to you about a single thing at all. I was genuine and sincere, honest. But, as much as I claimed that I'm a good person, I upset you this time. Hence, this is my guilt, and I'm sorry.

My Lack of Control
I'm just human, yes, such a phrase seems too convenient, and very much like an excuse. However, undeniably, there are things I don't control, and I don't know what I can do for those things. All I know is, for things that I control, I will do them right.

Having said all those, sleep continues to elude me, despite me being wide awake throughout my whole journey back and being caught with a very sore throat. Please, stop thinking about this one thing, can? Just like in the movie Source Code, I wanna tell you, everything is gonna be alright.

"Walking down the aisle". . .

2011-06-27T23:14:00.003+08:00

Photo was taken at Taiping, when I went to visit a person Jia Pin would call her, "The Milo Girl". The pillars arranged down the pathway made the place look like some outdoor wedding aisle. All it is missing, is an arc shaped roof/cover on top of it. Perfect illustration of the thoughts in my mind right now.

When the road in front of you seem so smooth and beautiful, but at the same time there was no roof to shield you from a downpour should it rain. Between a rainbow at the end of a smooth looking road and the possibility of an acid rain, what would you do?

A fateful encounter. . .

2011-06-26T23:57:00.011+08:00

24th to 26th June will probably be the best few days in Year 2011 for me. To summarise it, those few days were a series of amazing moments with the most incredible group of company and one very fateful encounter. To elaborate, here are a few thousand words about my trip to KL, translated into pictures:

During my stay in KL, I crashed at Jia Pin's. Unfortunately, the day I arrived was the day Lip Chung had to leave for his Genting trip. I'm not sure how he did, but we managed to take a photo together before he took off. That same day, after sending Lip Chung off to the bus station, we went to Times Square, because I need to get my, quoted from Kok Xian, "very expensive torchlight" aka Nissin Di622 Mk II flashgun.

And all hell broke lose when I finally purchased my flash. Sure enough, I am beyond broke after spending on the flashgun, but heck, for once I want to do something that will make myself happy, not anyone else, so I guess just for this time, I'll go a little bit extreme. Jia Pin brought me to Putrajaya to quench my thirst for shooting and we had a wonderful time there.

After taking quite an extended break from night shots, I finally had the chance to do long exposure shots and night HDRs. Nonetheless, I did not bring my tripod from Ipoh and Jia Pin's tripod was a freebie, hence it was not the sturdiest one. Regardless, I take what I can get and did my best to shoot. I won't say my photos that night were perfect, but I guess they're satisfactory considering the fact that I've been absent from shooting for so long and I'm not shooting alone, thus the "are you done yet" pressure.
Nonetheless, I think I managed to get some decent panoramic shots of brightly lit buildings around Putrajaya.
And not to mention, some very much missed long exposure HDRs.

And well, of course I wouldn't just make Jia Pin drive me there and watch me stand at one same spot taking pictures of the same view again and again with different settings. With the new flashgun, night portrait was another reason we went there!

And as requested, I tried my best to take great shots of Jia Pin and his girlfriend with the picturesque sceneries around.
Thankfully for the tripod, I can see my own face in the photos.
Last but not least, very importantly, one of things that made this trip so noteworthy, was a fateful encounter, 2 cans of Milos and the best train ride ever.
The question is: Where are we headed now?

The good town in the wretched country. . .

2011-06-18T21:03:00.005+08:00

Finally, internet connection, one of the most scarce resource in Malaysia, where Ministers are spending millions of dollars making Facebook pages but ignoring the pathetic state of the internet connectivity of the country. Oh, how I loathe this country. Except for my family and friends and good foods here, I despise everything about this country; the corruption, the biased system and the government most of all. How I wish the ministers in the country will just roll over and drop dead.

With the recent dramas in the country, the most popular one being our smart ass government spending millions of dollars of our money into creating Facebook pages, I really have absolutely no more sense of belonging here anymore. I only come back for my family and friends, aside from that, this is a more foreign place to me than Singapore is. The country is being run by short sighted people, where they only see the short term benefits they gain by corruptions and the citizens' benefits are the last thing in their list to care for.

Anyway, enough with Malaysia, spending two paragraphs in my blog just talking about this wretched country is more than a waste of time. They don't deserve the attention. Let's look at something more interesting back in Ipoh.

My rabbit!! Haha! When I was playing with my new lens around the house and caught him lazing around the house, I decided to shoot a few shots of this lazy little boy. Too bad he doesn't have a facebook page(because we don't have RM300k to pay for one), else I've got some pretty nice profile pics for him.
Look at what my new lens snapped!! I really love the "distance" it creates because of the distortion. Sure, it makes the subjects(that are near only) look longer, but it gives a nice look on the photo sometimes, like this one!
And on the other hand, the distortion is not so high as to affect my normal portrait shots! I am just enjoying my new lens so so so much! Aside from that, as seen in this picture, I've met up with Kwong Hoe and Siew Loong during my trip back. On the day this shot was taken, we watched a movie that made us laughed so hard that we cried!
Yeshh!!! I "cried laughing" watching Kung Fu Panda 2. It was so so so so so much funnier compared to the first movie. Just when we thought 3 guys watching an animation is a wee bit awkward, we were proven wrong with a stomach ache and multiple occasions of struggling for breath!
Also, Sunday was Fathers' Day. My dad, elder sister and I went to Genting for a one day recreational trip. We walked around Genting Highland, spent some time in the casino then on our way back, we drop by the temple just slightly below Genting Highland, built by Lim Goh Tong as well. I kinda forgot the name of the temple, and the fog there was very very thick, so I wasn't able to take too many good shots there. I really need to learn to deal with mists/fogs. However, look at the amount of things I manage fit into this frame! If it were my old lens, the Buddha statue is the only thing I manage to fit in, giving a less interesting and a more monotonous photo I assume.
Despite the fog making the temple not the best place to take photos, I still tried to make the best of the place. Managed to snap a few shots of my dad. Aside from Genting, before Fathers' Day end, I actually spent the night watching another movie.
Green Lantern!! Yes, I chose to use the poster with Blake Lively in it rather than the dude playing the superhero! That's because the only thing keeping me awake in the movie was her!! She was really burning hot in the movie!! Well, the movie wasn't THAT BAD, it was just too typical, and there wasn't anything interesting to expect, and after watching movies like Inception and Shutter Island, movies like this become kinda plain.

Well, that's more or less what I have been doing for the past few days I was back. Coming weekend, I will be going KL to visit my bros Jia Pin and Juan Mun, hopefully when I get back, the "rare internet connectivity" will be available and I can update my blog once again.

The end of an era. . .

2011-06-15T22:39:00.003+08:00

So it seems that I failed to "move my blog" once again. I can't seem to create a nice banner based on my "best works", hence the lack of updates. I kept telling myself "I'll make a new banner and start posting there", but I can't seem to get anything nice =(. Ergo, I guess I'll stick with this page for a while longer.

But anyway, today's my last night sleeping in Hall of Residence 2 NTU!! After tonight, I will be going back to Ipoh tomorrow night and when I come back, I will be staying at my new room near Pioneer MRT. Hence, here's a photo that tells two different stories:
One is of course, the fact that I'll be leaving this room for good, and as a farewell, I snapped this as a remembrance to myself. Four years of staying in the same hall, definitely I'll miss this place.

The second thing is, if any of you noticed, this photo does not look like the other photos I normally take. The difference is of course, the viewing angle, and the distortion of the photo. Yup, introducing. . . . . my new Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens! I have been eyeing this lens for a very very long time, and finally, I came across a good deal from ClubSnap and bought a second hand copy of this lens. So far, I'm loving this new lens so so so much! Whenever I put my eye into the viewfinder, things look so different compared to viewing through my kit lens! It's literally a new SIGHT for me!!

Anyway, as I am writing this, I'm actually troubled by my employment pass application. I'm not really in the mood to elaborate on the details, but to sum it up, as usual, Singapore's red tapes sucks. Compared to Canada(where I've experienced first hand), Singapore's speed in handling administration processes are worse than snail-like. There's currently no words in the dictionary that can describe the inefficiency in handling administration matters in Singapore. I'm not making remarks without basis, but for tonight, I'll just "state first, explain later". Adios. . .

A two course meal. . .

2011-05-19T12:09:00.008+08:00

Okay, so this is supposed to be the post where I write down the new link to my supposedly new blog before I call it quits here. Nonetheless, I haven't had the time to finish "furnishing" the new place(I just finished my exams today), and I have stuffs to share, so I'll just have to put it here for now. Good news and bad news. Unlike some people who like their dessert first, I like to suffer through my vegetables first. So here goes:

I HATE NTU OFFICE OF FINANCE TO THE CORE!

I know I've said that I hate NTU before, but this university is neither helping me forget how much I loathe them nor giving me at least a decent graduation memory. Its less than 2 weeks to June, and the office of finance of NTU has yet to pay me for February. Yes, there's no typo, F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y!!! Goodness' sake, the amount of money they owe me for the part time jobs I'm involved in totaled up to more than SGD1000!!! I have 2 months worth of outstanding bill because NTU thinks they're the only people who need money and they can take their own sweet time paying us student helper just because we do not have a PhD. The fact that none of the professors are getting their pay late shows that they are able to pay up on time, but they refuse to, for some weird ass reason!!

On the other hand, they don't seem to have any problem with deducting our money from GIRO on time!!! You take money at lightning speed but you pay up like a snail, what the fuck is your deal NTU?! Such double standards and attitude are what 'cause the 100 place drop in the university ranking. And to think that the president of NTU wrote a long ass explanation of how the drop of 100 place in ranking is not their fault, joke of the century!! Just look at the system of the schools, and you say you're trying to be as good as Harvard or MIT? Never in your life time will NTU achieve such standards. It's not the fact that NTU is younger compared to them, its the attitude of the people running the universities!! The system does not even cater to the students well, how do you expect people to come?

Its really sad that I have so many great great great memories with the Physics Division of my school, but on the higher level, the university totally ruins my undergraduate experience. I can't even bring myself to say good things about NTU when people ask me "How's your life in NTU?". All I can say is, I like the Division of Physics here, but the system of NTU itself, is very much a turnoff.

So yup, after three paragraphs of relentless rants and complaints, let's move on to the best course of a meal, the dessert. As most people might have known, I recently went back to my hometown, Ipoh, to attend my cousin Teck Mun's wedding. To be honest, I'm more excited about the fact that I have the opportunity to be one of the photographers who cover a wedding than the fact that my relative is getting married. It is indeed one of the best photography experience that I've had! There are so much to learn about event photography and the exposure is just exhilarating!! Because everyone is moving all the time, having the right settings is crucial, a relatively higher shutter speed and ISO, but not so much that it will create noise or underexpose the shot. And through this experience, I realised that a flash is of utmost importance in events photography!! Most of the time, the lightings will be pretty screwed up, for example, in a restaurant where the wedding dinner was held, hence, I think a flash helps a lot in correcting the white balance to a certain extent and as a fill-in to prevent shadows on faces. There are a few shots that I did without flash, and they didn't turn out well at all, really regret those unintentional shots. Nonetheless, THANK YOU SO MUCH KOK XIAN for lending me your flash!!

Hmm, the post is getting a bit dry, I guess it's better to stroll through the words with some "eye-candy" aka photos in between, so here are some of my favourite shots during the wedding:

Not only that we need to tune our camera properly to adapt to the fast changing scenes, i.e. in and out of the house/car, on the stage or sitting at the table, etc, because "scenes" are changing all the time, there is really not much time for us to take our own sweet time to compose our shot properly. I was lucky to have this "creative" shot thanks to the guy doing the video recording. Most of the time, I went ~~trigger~~ snap happy.

As the bride and groom are the main characters in a wedding, I spent most of the time chasing after them and burst-shooting like there's no tomorrow. Fortunately, I managed to obtain some nice candid shots.
While the video guy was making them engage in a casual conversation so that he can film them, it was also a cue for me to take pictures of the newly wed in a more casual pose.A very cute shot of them discussing who should get the apple and who should take the orange =P I'm just kidding, I don't know what they were doing, they just look so sweet.
And of course, as a photographer, my job was to immortalize the beauty of that meaningful day as much as possible, hence, I asked for posed shots whenever I caught them idling and not performing any of the complicated ceremonies. This is my favourite shot in the album, and I'm starting to respect my 50mm f1.8 more now =)
Yes, there ain't no rest for the groom and bride, even before they could indulge in the sumptuous dinner, I tap on my cousin's arm and asked for a shot =)
And of course, I wasn't the only photographer during the wedding. That was another thing that I learned to take note off throughout the wedding. As a fellow photographer, I must never get in the way of another photographer's shot(or at least try not to). Moreoever, sometimes we have to share shooting spots!! Can't hog over the same shooting spot over and over again yo, other photographers might want to have a shot at the angle you're taking too. As a result of multiple photographers, most of the time not everyone in the frame is looking at you. Still, it creates some nice effect at times. This photo really looks like some DVD cover of some TVB drama to me.
Furthermore, I feel that when people actually posed for me, I should try my very very best not to disappoint them!! If you take too long, they'll complain or switch their attention to another camera!! Again, to me, burst mode helps =) This was the only good shot among the 6 shots I took of the same group.
Some things are just inevitable, for example this shot. I tried my best to include only the two waving newly weds, but between the glass door and other people, I chose to include other people in the shot. Can't be soooo rude to ask so many people to move now can I? What's more they're actually bidding farewells to the guests at this point of time.
Last but not least, I learned that, most of the time, the bride makes a much more interesting subject than the groom =P

So yup, I can't wait to finish furnishing my new blog before posting this, so here it is! Hope whoever who's reading this find the photos enjoyable and if you do, there are more in my facebook album =) Adios!!

Back from hiatus, only to say goodbye. . .

2011-05-08T14:39:00.003+08:00

I literally did not update my blog for a whole sem. That's really disappointing. Not that I have many "followers" or whatnot to begin with, after such a long hiatus, I guess I'll end up writing to myself now. Anyway, the long period of absence was not without reasons, with the primary one being not in the mood to write. A lot has happened, a whole freaking lot. And the more depressing part is, 90% of what happened carried the emotion of sorrow.

Throughout the final semester of my university life, I:

1. Had something so precious stolen from me.
2. Fought for it but failed miserably.
3. Ended up bleeding, both mentally and physically.
4. Tried to recuperate, again have yet to succeed.
5. Have been busy with my Final Year Project.
6. Have been busy teaching, but with everything happening, I don't expect a teaching feedback as good as last semester.
7. Tried to survive everything that happened.

Its really a let down, how I have been waiting and wishing that my final semester here will be the best one I've ever had, how the "curse" of having a bad start every single semester will end this time and I'll kickstart the semester with a smile, all of those were nothing but a short lived dream. Instead, this semester was the worst one ever, with everything that could possibly go wrong had.

Nonetheless, no matter however long the "PAUSE" button in my own life is being held, life in general still move on. After the whole semester, however sad or devastating things are, I was, in a way, forced to come out from the other end of the tunnel.

One of the very few things that had made me smile during this "semester of despair", is my Final Year Project presentation day. It was the day all of use showcased what we had done throughout the year, the one thing that have been keeping us up at ungodly hours in the lab. The best part is, at the end of the presentation day, Prof Alfred Huan, our Head of Division, treated us to a buffet dinner, where we ate to our ~~hearts'~~ stomaches' content and chatted about various different topics, particulary the General Election in Singapore. Needless to say, the food was great, because all we can taste from the food, was the sweet taste of liberty.
As many may have known, I was the tutor for PAP112: Fields and Oscillations this semester, and just like the previous semester, I took a picture of me with my students at the end of the course. I hope all of you guys enjoyed my class as much as I enjoyed bringing them to you. I'm sorry if I under-performed in any way, this was a really bad semester for me.

On another note, this blog will be coming to an end soon. I started off this blog on the day I came to NTU, its not too inappropriate that I'm terminating it at the end of my university life. Nonetheless, that wasn't the main reason. There's just one too many unhappy events in my life, especially this semester, that's why I think I will stop writing here and start anew somewhere else. I've even thought of the new title for my new blog: "The Entangled Doors - When one door closes, another door of opportunity opens". I guess not everyone will understand the "punchline", but if you've heard of entangled particles, then maybe you'll see why the name and the proverb!

The next post here will just be a link to my new place, I just need to get my banner up. Adios~

Share, rant, show and tell. . .

2010-11-27T10:07:00.000+08:00

Finally, after uploading the photos and putting this post on hold for so so so long, I've decided to take a couple of minutes and update my blog a lil' bit! First thing's first, like I said in the last post, semester has come to an end, so is my teaching career for this semester. Well, "career" might be a little overdoing it, it's merely a part time job where I conduct tutorial classes for the first year Physics students for Prof Claus.

I first took up this job because, well, for those who know me, you know that the following statement is very true: I like talking and I'm very naggy. But yea, above that all, I like teaching! And considering the class size at the end of the semester, I'd say I didn't do too badly after all! Of course, there are lots for me to learn still but if there's one thing that I'm proud of myself in my teaching, is I managed to finish discussing all the questions PROPERLY in every tutorial! I don't know what the students think, but I'll find out after the exams. Gotta be excited on the feedbacks yo, since I'll be teaching again next semester, I wouldn't wanna repeat the same mistakes I did this semester, no?

On and all, one of the most enjoyable thing that happened to me this semester, especially with your absence, is teaching. Heck, there are a lot of times when I'm more looking forward(is this grammatically right?) to teaching as compared to attending classes. But of course, I have to be frank, as the exams draw near, I did take away some of my attention from teaching to my own studies. I guess that's quite natural considering I'm also a student, but the thing is, it might not have been so fair to the students in my class? I mean, as a student, I wouldn't want my tutor/lecturer to spend LESS attention in us when the exams are around the corner right? I guess, that's one thing I should apologize to my students for. Nonetheless, I'll try my best to allocate some time for consultation before you guys' paper alright? (Maybe I'll try blogging less? Nah, just kidding)

So anyway, that's more or less what I have to share about me being a teaching assistant this semester. On a totally unrelated matter(thought of making it into a separate post, but I guess 2 posts at the same time will be a wee bit inconvenient to read),

I HATE NTU!!

Yes!! MOST OF THE TIME(not even sometimes), the decisions made by NTU really baffles me! One of the recent ones is compromising the welfare of the students and acting all heroic, making NTU the Youth Olympic Village. And of course, who could forget all the money spent into making NTU campus look like a prison, by putting up REDUNDANT fences along the whole campus. However, this time round, I'm not talking about these. I'm talking about closing the Hall 3 function hall JUST BECAUSE IT'S EXAM PERIOD!! I mean, c'mon!! It's not even being used as an exam hall why the hell would you close it? Oh by the way, just in case I lost whoever who's reading this, we play badminton every weekend there. Hence, when I woke up this morning and Sean texted me saying that they closed the courts in the function hall because it's exam period, I couldn't be more unhappy!

What is the deal with closing the function hall and exam period man? It's not being used at all, so for fuck's sake, let students like us use it to exercise! I guess this is really one of the reason why NTU can never reach the top, the narrow minded mindset. Just because the exams are around the corner, you're prohibiting any form of relaxation/entertainment for the students? I thought it is because it's the exam period that we need to blow off some steam once in a while, and sports would seem like a perfectly healthy way to do it. Whatever it is, the administration of NTU has one of the most interesting decision making minds ever.

Well, of course, not everything is THAT bad on a Saturday morning without badminton. For instance, I got this post up, that should be something good I guess? Aside from that, after millions and millions of words of ranting, here are some interesting photos to share:

Ta-da!! Panorama shots! No, I did not go traveling recently. This sad soul who's always trapped in the lab was so lonely and jealous of all the photos his girlfriend posted, decided to dig up some of his old traveling photos and work on them.
It was my first time doing panorama, it was in San Francisco by the way. the view there was so breathtaking, and when Garen took out his camera and start "panorama-ing", I figured I'd try it out myself.
Of course, there's so much for me to learn about panorama shots. For starters, Song Wee just thought me how to get a more uniform exposure without relying on post processing too much. I'm so totally grateful Wee. Thanks for the hints! And of course, I need to learn how to create better compositions of panorama shots.
Not excellent, but so far, this is my favourite shot. I did not really follow the rule of third in this case, because I figured, whichever way I adjust, both the sky and the sea wasn't interesting enough to deserve 2/3 of the photo. Of course, I might be wrong, and I kinda regret that I did not do a few shots abiding the rule of third. After all, it doesn't cost anything to process a digital photo. Oh well, too late for that now, I won't have the chance to go back to San Francisco anymore, not in the short run.

Wow, that's really one heck of a post!! I did not know I wrote so long, until I scrolled up and skim through everything after the caption of the last photo. Well, I guess after such a heavy session of sharing, ranting and "showing-off", it's time to get back to my Statistical Mechanics II. Hopefully I will able to finish up to the point where Prof Chia left off by the end of this weekend, so that I can start on my Surfaces and Interfaces revision. Adios amigos!!!

Lizard-man, climbing the wall of age. . .

2010-11-21T17:07:00.003+08:00

One quick post with very little words before my exams! To my dismay, I have less than 3 weeks before my 2-day final exams commence!! If I have to say, this is the most unprepared semester that I've experienced so far, ever since the semester kicked start in the wrong way, shits keep piling and piling up, and it's high time I suffer the consequences. Sigh. Regardless, let's take a look at Sean's birthday before whatever that's gonna befall upon me!!

So yup, we had an actually-not-so-simple celebration for him after all. We had potluck!! Everyone has to bring something, and we share everything. Really takes the workload off the organisers and distributes it fairly among everyone.

There were lots and lots of food that everyone brought, but I did not have the time to process every one of them and hence, I just picked the most important one to upload.
The Birthday Boy was very excited most of the time of the night, and he has been having sleepless nights and dreams about how many of us will attend this potluck that his girlfriend planned for him.
Turns out that, this many attended! By the way, photo not by me, it was by An Yi's G12 because by that time my camera died on me. So yea.
So once again, due to the lack of time, I'm gonna end this post with another Happy Birthday Sean, I hope you enjoyed the night we put together for you!

Semester is ending, so is my teaching this sem!! Hence, if I manage to find time, I shall talk about my personal teaching experience this semester! It was my first time after all! XD

Meatball: 23 years and still rolling like a champ. . .

2010-11-14T02:24:00.006+08:00

It's been such a long long while, but this post is gonna be about something happy!! And what's more, this is a post of me going out of campus to have some fun and chill out with my friends after God-knows-how-long it has been. Okay, enough beating around the bush. Before I start, a little update on myself. I bought Song Wee's second hand Canon Powershot s90 because since she broke her camera and Song Wee's willing to sell me his old one for a very low price, I figured I'll get it for her before she comes back =). As random as it seems, its not. The following photos are all snapped by the new Canon Powershot s90(new as in, newly purchased). Having said that, let's talk while going through the photos of the night shall we?

Sean picked the perfect place for celebration!! After such a long time locking myself up in the lab, I was craving for sushi like a vampire craving for blood! Hence, when he told us that we would be celebrating Yok Yin's birthday in Ichiban Sushi, I couldn't be happier!!

While not as effective as my 500D in terms of portrait shot, when it comes to close up food portrait, the s90 is quite powerful itself! On another note, having eating at Ichiban Sushi which is located just beside Tori Q, reminds me of all the times we have Yakitori there. =(
Sashimi!! Missing these like crazy!

Needless to say, I quenched my thirst for both Japanese food and photography that night, by eating and snapping a lot! Ordered something called the "Don Don Gozen", that comes with 2 rice sets and lots of side dishes =X
Overall the food shots were quite satisfying, considering the amount of time I've been on hiatus in photography. And gosh, just posting all this up now is making my stomach grumbles again. It's like a freaking thunderstorm there!
Well, enough of food shots, let's take a look of the birthday girl and her bunch of friends who celebrated fr her. Obviously you can easily identify Yok Yin the birthday girl right? Despite all of us being old birds(final year students) except for Wei Ting, we made her walk around JP holding a "bouquet" of balloon flowers(courtesy of Wei Ting)!! It was such a hilarious sight seeing everyone's eyes on her as she strolled down the shopping mall. Of course, this is to keep you young at heart, our beloved friend!!
Back in campus, we feast ourselves to the Oreo cheesecake that the birthday girl and her boyfriend baked for her. Yes, the birthday girl has to bake her own cake, that explains the murderous intent in the photo. Sean, let this serve as a warning to you, and next year, you better be able to bake her a nine thousand layered cheesecake with different flavors in each layer k?
Gonna end this post with a shot with Sean and Yok Yin. From Year 1 till now, these guys have been my best buddies in NTU, especially Yok Yin whom I met first from our orientation camp group. Happy Birthday again! Hope that you enjoyed yourself thoroughly last night! Hope that we can celebrate many many more birthdays with you too!!

Thoughts for food. . .

2010-11-11T20:01:00.003+08:00

Indeed, it was a day filled with thoughts, thoughts and more thoughts. So much thinking going on, so little solved.

Saw something that maybe I shouldn't have tried to feast my eyes on, ending up feeding poison to my mind. Thus begin the torment and worries. Of course, a lot of people would say, "Shouldn't it be better that you saw it? You can attempt to solve it right?" But I guess, this is something that I can't even go about attempting to solve? I know quite well, if I tried to bulldoze my way through for a solution, I'll end up with more on my hands to deal with. So I guess, suck up the pain and keep your mouth shut Whei Yeap, blame yourself that you have such vigilant eyes you moron.

I guess, this puts me back in the dark? I don't know. . .

Like I said, trying to solve it will never do, therefore, talking about the details will do just as bad.

Thus that brings us to another of my dilemma. I guess this is more like a "pre graduation syndrome"? When you're gonna graduate soon, and the transition between a student to whatever that lies ahead, is like when you're about to take a leap across an endlessly deep valley. After all the way you've came through, it's either you make it to the other side, or you fall and quite possibly never come back up to the same level anymore.

Read some of my friends' facebook posts and it got me thinking a lot, a whole lot about what's in store for me after this. Well of course, the plan is, get a PhD and hopefully become an academia. At least, that's the dream. Very nice Whei Yeap, very nice, ONLY if everything's going on the way you dream of up to this point.

Let's face it, I'm definitely not anywhere near the top of my class. There are so many people above me. That's one concern. Secondly, I'm doing theory. Note, I'm saying that I'm doing theory solely because I'm NOT doing experimental physics and I've taken the course path of Physics(more known as, Pure Physics). It's not because I solve equations on a piece of paper, derive some weird looking equations or try to solve something that's. . . . very hardcore. You get what I mean? My research has always been more computational, building models and investigating something, something quite, "engineering". But anyway, let's just stick with "I'm doing theoretical Physics" for simplicity. Everyone knows that Singapore has little to no room for theorist. All this country cares for is industrial growth and money. Whatever that doesn't really generate those coloured bills with Yusof's picture on it, gets minimal attention.

Most of the time, the place that offers more attention in theoretical research is of course, US. They are willing to spend money in researches like String Theory, Quantum Computing and whatnot. That's where concern number 1 comes in. I'm nowhere near the top of the class and getting into US is. . . . for the lack of a better word, difficult. So, once again, I'm facing the usual problem that I have been facing throughout my whole life. I'm always at the middle. I'm never at the top of anything, neither am I at the utter bottom that tells me I should just walk away from that "thing". I'm always in between, not good enough to excel, yet not bad enough to get thrown out and go somewhere else.

That is the worst possible position to be in.

Having said all that, I'm not giving up just yet. Of course, times are tough and there are times we're worried and concerned about things, but even after all the times spent ranting, if we never get back to making things work, that's when we should really worry. So yea, ranting's over, and it's time to do whatever you can to get yourself out of this dilemma, SWY.

Plagiarism. . .

2010-11-05T15:18:00.002+08:00

Introducing, the photographer who's holding on to my camera now~

Yup!! She is!! XD. Of course, she needs no introduction. And since now she's in Sweden studying and a series of unfortunate events happened to her camera, I sent her my baby to ensure she can immortalize the beautiful moments there! So in short, my baby is holding on to my baby! Anyway, she took lots and lots and lots of shots, and I'm not just trying to flatter her, but her photos are getting better and better with time!! Therefore, since recently, my blog has been running out of photos to show and tell, I figured I "steal" some of her photos and use them to entertain that negative 10 million readers I have XD.

Anyway, lo and behold~

Prague, Czech Republic. Oh by the way, all the photos in this post(or even some of the upcoming posts) are snapped by the lovely photographer up there. All I did was, minimal post processing and a little stamp for her.
And well, since they're not really my photos, so I don't really have any big description for the photos. However, she does have my blog password, so I guess if she's interested in telling people about the amazing places she's visited, she might just log in and edit my posts.
Well, I hope you guys(whoever who's reading) won't lose interest in my blog just because I am using her photos k!! After all, I'm here to share shots that me and my gf took, so I guess as long as the shots are nice(in my humble opinion), I'll post them!

Anyway, that's all I have for now!! Not much of an interesting post(in terms of the words), but hey, at least they're some pretty pictures by a pretty photographer right? And a shoutout to you MC, if you're kind enough and have some time to spare, do tell us more about the photos there k?

And now, back to the FYP with 432543985729432 bugs!! This is the last day I'm gonna spend on my FYP, since I'm quite behind my courses and there's only about 1 month left to work things out for exams, I figured I should leave my FYP until after exams and use the time I spend on my FYP(which is a buttload), to buck up on PAP451: Statistical Mechanics II and PAP443: Surfaces and Interfaces. Till next post!

The dark. . .

2010-11-03T06:13:00.002+08:00

Vegas, the city that never sleeps, just like me. I guess I'm desperate for some photos in my blog? And my waking moments every night, reminds me of Las Vegas. I can't sleep anymore, not at night, not in the dark. When the lights go off, feelings of fear and tormenting thoughts come to me. That is why, I lost my ability to sleep and recuperate daily. The only rests I get, are from the few minutes every now and then when my head rests on the lab table in the afternoon.

Somebody told me I have a dark inner side. But how ironic is it, that I have a dark inner side, but I'm afraid of the dark?

I am afraid. . .

I want to search for the light with you again. . .

I realized yesterday, that it was already November. I guess as the usual saying goes, "Time and tide waits for no man", and true enough, this semester, I have been abandoned by time. It's already November, approximately 5 more weeks to my final exams. And where am I in the course again? Nowhere, at best, I'm just right at the beginning of the textbook.

The little things you say, the little things you do. . . has a butterfly effect. . . yet another night filled with rants and agony. . .

Inception. . .

2010-11-01T21:46:00.004+08:00

Watched Inception a second time, of course, this time on my laptop. And I guess watching the same movie with a different mood, gives a different perception. The first time I watched it, it was just a movie with an interesting concept. Of course, it was an awesome movie in my humble opinion. I really love it. The second time I watched it, still love it, but my mind was hovering over different matters this time round. Typical enough, I think of you a lot.

Dreams and reality, recently I've been experiencing both a lot. How I wish I never wake up from those sweet dreams I have of you, and how I wish I could escape reality right now, and hide in my dreams where you were there with me, until you come back. Of dreams and reality, who are we to tell them apart? Whichever that we enjoy more, should be the more real one shouldn't it? That's how we humans have been living our lives, no? Our whole lives, we have been trying to satisfy and content ourselves, bring happiness to ourselves, and if our dreams are more pleasant, why can't it be our reality?

Of course, everything I said would sound very hypothetical to most people, or maybe, it will just be perceived as another "emo post". Bottom line is, I'm missing you more than I can bear. It's tearing me up every second of my life. It's not easy on me and you know it. You told me yourself you know this is difficult. But I guess, when you're enjoying yourself so much, other people's pains and sufferings just seem so annoying right? Of course, I can't expect people to treat me the way I treat them. I cannot expect people to be like me, sacrifice myself for the person I love.

It's unbearable, really. This feeling that I'm experiencing. How much I miss you, how much I wish to hear from you, how much I wish to be treated more warmly. Just like Cob, I can't keep you out of my mind. . . I'm at the stage where life is really so so so painful and tormenting that, death seems to be such a happy state to be in. If falling off a building in a dream brings you to reality, will falling from a building in reality brings you to a dream? An eternal dream. . . . that would be my new reality no?

The many problem body. . .

2010-10-29T03:53:00.011+08:00

I give up. I need a break. I have been working for the whole freaking day trying to finished all my delayed tasks because of my Surfaces midterm test, but I give up. I need some time. I need to let things off my chest. I need to break down for a while. I need. . . you.

(29th Oct 2010, about 4.00am)

So I've been worried for the whole day, waiting for you to tell me at least you've landed safely. I mean, you're in a foreign land, we can never be too careful now can we? Even a carefree guy like me who normally never bother to tell my parents where am I, called them every time I fly and land. I was anxious, worried, and my chest was aching like it's about to be ripped off my body. Tried to text you, but to no avail. Until she told me, you lost your sim card and you're fine.

(28th Oct 2010)

Somebody asked me, "Why don't you go do something you like?". Well, here are the things that I like to do:
1. I like to play addictive video games, and I'm sure logical reason dictates that I do not get myself indulged into such addiction in my FYP year.
2. I enjoy cooking with you.
3. I enjoy watching movie with you, be it on my laptop or at the cinema.
4. I enjoy just sitting down together with you just wasting time.
5. I enjoy letting you torture my face.
6. And finally, I enjoy spending time with you. . .

So yup, I guess that answers it.

I'm not trying to prove anything, but it just strikes me like that. I lost the interest in talking to other people about myself. I tend to try to keep everything to myself. I guess that explains the occasional break down that I experience. When the container is full, I guess I'll just have to pour things out to make space fr the upcoming fillings. That's when lonely nights in the lab comes in handy.

The night when you left for Prague, it felt entirely the same as the night you left for Sweden. I felt a sudden emptiness, an unfilled void, and I was moody for no apparent reason for the whole night. Tried to sleep early that night, but kept waking up in between and ended up spending most of the time trying to fall back asleep. Got fed up, and decided not to sleep at all the next day.

Things that happens when I do not sleep at all:
- I have breakfast 'cause I'll be hungry staying up all night.
- I managed to finish my Statistical Mechanics 2 Homework 5.
- The red fire extinguisher that's pinned to the wall seems to be following you from behind.
- My slippers are extra slippery when walking down the stairs after rain.
- I realized that I cannot cheat time, the time I borrowed from my sleep, had to be returned in a very painful way. Painful as in, whole day dozing off here and there, could not think/walk straight, bringing down my productivity of the 1st half of the day to practically zero.
- I feel cold most of the time in lab, my throat feels like it's always so dry and my head aches.

And I wrote the most random post ever, with events jumping from here and there everywhere, with no proper connections from one event to another. But ultimately, regardless of how sleep deprived I am, how badly my mid term was, how sad I am, I always know that, I miss you. . .

Got this from a song: "Sadness is beautiful, Loneliness is tragical", so I guess, I'll die a beautiful death? LOL. . .

And no matter how many times the rainy nights put me to sleep, the thoughts of you, and the dreams(good and bad) would wake me up and keep me there. . .I guess, I have more time for my FYP?

(29th Oct 2010, 9.00pm)

Finally solved my overlapping particles problem of my FYP, after staring at it for 1.5 days. Apparently you'll be coming back soon, and I couldn't be more excited. I hope I'll get contacted by you as soon as possible, after so many nights of your absence. . .it's a miracle I'm still surviving at all. I guess the time spent alone in the lab at night helps. . .

Quoted from a friend, "All I need to be happy about life. . . . . is you." Can't wait till you come back. . .

(31st Oct 2010, 5.20am)

I guess, I got the time wrong. I thought you would be back on the 31st, was so excited, that I stayed in lab, tried doing my work, my FYP and my teaching tomorrow. . . and waited for you till now. Knowing myself, I'll probably end up waiting till my class at 8.30am. You lost your sim card, and I couldn't be in touch with you at all for so many days. I'm worried, concerned and missing you like crazy. . . I hope, I'll get a call/text from you the moment you get your new number. . . then again, what are the odds? I miss you. . .

(1st Nov 2010, 5.04am)

In the end, I managed to get one miserable message from you. However, apparently you're not returning today. And with the swollen eyes, my classes are a no to me I guess. . . Sigh.

(1st Nov 2010, 6.45am)

Hmm. . .

2010-10-19T19:48:00.002+08:00

Well I guess first off I'm gonna start off by sending my condolences to Benoit Mandelbrot, though it's a bit too late but I just found out recently. Not that it really matters, since it's not like he knows me or something, but still, Chaos is a field of Physics that I enjoy and like, and Mandelbrot is quite famous in that field for his beautiful fractals.

So anyway, as much as I'm saying that this blog is going down, I'm still self-ranting here trying to get shits off my chest once in a while? I guess that's precisely why it's going down, too many posts talking about how shitty my life is and not many meaningful events happening, well more like, not many events that I'm joining anymore. And I've just picked up the saddest "habit" of all times now. Talking to myself. Yes and no. Yes as in, yea I AM that sad, no, I'm not crazy. To be more precise, I enjoy "blogging through videos" now, for matters that are more private? I guess this is what happens when you don't wanna talk to anyone but you need to let things out? And besides, YOU have been quite busy with your exams these few days, so I guess it's best not to tick you off?

And gosh, halfway through this blog, I ran out of words. There's just so damn many things that I wanna spill out here, but yet I refuse to do so. The only thing I wanna say I guess is, I miss you? And I hope to talk to you soon. With that said, I'm back to Surfaces and Interfaces, or. . . maybe I should self-rant a bit before that.

I will, I won't. . .

2010-10-15T00:40:00.002+08:00

I will stay strong for both of us. . .
I will dedicate my life to make you smile. . .
I will Love you, be there for you and never sway. . .
I will treat you right, make you smile and bring you laughter. . .
I will shoulder your burden for you, take away your sadness, and give you my smile instead. . .
I will fight for you, till my body scorch and burn. . .

I won't ever leave you no matter what. . .
I won't make you even remotely unhappy. . .
I won't ask if you don't want to talk. . .
I won't be separated from you. . .
I won't do you wrong. . .
I won't give up on you regardless. . .

Of thoughts and dreams. . .

2010-10-14T00:58:00.006+08:00

I really am in no shape to keep the blog running much longer. I wonder how long has it been since my last post. Heck, I don't think I should be writing anything else besides my code for my FYP project. I'm quite behind my targeted schedule, and my mind doesn't seem to work as well anymore, I wonder if age is really catching up with me? Okay, I totally did not mean that 'cause everyone else that's older than me will start flaming me when they say that. But really, I'm not in too good of a shape lately, and since You're a bit busy with your exams, I figured I'll try to rant it out here rather than bothering you. But of course, I wish you would listen to me once you're done with your exams?

So, what's up with me lately? Let's see, aside from keeping my promise of working hard for both of us, I have a wee bit of a trouble at my end. Bad dreams. Yes, if you know me at all, you know that I usually have peaceful sleeps and dream-less nights(well, aside from the rainy nights nowadays). These couple of days, rests and sleeps are really getting out of my reach. Well, I AM busy, but not to the extent that I can't sleep at all. I have bad dreams. ALL THE FUCKING TIME. I wouldn't go as far as to call it nightmares, since there weren't anything like a floating sheet with holes on it, except for the time I dreamt about zombies chasing after both of us(I know, right!!?), but then again, even if it's a nightmare, if you're in it, I'm contented enough. Anyway, back to topic: bad dreams. Yes I haven't been sleeping much because I have been waking up to bad dreams. Normally I wouldn't think so much about them, but the thing is, it happens all the freaking time! When I take a nap in the lab or when I sleep in my room, I keep getting my unwanted "wake up calls" from those bad dreams. The most worrying part is, I have been having dreams of myself getting into car accidents all the time. And, I really believes that your dreams at night is controlled by your subconscious, hence whatever your dream is, it reflects whatever that's in your subconscious. For instance, I miss You a lot, and I have been dreaming about you quite a lot. So this time, I'm really curious of what it means. Multiple car accidents? C'mon, I'm not THAT bad of a driver am I? And I'm not going back to Malaysia during recess week, so there won't be any chance for me to drive in the near future.

Asked my bro, Jia Pin about it, and he did something that I totally should've done myself, since I'm in front of the computer most of the time: Google it. Well he did get some results, and he told me about it. To my dismay, I'm ashamed that my subconscious knows me so much better than I know myself, and really, I really can't hide myself from my own subconscious. And unfortunately, knowing the root of problems != knowing the solution to it(yes, you can tell I've been doing a lot of programming lately). At least, not the time being. So I guess, I'll have to bear with the sleepless nights and bad dreams for some time more, hoping that my body will last for a few months of this? And of course, I'm praying hard that it won't continue for the rest of my final year.

So I guess, that's about it? The whole post, dedicated to all the sleepless nights that I've been getting these few days 'cause my subconscious decides that I need a reminder of what I'm feeling. LOL. Well, aside of that, it's also quite sad that my eyesight is getting from bad to worse lately. For some reason, they're a lot weaker now. I can't focus my vision for a HELL LONG TIME when I wake up whenever I nap/sleep. Oh well, again, not much I can do about it. Right now, I'll just have to try my best to take care of myself, and work hard for both of us. The rest, I guess I'll just have to pray for the bad dreams to stop? I really can't take the fatigue much longer and I'm not getting proper sleep since god knows how long.

P/S: The photo kinda reflects something like the table of a sick person? Well, I posted it 'cause I don't want this post to be so dry with just words, and I do have a slight fever, after the sleepless nights n busy days. So, I'm qualified to use such methaphor!

And when no medicine can work, you always do the trick =)

Your voice. . .

2010-09-24T00:27:00.003+08:00

You know, there are times where you're in the middle of the field, and the whole world is cheering for you when you're about to make that shot, but one glance at the audiences, and that one person is not there, all of a sudden all the hurrays and the shouts went silence, and they don't mean a thing at all.

The same happened to me today. Your words today, brought light upon the darkest of pit in my life, created a rainbow that will last forever after a rainy season. That is why, you're the most important part of my life. And you will always be.

Despite knowing that you're not here, despite knowing that you're not in the class I teach, my eyes often wander around the corners of the class, wishing hard that I would see you sitting there, listening to this tutor who brings a lunchbox to his class, teach. Yes, I am like the guy in the middle of the field, yearning for only one person's support, and all others seem so redundant.
Aside from that, I finally had the mood to edit this photo that I took so long ago. I have always wanted to do an HDR of this shot, but I never got into the spirit to do so, because it was as if I couldn't see colours without you. However, today, after a long time, I did an HDR image editing on this. Though the colours and texture came out quite satisfactory, I still think the composition of this photo lack feelings. I am ashamed, after looking through what you have taken.

And it crumbles. . .

2010-09-20T01:05:00.003+08:00

The common question, "What lies at the end of the tunnel?". This is already the fourth week of the semester, how am I performing? Unfortunately, I'm totally not going with the ball called "life" now. I'm still caught in a junction, standing by the door, waiting eagerly for you to come back.

For the first time, it's so empty, and so difficult. For the first time, despite my consistant revision, I'm still behind lectures and homework. For the first time, I'm solving tutorials without knowing how to, I just randomly try out different equations and voila, whichever works. Things that go into my head never stay long enough for me. My mind is filled with the thoughts of you and my heart is filled with the desire for you to return.

My Year 4 Semester 1, at the fourth week, I'm at this current stage, where no matter how much I read and study, the knowledge or understanding doesn't stay long enough in my brains. No matter how much I eat, my weight is dropping. No matter how much I take care of myself, I wake up with a chest ache that I thought I was cured from. And no matter how much I smile, I still end up with tears in my eyes.

8 more painful weeks without you in this semester, plus another week of exams. After all the rains, will I ever get to see my rainbow?

It's crumbling. . .

P/S: Post was written by my iPhone, so is the picture. Unlike me, my iPhone can almost do anything I need it to do.

Life without you. . .

2010-09-16T15:06:00.004+08:00

I'm at the verge of closing my blog now. After 2 months of silence, after 1 month plus after that incident, there's this unfilled void in my life, that can never be replaced. Numerous time I wanted to update something here, but every time I failed miserably because I can't bring myself to talk about something that I don't have, a life.

Days without you are of negligible significance. I can't even bring myself to attend events I'm invited to, let alone talk about events that I've miraculously showed my face in. I just wish, you would come back through that door. . .

I wonder how long more will my mask last, how much more of life that will sip away with your absence, before you come back?

Steamboat Saturday. . .

2010-07-20T01:42:00.005+08:00

Here was,

A little small gathering we had on Saturday!! A steamboat gathering!! Everybody ate to their heart's content, everyone talked and laughed till their throats sore and stomachs ache!! Haha a little bit exaggerated, but the fun part was real! This amazing shot was by Hwee Yun!! A very very nicely composed shot with the emo kid in the middle!
Despite the spicy and sour tom yum soup, sweetness was in the air!! With our Zhen Fei and Qian Xin, not to mention. . .

The "friendly turned scandalous shot"!! Haha, but again, what's so special about taking a photo with a girl eh? Hope you peeps stop the jokes before Hwee Yun gets too awkward with Chong Eu!!
And here we have, Happy Three Friends!! Hope you guys and girls enjoyed it!!
And last but not least, the group shot to complete the night! Less words more photos, that's the way I'll blog these few days, 'cause all the words I have in my mind, gotta go into my PAP939 report!!

San Francisco. . .

2010-07-05T10:51:00.003+08:00

Holy smokes! It really has been quite a while since my last post! And gosh, I have so many long overdue photos, not just from the States. Hope I will have time to process and upload all of them before school starts. Fat chance though. The reasons that have been keeping me away from my blog are:

1. PAP939: Undergraduate Research Experience.
Well, what can I say, with the "great" NTU's Hall Allocation System, papa needs an excuse to stay in the hall during the holidays. Speaking of NTU's HAS, guess what? They raised the cut off point all of a sudden to 17 points this year, and I did not get a hall for next academic year. This is great, just great NTU. While it's supposed to be an institution of education, NTU did not hesitate to compromise their students for some youth athletes that wouldn't even know that NTU existed before this. Speaking of priority. Bullshit NTU, bullshit. And when everytime I express my loathe towards NTU's HAS, I get this a lot from the lesser minds: "Hey, in NUS it's even harder to get hall ok, so its not much better there." Seriously, why are there people who's so shallow minded? Shallow as in, they can only see things on the surface? True enough, NUS has a tough HAS as well, but the thing is, it has been like that all the while! Hence, students have enough time to adjust and cope to that tough BUT not ever changing system. What about NTU? 2 increase of cut off points within 2 years? In addition to that, tonnes of technical glitches even for those who managed to get a place in hall? NTU's such a big joke.

2. PAP319: Physics Lab III
Nope, I'm not taking the course, I'm an incoming Year 4 student now for those of you who hasn't noticed. Instead, I'm a Teaching Assistant there. Gotta earn some pocket money after spending it all in my exchange and travelling.

3.PAP118 & 119: Physics Lab 1
Again, no way I'm taking the course now. I'm in charge of redoing and improvising the lab manual to be less "hand holding" or spoon feeding so to speak.

So yup, with those 3 up there, I can hardly find time to breathe, let alone blog. But anyway, since I managed to squeeze in a not so short post today, here's some photos from San Francisco:

It was the most beautiful city we've ever visited!! Maybe because just so happen when we visited that place, the weather and everything else was perfect, thus making it stand out much more compared to other cities. But really, I did not do anything to the sky in the photos. They're really so so so blue!!
And San Francisco is by the bay, so there are lots of ships and stuffs to see. And oh, who could forget the Golden Gate Bridge? But that photo will have to wait till the next post I guess.
And since this is the most beautiful cities that we've visited, I took a lot of pictures of us! And myself!

Appearance is deceiving. . .

2010-06-27T14:36:00.002+08:00

Yes!! This might not be the best looking porridge ever, but it's definitely one of the best one I've tasted. But well, I'm not a fan of porridge and there's just so many different porridge I've tasted, this is certainly one of the best!! Thanks to The Baby Chef!! But the downside is, she's gonna cook this again ONLY if I fall sick. =.=". Weird logic that girls have. . .

Ipoh mali. . .

2010-06-23T16:18:00.004+08:00

Wow, it's been quite a while since my last post. I guess my blogging frequency drastically decreased ever since I'm back in Singapore. Well, it's Singapore, so I guess its self explanatory. Anyway, since it's been a while since I last talk about myself, I think I'll delay my San Francisco post once again to bring some updates of myself.

The last weekend, I went back to good ol' Ipoh. Nothing beats going home after such a long period being overseas. And to add more joy to my trip home, after so so so so long. . . .
All three of us are back to our hometown for a short reunion!! Not a very long one, but still, chances like this hardly come nowadays, now that we're all separated around the world. I'm in Singapore, Juan Mun's in UK and Jia Pin's in KL. Really glad that JP managed to come back to Ipoh to meet us. One of the highlights of my trip back home.
The second highlight? Family portrait time!! My parents have been struggling to gather all their children back at home at the same time, hence this was a golden opportunity for a full family portrait. This is the complete shot with all 6 of us!! You only counted 5? Count again XD
And of course!! Who would say he/she's been to Ipoh without having a taste of the homecooked food there?! There are some other photos of some awesome food, both by my mum and by restaurants, I guess I'll upload it later after I processed it.

Anyway, I've gotta run. Hope this suffice as a short update of myself. Right now, the Year 3 teaching lab is closing, hence the rush. Till next post!!

The ones that matter there. . .

2010-06-11T16:02:00.003+08:00

Ok, I have to take a detour from my US photos for a while. I just realised that there's an album that I should've posted long long long time ago but it keeps slipping off my mind. Before all of us parted ways, we had a meet up one last time in August8, Hamilton. Hence, I present to you, the people that made my exchange studies in McMaster University awesome.

Thomas, the "kwai lan kia". :P Only when he's drunk though. LOL. It was fun having him around, with a language exchange between me and him. He taught me some foul languages in French, and I gave him some exposure to Hokkien foul languages :P
Celine! The babysitter of Renaud and Thomas! :P But sometimes the babysitter turned out to be the victim to the 2 bullies, haha! But that's what friends are for right? We joke around and rip each other off at times, but most importantly, we all had a great time.
Renaud, never had the chance to properly thank you for the Montreal and Quebec trip. Thanks for spending so much time and effort, planning every single thing out for us, from the car rental, the driving, accommodations and all the way to the activities. And thanks for always looking out for places for me to snap photos while planning for the trip. Thanks to you I managed to get a great album of Montreal and Quebec.
Bromance(s) (quoted from Jo)!! Yoann!! So sorry I couldn't get a portrait shot of you! He was sitting beside me during the dinner, hence my 50mm lens didn't work too well in snapping him who's so close from me. Sorry bout that! If Celine is the "mummy", then Yoann is the "papa". He's also in charge of those 2 mischievous guys when they're drunk! Oh, and thanks for sending me to the bus stop when I was drunk on St. Patrick's Day!
So yup, these are the people who made my exchange experience memorable and meaningful. Miss drinking with you guys; Thomas, Renaud and Yoann. Hope that we'll see each other soon!!
Till next time guys!

Beautiful Boston. . .

2010-06-05T15:07:00.004+08:00

Ugh finally! Uploading photos to blogger has never been such a pain in the ass before! Somehow I think NTU's connection does not get along too well with blogger. It takes forever just to upload ONE photo to blogger! I have been trying to upload the following photos since yesterday, so guys, enjoy them!

Let's start with my favourite shot! I like this the most! And more interestingly, the building's name is something like "Jesus' Scientists' Church" or whatsoever. Kinda weird though, the name I mean, Jesus and Scientists? I didn't know Jesus has scientists.
And of course as expected by everyone, being in Boston, means a trip to Harvard and MIT. Aside from that, after a journey through one of nature's powerful force; the wind, the hair is self explanatory. Anyway, I believe I'm just a secondary subject in that picture.

Furthermore, I learned that there's actually a benefit to using revolving doors compared to the usual swing ones. All this while I thought that revolving doors look cooler, but that's it, until I went MIT.
Another of my favourite picture! This was taken while we were walking across the bridge to MIT. Ironically, the bridge was situated OUTSIDE of MIT, but named "Harvard Bridge".
Speaking of Harvard, NTU's campus is of pea size compared to the two giant campus, especially Harvard. Harvard's practically a freaking town! Of course it has a main campus and gates surrounding it, but the town around it is a university town, which makes it pretty much like its part of Harvard itself.
And during our "search for freedom", we decided to eat a lil' better! Hence the swordfish! Oh this was just Vee's order. Snapped mine and Sampsa's too but due to the "efficient upload", I've decided to post only one of them.

Anyway, after much ordeal, this is what I have to show you guys on Boston. Great place, but not the best yet, the best place I've been to, is up next! More photos in Facebook.

Stir stir fry fry. . .

2010-06-03T10:04:00.006+08:00

After spending about 4 months studying abroad, one culture that really gets to me is. . . . . cooking! I observed that students at the West generally likes to make their own meals quite often, and unlike there, here in NTU, it's always canteen food. Well I guess one reason for this is due to the difference in meal price. A normal meal in Canada, costs about CAN$6 to 7 in campus. Hence, rather than asking "Which Canteen should we go to today?", the question "What should we make for dinner today?" is more likely to arise.

Besides, after being back, cooking together with you brings much more joy and fun compared to cooking alone. And since you're holding the knife, you get to be the head chef. Just watch where you're swinging that thing XD
But really, food made by my own hands always taste nicer! Somehow. I guess your own sweat that flows onto the food tastes better than other people's sweat?
Not a very got complement to sushi, but still, the icewine I bought from Toronto is freaking awesome. And most importantly, its perfect for you who doesn't enjoy the "bitter" taste of red wine.
And here is the best pasta ever! I shit you not! I really love this pasta we made compared to a lot of other pastas we tried before!
And this picture is taken by a new photographer of my blog!! Since she's been using my camera to take photos so much, and the photos are so nice, I've decided to make her a stamp of her own too! Just that it'll be contributing to my blog XD
The awesome sushi's!! Really enjoyed making them with you~
And of course, the surprise desert! Who would forget that? Thank you darling!

More on New York. . .

2010-05-27T11:13:00.007+08:00

Thousands and thousands of photos to be processed, finally I'm quite done with New York City! Well of course I did not process every single one of them, I selected those that I really like to be uploaded. I guess this is like the "first round" of filtering, where I select the relatively best ones to be uploaded.

The day view from The Rockafeller Building. The weather was not really ideal for photography though. A bit too bright. However, I've stayed there until night fall and took a few night shots of the view.
Times Square at daytime! All the huge, colourful and attractive billboards make Times Square very interesting place for photography. However when we were there in New York, the weather was scorching hot, and wandering around the streets are not the best thing to do.
More awesome billboards. Speaking of Phantom of the Opera, it's quite sad that we did not watch it. We chose Mama Mia for our first Broadway experience instead. However, it was still a total worth of our money! I would even go as far as to say that Broadway was the highlight of our New York trip!
Times Square at night! Originally I thought I wouldn't be able to get anything good without my tripod. I guess I was wrong, night time in Times Square NY is as bright as day, with all the bright and colourful billboards and neon lights.
And on the next day, we went on a cruise around the shore, and took some photos along the way.

There are more photos uploaded in Facebook, it's not quite practical to upload everything in the blog, I'll have no space for words then. Well, not like I wrote anything meaningful now, but still, you get what I mean.

Here I am again. . .

2010-05-26T08:48:00.007+08:00

So yupz, I'm back in the land of stress and pressure; Singapore. The first thing I felt, when I landed, was the weather! Coping with the weather difference is more difficult than I thought! Whenever I'm NOT in an air conditioned room, I sweat, every second of it!! Gosh I'm really starting to get worried about my overflowing sweat glands.

Well aside from that, when I first arrived, everyone else looked so tired to me, I really wondered why. Nonetheless, after a few days here, I realised, it's Singapore's fault! The environment is just so stressful and filled with pressure, it drained me of my energy within a few days after a long long vacation. And now, we're back to the lab life.

However, I came back in time for a very special event of a special person. Happy 22nd Birthday!! And I wrote my birthday message to you on my shirt XD !!
I have always prefer celebrations in small group. Much more meaningful.
That night's plan would not have been smooth without my pal here! Thanks man, you really really really really helped me a lot!! I owe you a big one! See you in the lab!

And of course!! The very very important element in the birthday celebration is this! The compilation of the video snippets from many of her close friends! Thank you all for helping me with this video!

The last 2 stops in US, can't wait. . .

2010-05-17T07:11:00.005+08:00

The last 2 stop of US!!! And a short post just to update whoever's reading this. Nothing detailed though. Just my personal thoughts and feelings while I was there.

Managed to catch the sunset at Grand Canyon, but we couldn't find the best spot to view, I guess that's the best I could get. Standing few thousands km's above the ground, the thought of you still came to me. No matter how far I go, horizontally or vertically, I think of you. . .
I really do. . . The next morning, when we went for the sunrise at Grand Canyon, I carved our names on one of the trees there. I guess this is the closest I can get you to be by my side. . .
The much anticipated Las Vegas, turns out to be quite a disappointment. . . Everything is money. Even internet!! It was utmost tormenting surviving without internet for the past 3 days. . .until today, we finally paid for one LAN connection in the Bellagio, and we created ad hoc connection from the LAN connection we get. However, in a way, I'm still glad it was time for Vegas, 'cause it's my last stop in US, and in a week, I'll be back to see you! Totally excited and can't wait for it. .

Beautiful, but empty. . .

2010-05-12T12:40:00.005+08:00

A short update before I hit Vegas.

San Francisco, City by the Bay, is indeed by far the most beautiful city we've visited. The weather is cool and nice, the sky is always blue(perfect for pictures) and the sceneries are just astounding. It's simply just gorgeous. I can't find any words that can describe the beauty that I experienced here in this city. Just, be patient and when the full album comes, you'll definitely see what I mean. . .
Nonetheless, despite being by the bay, you were never off the shore of my thought, not even a single second. I miss you, your absence gives the beauty of the city, a certain emptiness that can't be filled. I wish you are here. I really do.
Without you, the alluring city lacks the colours of grace, rendering it incomplete. And me, I just wish for your presence, the paintbrush that colours my life. . .

Your Liberation . . .

2010-05-05T03:07:00.004+08:00

You give me a reason to blog everyday. . . your beautiful smile. I'm so happy to hear that you like what I sent you. Just like the flowers, I'll make you happy until I die. Though it may be a bit too early, I'm here to wish you Happy Holidays and. . .

enjoy your liberation!! But of course, don't enjoy too much without me :P I'll be home soon for you. Then, my real liberation begins. . .in your arms. I miss you. Enjoy your holidays. After a whole semester of hard work, you earned your rest honey.

Just can't seem to understand. . .

2010-05-04T11:13:00.004+08:00

A short and brief one here. Today, 3 of us, Vee-Liem, Sampsa and me went into the Museum of Modern Art(MOMA) in New York. I'm not sure if it's because we're physics student or it's really just us. We lost interest in that museum after 5 minutes entering it, and after sitting down on the sofa to rest for 10 minutes, we came out of it and dropped the idea of going to the 2nd art museum we planned to go to.

Really, I just can't get art. It's totally not in my blood at all. Plus, with my heart missing you so much, when I see this, all I really saw was. . .
. . .this. Now, this, this I'm head over heels in love with. Not that whatever you call art! I just can't understand!

Sigh, in the end, I just went a roundabout way to say I miss you. . .

Small bit of New York

2010-05-03T12:00:00.005+08:00

New York City is. . .

Beautiful, all the buildings and attractions, are awesome.

Interesting, 2 suspected bomb incident within few hours? What would you call that? And it happened when WE arrived here, as if telling us, [N]ew [Y]ork [C]ity is [N]ot [Y]our [C]ity!!(Garen's idea)

Pain in the NECK, sightseeing in New York gives a neckache, tested and proven. 'Cause the buildings are so tall and "limitless", its so straining to the neck!!

However, no matter how great the company or city is, I keep missing you. No matter how far I am, horizontally or like in this picture, vertically 86 floors above the ground, I think of you. Everywhere I go I see you. I'll be home soon. Have another photo of myself at the top of The Empire State Building, but gonna keep that "secret" for now.
New York City from the top of The Rock. 70th floor above the ground. I have to say, the observatory is constructed in a way that obstructs a lot of my frames. So, after adjusting here and there, this is one of the best I can get. I did not bring my tripod, so it's a bit noisy. Besides, this wasn't taken at night, it was like late evening, 8 plus pm. Yes, it's late evening here. And MC, this shot is to show you that you did not affect my traveling!! I'm more than happy to give you a ring when you need it, so don't take away that from me!!

Of course, this is not the full post of New York City. It's just a rough post since I really don't wanna leave my blog untouched so long, and I don't have time to write long post or process so many photos. I only choose those "most hopeful" ones to process and post. Will talk about each city in greater details when I'm back in Singapore. And I really wanna be back soon!

On the move. . .

2010-05-01T12:44:00.003+08:00

I'm writing this on the bus to New York! Yes, the bus has wireless connection and power plug! How awesome is that! Though I'll be heading to one of the greatest cities in the world, the real place I really wanna be is in your heart.

Traveling around without you is like the skeleton that lacks the flesh. Never a second went pass without me wishing you were here with me.
This was my favourite shot today. Again, the scenery is so empty without your presence. Sigh. The Einstein's mass-energy equation is really an important part of my life.

After some random sentimental rambling, I am getting a headache from reading on a moving vehicle. Till my next post!! Hopefully I won't disappoint myself with the long exposure shot of Time Square that I've been wanting to do so long.

One chapter ends, another begins. . .

2010-04-27T10:55:00.004+08:00

This is the last night of my stay in McMaster University. After tonight, I'll meet up with Vee-Liem and the next month will be full of traveling. Sigh. I'm sure whoever's reading this will be shocked by the "Sigh". We'll get to that later. One at a time people.

With today being the last day of me in Hamilton, I took a stroll around the campus, snapping the greener side of the campus. That's right. If you recall most of the photos I've posted on McMaster are of the winter season. Well, here's the spring version I guess.
Spring's good! In a way, spring represents hope, a new beginning. Because after many months of being covered in snow and unable to blossom, spring is the time where flowers come to bloom once again. And of course, I wish my spring will go on forever, and never go through winter anymore, that's what I'll definitely make happen!
Despite the great experiences I've gained here, there's someone I particularly miss, and that's why, sometimes I sigh even though there's a great adventure waiting for me. What's adventure without you?

And hence, the sun sets, marking the end of the chapter of my life in McMaster University. The next chapter, would be on the journey we're about to embark but frankly, the one chapter that I've been waiting for, is the one after that.
There are so many things I wanted to write about, but I am just not in the mood recently. So many pictures, yet so little words. Heck I don't even know what I have been writing for this post. However, the next post will be related to this picture! My roommates! Awesome people. Will definitely update on that when I feel better.
Last but not least, I wish you all the best in your upcoming exams. May the "meh meh" always gives you strength. I may be traveling to the greatest cities in the world, but truly, the one place I want to be, by your side. Take care.

Thousands of miles away. . .

2010-04-20T23:11:00.006+08:00

Ever remembered me saying that every boring day, when spent with great companies, is just as great, if not greater than any other day?

Despite the thousands of miles between us,

You make my day every time I see your smile so rapturous,
Even though the rest of them will wither,
There will always be one in my hand for you that will never disappear.
This dude is another one, that disappeared to UK for this Masters study. And what do we get from him? Toys with BIG WOODS!! LOL! But the best part is, I'm meeting him in UK during my transit there for 3 days! In spite of his exams, he still wanna come down to London to visit me! An awesome bro indeed!

Mcnarok. . .

2010-04-14T07:59:00.007+08:00

Well for those who knows me for quite a while already, the fact that I'm a Norse and Greek Mythology fan should be no mystery. Ragnarok means "The Twilight of Gods" or a more long winded way, "the beginning of the end of the Gods". Hence I tried to be a bit creative and came up with: Mcnarok! It marks the beginning of the end of our semester here in McMaster. And so, with that today all of us exchange students gathered together for one last group photo with as many of us as we can get. Though shooting people and especially GROUPS of people are never my relatively stronger area of photography, I enjoyed it a lot. In fact, with everything that has been going on lately, I would go as far as to say, I NEEDED it. Even though it was the short 45 minutes of shooting, at least for 45 minutes, my mind was occupied.

I'm not sure if its a good shot or a bad shot. How do you define a good group shot? Anyone to enlighten me? Does a good group shot means you can fit everyone in clear and sharp, or does it mean you take a good photo of the group with the nice scenery? I tried to fit in as much of the beautiful scenery here(the weather today was GREAT), but if I do that too much, The group of people will tend to be too small, and noone will be clearly visible in the photo. Hence, after compromising here and there, I figured I'd go with this. I don't really know if I'm satisfied with this photo.

Another adjustment. This time I leave out a bit more scenery and try to zoom in a bit more to the people. Of course, the recycle bins were unintentional. My bad.

I'm just better at taking portrait, or smaller group shots, like this one, with only 2 people.

Even 3 people is sometimes too difficult for me. I mean, what do you seek in group shots? I have no idea!! Do you go for the faces, or the scenes?!?! Intuitively, the logical answer would be: A balance of both! Needless to say, I suck at balancing things. Just like how much of a troubled state I am in, trying to balance 2 particular items in my life, both of great importance. The worst part is, I've been causing some trouble to someone important. Sigh.

As a photographer, this is one of the very few photos that I have of myself! Photo courtesy of Arnaud. This is Pierre, my French coursemate in Physics. He's an exchange student as well! Though we take Nuclear Physics and Planetary Astronomy together, he only sees me in Nuclear Physics, or when I need him to hand in my assignments for Planetary Astronomy for me XD

This semester in McMaster was really great, at least at the start it was. But now, I really just wanna go home. I'm not even sure if I'll enjoy travelling US after the exams anymore. Don't get me wrong, its not Vee or Garen's fault, it's my own. I really just wanna be back in Singapore. Ilaku. . .

The humdrum yet appeasing routine. . .

2010-04-07T13:36:00.004+08:00

My apologies for the lack of updates. A few of my friends were telling me that they have "finished" reading my blog recently, I guess that means I haven't been updating? What's more, someone "special" told me to "update my blog lar". So I guess, here's a short update on my life.

Basically, life has been. . .

Plain. The End. KThxBye! Haha, kidding! But the plain part is true. Nothing much has been going on lately, haven't been travelling, partying or whatsoever. Partly is because I'm saving some cash for my one month holiday after my exams. And speaking of exams, yup, that's another reason. However, despite the seemingly dull and dead as grave life I'm having. . .
I am actually feeling quite on cloud 9. Haha. Every boring day spent, is with a great company, and that, is more than enough reason to bring me joy.
Or. . . . maybe it's because I have too much money on my meal plan and I'm spending them on happy but unhealthy foods? Haha!

Either way, I'm grateful the way things are. Will be more grateful if I manage to struggle through my Solid States Physics, Nuclear Physics and Astronomy exams that's around the corner.

Somebody dropped something good into my mail. . .

2010-03-29T11:50:00.005+08:00

Well wad'ya know! I was writing and deleting writing and deleting a few posts just a few hours back, cause I don't know how to put things I wanna say in proper words, and now I have a totally completely different short post!Someone sent me this simple poster that she made! Haha, I'm so happy 'cause she shared her designs with me! I really think its simple and direct. Would have preferred the test tubes to be shown at a slightly tilted angle, 'cause I'm not a big fan of symmetries haha! Indeed this is the poster that made my day! Believe it or not.

23-23-23. . .

2010-03-26T08:06:00.002+08:00

Diana's birthday this year fell on a special date, celebrated at a special place! It was her 23rd birthday, on the 23rd March and the two and three do not just stop there!! We went out for a small celebration, at a restaurant called The Ship, and it's located at 23rd Augusta Street, Hamilton!! What are the chances! So yup, 23 was definitely the number!

So yup, it was another night out with the gang again. With beers and food and presents from Jo and Chi Hua for Diana. My DEEEEEEEEEEEEPEST apology to Diana! 'Cause I arrived LATER THAN THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!! I know, I sinned! I'm sorry!
It was supposed to be a surprise for her, where all of us would gather a bit earlier before she arrives with Chi Hua. Unfortunately for me, my NSD strikes at the WORST timing EVER!! I arrived at the bus stop nearest to the restaurant 15 minutes before time and I spent 30 minutes searching for a place that's 5 minutes walk away! w00t!! NSD FTL!! Sorry again Diana :(
Other than that, the rest of the night was awesome! Food was nice, most of them had the free flow fish 'n chips, but nobody got past 2! Me on the other hand, only have this something something Taco, 'cause I had a very late lunch and knew that I wasn't up for the all-you-can-eat fish 'n chips.
Towards the end, what's birthday without a cake! Chi Hua bought a cheesecake for Diana.
Happy birthday again Diana! This photo tells me that I need more practice on shooting in low lights T.t

The St. Patrick's experience. . .

2010-03-25T13:43:00.005+08:00

Gosh, I wanted to post this for so long, but I hadn't had the chance! Finally!! Nonetheless, it'll be just a quick post before I turn in!! A quick post partly because I'm lazy, but actually it's because I can't remember much of what happened that day. Don't understand me? A picture speaks a thousand words. Pictures were taken by Jo with her camera, hence there will be no stamps on them this time round.

Before we went to the pub that night, a lot of things have been going through my head for the last couple of days. Hence, I guess, this year's St. Patrick's Day came a bit too convenient as an excuse for me to drink.

It all started quite well. I was just casually drinking and talking to friends, but thoughts keep coming to haunt me, and I really hate it. Even Renaud was telling me, "Guy, start drinking and stop thinking before I slap you!". It was really rude of me to be carried away by my thoughts when I was out with friends. Thus, I started to cloud my mind with alcohol instead.
Jo told me the next day, that we(me, Thomas and Renaud), were drinking as if the beers were free. The last thing I know, I was trying to get shits outta my head.
And I guess, things got a WEE bit out of hand? Notice my eyes, they're getting smaller and smaller as the photos go by.
This was one of my LEAST bad photo that night. Being drunk, means a lot of your unglam photos taken and posted on Facebook, hence I'm not gonna further tarnish my own reputation by posting those photos in my blog. These are already filtered, considering the amount of shots they took of me and considering the things I did that night.
No, this is mild. Yes, there's a UBER worse photo than this, that I chose not to post here. But hey, at least I'm sharing THIS much!
And by the end of the day, you can count on your friends to "take care" of you when you're drunk, after they're done taking photos with you that is.

I wish my night ended with only bad photos. It didn't. In fact it came with a soon-to-be-received HUGE and LONG telephone bill. Yes, I made calls with my Singapore number on roaming to my Singapore friends. I called Yok Yin, and wasted 15 minutes of her lunch break, asking her where is my hostel. As if she'd know! After that, when I was back in my room, you'd think that I fell straight for the bed and sleep and get a freaking hangover the next day. Unfortunately, my life was never that simple. I made another phone call to Hwee Yun, and this was a long one. It lasted for ONE WHOLE HOUR goodness! What'd we talk about? I'm gonna keep that secret for now, time will come when I spill it out, trust me.

And hence, this will end my post for the day. Recently things have taken a good turn for me, and I feel really blissful now. Will definitely work my ass off to keep it that way. Before I end, I would like to say, I LOVE:

*winks*

Next update will probably be tomorrow, if not the next day, on Diana's 23rd birthday on 23rd March at 23rd Augusta Street.

Not my day. . .

2010-03-17T12:11:00.003+08:00

Obviously my day sucked, so I'm not gonna talk about it at all. Hence, we're gonna talk about somebody else's day; St. Patrick's Day! My roomates, being hardcore St. Patrick's Day "celebrators", originally wanted to order a whole big keg of beer for the day. However, they couldn't find enough people to share, partly because the fourth roomie, me, did not take part? Sorry guys, I can barely do a pitcher, sharing a keg will just kill me. So, instead. . .

They got a few boxes of beers, BIG boxes. Oh by the way, this is just one fridge *grin*. Plans for tomorrow! Theirs, not mine. Wake up in the morning, walk to the fridge, and before anything else, chug the whole bottle of beer! With that to kickstart the day, I believe you have no questions about the plans for the rest of the day?
And guess who ran into the perfect St. Patrick's Day gift today? A beer pong table. What a find! Apparently, Kevin picked it up somewhere in school today. Ping pong anyone? No, not the spin and slice one, it's the dip and drink one. I guess tomorrow night, things are gonna go "pong-kers"

As for me, how would I celebrate St. Patrick's Day? The most I can get is a couple of drinks in Pheonix and a few back at the house maybe? Who knows. Not a hardcore fan, but, given my mood these days, I could use some drinks.

Lifehouse. . .

2010-03-17T01:23:00.002+08:00

Someone told me I haven't been updating. And I haven been talking about myself a lot. It's always about the events and parties that I attended. The thing is, it pains for me to write about my life, 'cause nothing good has been happening recently. I have to apologise, but this would be my most unoriginal post ever, 'cause its just gonna be this:

A strangled smile fell from your face
It kills me that I hurt you this way
The worst part is that I didn't even know
Now there's a million reasons for you to go
But if you can find a reason to stay

I'll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what's at stake
I know that I've let you down
And if you give me a chance
Believe that I can change
I'll keep us together
Whatever it takes

She said if we're gonna make this work
You gotta let me inside even though it hurts
Don't hide the broken parts that I need to see
She said like it or not it's the way it's gotta be
You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me

I'll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what's at stake
I know that I've let you down
And if you give me a chance
And give me a break
I'll keep us together

I know you deserve much better
Remember the time I told you the way that I felt
And that I'd be lost without you and never find myself
Let's hold onto each other above everything else
Start over, start over

I'll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what's at stake
I know that I've let you down
And if you give me a chance
Believe that I can change
I'll keep us together
Whatever it takes

Lifehouse - Whatever it takes

This is what is in my mind now. Sorry.

Just because my passport is red. . .

2010-03-08T01:36:00.006+08:00

After spending the whole night working on my Nuclear Physics assignment(and I actually finished it) before my trip to Niagara Falls and Letchworth Natural Park(supposedly) in the States, it didn't really pay off. The main reason was because of the major hold up at the border of the States. Well, obviously I did nothing wrong, I was just an innocent young guy trying to travel over to the States for some good pictures. Thats all. However, holding a Malaysian passport, was all the reason they need to detain me, and interrogate me for approximately 2 hours before I'm finally allowed in the States. Speaking of racism, this is just plain ridiculous. Whether or not the United States are overly paranoid/racist about Asians or Malaysia apparently has a bad name with US, it's still stupid.

Things started off pretty well originally, the weather was awesome, my hopes for some nice shots at the Falls are high. However, when we reach there, the sun was at the worst position possible, and being a noob photographer, I did not get a shot that I want to post here. Partly it's because non of the shots can be compared to my best Niagara Falls shot during my 2nd visit there. However, that time was the perfect timing for photography, so I guess, better luck LAST time?
After the 2 hour plus hold up at the border, we have decided to cancel our Letchworth Park visit, cause we don't have much time left since we have a keg party at night(the only nice thing that happened yesterday). Hence, it was just, us and the dead town of Buffalo. The streets were really as quiet as the graveyard.
Other than a few interesting buildings, I have no other photos to share. Sigh.
Night time, on the other hand, was great! With the KEG-ass party organised by birthday girl Fabi! Putting all the drinkings aside, we had lotsa fun meeting new people, talking and dancing our night away. However, the photos did not turn out as great as the party. I guess I really need much much much more exposure and practice with indoor shots with uneven lightings.
This was one of my best shot for the night. I wouldn't say its great, but it's decent at least. Looking at the album again and again, I am really disappointed with myself.
This photo was originally shot with flash and custom WB setting. Boy did that screw the colours of the photo badly. The whole photo turned out blue and I tried my best to do colour corrections on it, because I really don't wanna let this shot go to waste. I mean, it's a photo with all pretty girls inside man!! So yup, this is the best I could do. Learned my lesson: Flash and custom WB do not go together!
The kitchen on the other hand, was a better photography spot! The lightings are SLIGHTLY better, as in, the lights are white at least. Oh speaking of which, it was Yoann's birthday too that night(after 12am).
At least, I wanna take a picture with the birthday girl. Photo by JF. Thanks man.
And since I've finished my work for the weekend, I have my Sunday free, just chilling and resting after the party. Matus gave me something with 60% alcohol last night, and I can barely walk straight after that. Hence, I just spent my Sunday watching a movie and doing the photos. Watched An Eduction. I don't know about you, but this movie is just like a 1 hour and 30 minute long of Kisah Benar from Malaysia. Typical, boring and predictable story. But well, at least it's educational to some extent.

And that, ends my post. Till next time.

Wandering wonders. . .

2010-03-06T13:26:00.003+08:00

"A", being the first letter in the series of alphabet, is also the first letter in the name of the first movie I watch in 2010. I guess you pretty much got it already, but yes, I just watched Alice in Wonderland with some friends here. Well, I'm in no position to do a "full movie review" or anything of that sort, I believe each movie will receive different opinions from various people. So instead, I'm just gonna share my day(or that few hours of it to be more precise).

Saw the sunset when I went to get dinner in Mary Keyes, so I left my room a little bit earlier in hope to get a snap of it. There was a similar shot that I snapped last time, 'cause I don't really know where else can I get a decent frame of this. Nonetheless, I think it turned out not bad. Since I was shooting alone, I have the luxury of playing with full manual settings, snapping and checking until I'm finally satisfied. I took quite a few shots with difference setting, and surprisingly, each of them gives me different colour. I mean, I thought I was shooting the same sky! However, I picked the one that I like most. Post processing was only for my name, and some sharpening.
We reached Jackson Square a little bit too early, so we spent some time in the bar until it was time. Oh, and did I tell you that the cinema here has free seating? So you get your ticket, but the seating arrangement is on a first come first served basis. I wonder what will happen if they implement this in ~~Kiasu-land~~ Singapore?
Anyway, on to the movie. It was good. But I was expecting something more from it. I mean, everybody knows Alice in Wonderland from the fairy tale, so I was hoping that the movie would have something special that does not deviates from the main story too much but appears as a surprise for those who knows Alice in Wonderland. However, the movie was really good, it's just that, I've known Alice in Wonderland from the fairy tale hence the story looks a little bit too plain/ordinary to me. Other than that, I still like it I guess, especially the futter-wacking!! Well there WAS one part that I was surprised about, which was Anne Hathaway!! Haha! I did not know she's in the movie! I only expected to see Johny Depp(I still like him in Pirates of the Carribean more). So there you have it, my personal take on the movie. Like I said, I'm not gonna rate this movie, so I'm not gonna go around giving it points, stars or whatsoever.

With that said, I've gotta go do my Nuclear Physics assignment, hoping to finish it before I leave for Niagara Falls tomorrow. Till next time.

Food for thought. . .

2010-03-05T11:35:00.008+08:00

It's already March! Indicating that I have less than 2 months left in McMaster. While its kinda melancholic to know that my exchange programme is going to end, deep down inside there's a part of me that yearns to be home once again. There are just so many people that I want to meet or being more sentimental, miss.

Miss the times when we actually stayed up the whole night(til morning) to study/revise/finish our homework(try to)/play games(most likely). This photo was taken quite a while back, back when I was still struggling with my camera and everything. I'm not trying to brag, but I'm confident that given the same situation, I could take a better shot now. But yea that's not the point here.
Daniel commented on my photo album in Facebook, saying "very nice pics - i never had the chance to go for a ride with huskies...hope you enjoy your time there ... not long and you will be back in the ..... LAB"
There was a part of me which actually don't mind being back in the lab at all. I know, I've heard this from a lot of people, about me being a lab rat. Then again, the times when are randomly chatting just about anything in the lab, when our supervisor would just come in an ask everybody to go for lunch(whoever who hasn't eaten), when we all stood in front of one particular computer watching a video and laughin hard about it, are priceless. You're damn sure I miss those.
And who could forget our ever humorous and "convincing" professor, Prof Koh, who would willingly fetch all of us out for supper in the middle of the night. Talking to Prof Koh, was never a dull moment, however we have to be careful to, 'cause he literally can convince you that the money inside your wallet is actually his. Yes, "convincing" indeed. Photo by Nokia 5800 under a bad condition. Forgive me.

However, despite all the enjoyable times back home, and how much I long to be home once again, I'm often reminded, by my dad or my friends to actuallly use this overseas opportunity wisely. Wisely as in, don't come back so early! After putting some thought in it, I really should stop having such short term thought. Ok so what if I finally get to finish my semester here and go back to meet everyone at home? A month later I'll probably regret coming back so early. Hence, finally, I've decided that I would spend approximately a month travelling around Canada, US and if luck permits, UK too(on the way back).

Putting the emotional issues aside, the last couple of weeks were quite boring for me. No trips, no outing, no photoshooting, just mid terms and assignments. I guess I can't complain, I'm not here on a FULL vacation after all. However, I really don't wanna leave my blog un-updated, hence the random thoughts. Well aside from that, I am thinking of sharing some photography here. This time, though not landscape, they're still photos of inanimate objects.

Food! Yes, who could survive without them! While checking back the photos, I realised I've shot all of them in portrait style, so I figured I'd combine them into one single photo. These dishes, were our dinner during our first night in Montreal. Food was good, portion was HUGE.
Lunch in Montreal the following day. Food was so-so, portion, again, was HUGE. They serve fries like they're free! Gosh! Had such hard time finishing the fries of my fish 'n chips.
Lunch in an Italian restaurant in Quebec. Food was AWESOME, portion, a little bit too small. The leftmost photo was what I ordered, the seafood fettuccine. Also, the rightmost photo was my dessert, forgot what it was called, but it was superb. Le manifique!

And speaking of food, I have been living off my life here with a cup of this everyday:

Tim Horton's coffee. I think I'm officially a coffee addict this semester.

And I guess, that's the end for this time round.

Snow gets in your eyes. . .

2010-02-27T09:39:00.008+08:00

Finally!! Weekend!! What's more delighting is. . . A mid term down! However, more to come next week. Nuclear Physics Mid Term Test and Solid States Physics assignment due next week. And Nuclear Physics is just so overloaded! However, I guess I could take this night off, or at the very least, update my blog?

Let's start with something more "current", before we move on to Nights spent in Montreal & Quebec(Yes, gonna share my amatuer night shots here). The weather in Hamilton recently, is bizarre!!

It's snowing HARD. REAL HARD(Photo by Nokia 5800). I got this much snow on my body just after walking a distance of, say, Hall 2 to Hall 5 in NTU. Then again, it wasn't too cold, so I guess its not that bad. Another thing that's even more not bad, is. . .
The new species of trees we have due to the snow!! Haha. Just kidding. But it does seem like the trees are having white leaves, and it's gorgeous! Took this pic after I came back from getting some alcohol with my roomates for the party they're organising in our house tonight(yea told you I'm taking tonight off :P).

So yea, that's about it for the "weather report". There wasn't much interesting happening recently, unless you call all the rushings of assignments and mid terms interesting, which I highly doubt. On to the next issue I wanted to share! Yes, I'm not done with my trip! So I figured I'd talk about my night shots there. Frankly speaking, I regretted that I did not do all my night shots in RAW format, 'cause during post processing, I realised the RAW images give much better outcome. Sigh. Lost a very good opportunity for great night shots, but nonetheless, lesson learned. However, its not like I don't want to take everything in RAW, my memory card doesn't have enough space to last me from morning till night if I take everything in RAW. So yea, definately gonna get a new memory card. Anyway, let's cut to the chase.

I'm not trying to be naggy, but I'll feel guilty if this photo is not posted in this post. This is like my favourite night shots throughout the whole trip. So yea, it's a must have here!
This is generated from RAW. It gives so much room for colour correction compared to the photos I took in JPGs. Stupid Whei Yeap. Sigh.
Well, enough regretting, let's start to appreciate the photos instead. Generally the streets are really really nice at night. First thing is of course the buildings are very beautiful, and adding on to it are gorgeous lightings, which in turn, gives beautiful shots.
Bright bright buildings.
This is an awesome castle we saw in Quebec. I forgot what castle was it but it's so grand! I actually took 2 different shots with bracketing of this castle, one with RAW and the other JPG. And obviously this is the RAW one. The JPG one turned out to be very red no matter how I tried to correct the colour balance, I'm not too sure why, but I'm guessing I lost too much information for colour correction.
This is an example of a JPG shot that I took. Generally the main difference is, the red sky. I guess it's called the Red Shift effect? Haha.

Oh and before I forgot, here's something I did today for my friends:

Ta-da! Postcards! Special postcards! If you saw my photos or read my blog, you'll realised from the rightmost postcard that these are the photos I've taken. Indeed they are! They're all handpicked and selected from all the photos I took here in Canada!

So yup! Gonna pen off to write my postcards! Adios~

Journey through the woods. . .

2010-02-24T10:31:00.006+08:00

Finally, I found time to squeeze in a post in my blog! Well, not gonna be a long post, since I have a mid term this Friday, and its Solid States Physics, which I just can't seem to get it right. I'm not sure why but Solid States Physics just seemed so difficult to me. But anyway, I'm not here to talk about my hardship, rather I'm here to share one of the days in my trip(yes, not all, I don't have time to write such a long post). However, instead of doing things chronologically, I'm gonna take things differently. Just because I feel like talking about my favourite day more! And it's none other than the day we. . .

. . . went for dog sledding! Wohoo! Uber fun! It was my first experience riding on a sled pulled by the huskies. Apparently when I told JP about it, he said he doesn't like it 'cause its like torturing the dog. I have no idea when it started, but he's a dog lover now. Anyways, I enjoyed this day of the trip the most, 'cause it's something new and awesome!
And here's a shot on the wolf-like men's best friend! I was lucky to catch him standing beside his little kennel AND staring at the camera!
Photo courtesy of our kind guide. He was nice enough to stop and take pictures of everyone with their team of huskies. Oh there were 6 pulling a sled, but we were too small in the photo with all the huskies, since they're lined up pair by pair.

Me and our companion in our journey through the woods in the heavy snow! The one on the left(the one lying down) is really a funny one! He's always grabbing some snow from the side of the track while he's running. Kinda behave like Thomas since he also like to grab some snow whenever he can reach for some when we're walking. The only difference is, Thomas throws it at people, but not this guy here :P And to make our day more interesting, these little guys are REALLY strong! We can hardly get them to stop even when we're putting all our weight on the brake. As a consequence, we got thrown off the sled 2 times =.=" Then again, it's cool(since my "wife" was undamaged), we still love our strong buddies.
Speaking of love, someone totally fell in love with one of them! His name's Mozart by the way. Jo just couldn't let go of him haha.

Well of course dog sledding did not take up the whole day, the huskies need a rest! After dog sledding we went to the Montmorency Falls for some sight seeing and photo taking.

Though it wasn't as great as the Niagara Falls, one of the reason being, the weather/time was not as magnificent as when I went to the Niagara Falls, it was still great. However, I had to admit, I got quite frustrated with the seemingly "only-black-and-white" view, and the sky was overcast most of the time. Lucky for me, I managed to catch a glimpse of blue sky above the falls.
And check this photo out. No, I did not do anything with Photoshop. Those rays of blues and purples are the effect of the circular polariser. While it seems a little bit off, I'd still like it more than just white. Haha. Oh and recently, I read from some photography forums, that a lot of times we need a graduated filter for landscape photography, in order the reduce the contrast between the sky and the scene. I've seen some pictures taken with graduating filters, and they really look promising. Let's hope I'll get my hands on one soon and try it out myself :P
We drove up to the top of the falls, walked around more, and took more pictures. And I have to say, the sky up here, was way better.
See?

And that was generally what we did for the last day of our trip. The rest of the day was spent back in the city, walking around and trying to get some souvenirs for some friends. So I guess, that's more or less it for my dog sledding day! Will talk about my other days soon! On to Solid States!

When reality strikes hard. . .

2010-02-21T22:35:00.004+08:00

Reading week was AWESOME!!! Until when I was smacked hard by reality, and reminded of the assignments and upcoming mid terms which I'm totally not prepared for. What's more, with all the photos that I've taken from the trip, I'm so totally distracted. Aside from that, I'm really frustrated now, 'cause I'm so stuck in my Nuclear Physics assignment which I have been trying since last night! Hence, I'm gonna take a few minutes off the big rock behind my back to blog a little bit here. Obviously, this is not the end of my post on our trip, I'll definately find time after my mid terms finish next week to blog about the trip more detailedly. As for today, I'll just share some of my favourite shots throughout the trip!

First off, as usual, the photography branch that I'm most interested in: Landscape photography, I have for you:

Montreal! Snapped from the top of Mount Royal. This was totally worth all the climbings, slipping offs once in a while(not the serious slip and roll down the mountain of course) and the fatigue!! Nonetheless, wait till you see what I have next. The same view, though not the same frame, but still the view overlooking Montreal from the same place, AT NIGHT!
AWESOMENESS!!! When we went back to Mount Royal at night to check out the night view, I took like half and hour to snap tonnes and tonnes of photos of this view, up till my friends were a bit bored and started playing games while I snapped my way through the night. However, again, its worth your wait guys!! XD

Also, remember how I've been going on and on about how beautiful the churches here are? Here's something to further stress on my point. We went into a cathedral during our visit to Montreal, and I was really just trying my luck, I never thought I was ready for indoor photography(indoor as in, taking photos of buildings from the INSIDE), and I guess it wasn't bad at all!
Ta-da! No spotlights, no redundant stages or fancy neon lights! It's all wooden benches and stained glasses! And I personally love this shot that I took so much, but of course, constructive feedbacks are always welcomed, I know it's not a perfect shot.
But of course, it's not all about buildings and photography! It's a trip with my friends so of course I snap them too! In fact I learned something new about taking group shots now! Here:
I learned the usefulness of my flash, though it's not an external flash and it might be too harsh sometimes. Last time, I've always been having problem shooting people/groups of people in outdoors because I always get either underexposed faces, or overexposed sky. Well normally in situations like this I'll prefer HDR or exposure fusion, but they don't work too well in giving a natural human complexion. Hence, after many many failed shots, I've finally figured out a solution! Just like the picture shown! I did not have to do any repair to the photo after I learned how to shoot properly. I did a spot metering on the sky with exposures one or two stops below zero, and flashed on the faces, then ta-da! Nice sky + nice faces = nice photo! Maybe it's something that most photographers already know, but heck, I'm proud I discovered it myself!
Aside from the great companies, I was very grateful to the weather. The blue sky totally made me excited about taking photos!
Another of my night shot from Montreal, as a preview for my next post!

With that, it's back to the brain wrecking Nuclear Physics assignment! Roar!

Of bad cooking and traditional culture. . .

2010-02-14T14:26:00.007+08:00

Just a quick post before I start packing for my Montreal and Quebec trip starting in 6 hours time! Yes, I have not packed!!! Just when I was complaining to myself that I don't have anything much to blog about, all of a sudden I don't have time to blog now. However, in order not to miss out any events, I've decided I'll do a quick entry on what happened yesterday and today. Here's a good kickstart for this entry:

The Evil Red Snowman, that's what I call it. I know, I know. It doesn't really fit with the festival that you people are celebrating in Asia. Then again, the red kinda fits the Chinese New Year feel? LOL. Anyway, this scary yet cool looking snowman holding a can of Heineken was made by one of my housemates and his coursemates. Really quite a creative bunch. I was quite shocked the next afternoon when I walked back from class, and I saw this guy sitting on the bench. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating and I saw some monster from afar.
Friday night, after the Frenchs had their mid term exam, they invited us to their house for a little get together dinner. And we had crepe for the night! What's more Diana and Chi Hua decided to buy tonnes of flour to make more Nutella crepe after that night. The picture showed the crepe I made myself! Yes!!! I made it myself!
I was so proud of myself that I managed to "cook", that I've decided to make myself another one. Nonetheless, it wasn't long before I realised that, I suck at cooking after all!! I had a stomach ache after eating my self-made crepe. CRAP! And I was so happy that I actually made something other than instant noodle or Campbell soup from the can!!
As usual, the French went bonkers after a few drinks(in fact, they're bizzare even when they're sober). Renaud spilled something on the floor and when he was cleaning the mess, Thomas jumped on him and started riding and smacking his ass. Haha! Photo was bad 'cause everything happened so quickly, I don't even have time to adjust.
The Nutella crepe that made Diana and Chi Hua decided to stock up on flour. Sadly, I did not manage to try any 'cause I was suffering from the aftermath of my horrible cooking.

And that, pretty much sums up our crepe dinner. As for today, as in, Saturday, since its reunion dinner day, we've decided to uphold the tradition by having our own version of reunion dinner: Steamboat with a whole bunch of friends! However, before dinner was a super duper awesome lunch!! I shall let the photos speak for themselves!:

We went to Chinatown in Toronto, and we had "roasted meat" for lunch. Roasted meat as in stuffs like roast duck, sweet pork, roast chicken etc. Basically its most of the stuffs you can get from a chicken rice stall in Malaysia. And ahh~ chinese tea.
When I saw this one the menu I was totally craving for it!! While its not as good as the one I had in my uncle's place, but after so long of not tasting this, I'm totally up for it!!!
Chi Hua ordered the duck noodle. I've decided that I'll take photos of everyone's food today, just because! And to my joy, I amd quite satisfied with how the photos turned out to be! I guess a good mood really brings out the best in you! XD
One of the things that Diana ordered. I'm not really sure what's the English name is(enlighten me, anyone?), but I believe it's more known as "Chu Cheong Fun" in Cantonese.
Soya milk!! I did not hesitate a second to order a serving of this when I saw this in the menu! How long has it been since I last had soya milk?! But unexpectedly, they serve in bowls, BIG bowls!! Still, nothing stops me from finishing great food!
The long awaited chicken rice. It's really good. Totally beat the pastas/pizzas/burgers we have here. Chinese food is still the way to go for me! I get bored of the typical Western food really fast!
Diana's roasted chicken and pork rice. Look at the portion yo!! I was so full that I couldn't even sit up straight after I finished everything that I ordered.
After one of the most satisfying meal in my life, we hit the streets and walked around Queen Street, and guess who did we bump into?
The Star Wars crew!! Apparently, the Adidas store has something like a Star Wars theme, and some of their workers are dressed like the characters in Star Wars to attract customers. And of course, they're not too shy for a few photo sessions.
The interesting clock tower.
The evening sky is always so stunning. Once again, gotta love the sky here!
And finally, we ended our day with our own version of reunion dinner. It was an awesome dinner together with everyone around the world! We had French, Tunisian, Japanese, Singaporean, Indonesian and Malaysian! What's more, the restaurant owner are the nicest person we've ever met today! She even treated us to Mandarin Oranges!! Awww, I'm starting to miss Chinese New Year!
Before I end, look what I got from Eaton Centre!! My old sneakers are tearing apart, so I thought I'd use this as an excuse to get a new pair of shoes!! Nonetheless, I still feel guilty over the price. Don't ask.

I guess that's it for my not-so-short-after-all entry before I leave for Montreal and Quebec in a few hours time! Before I pen off, Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Have a blessed and prosperous year ahead!! Expect pictures from Montreal and Quebec!! Till next week!!