28/6: Healthy day overall. Had golf in the afternoon with mom and relatives. Really glad that mom is picking up tennis as a hobby/sport. :) Her swing is pretty good too. Finally she is taking some time off to do something other than work. Looking forward to the day when all she does is golfing and high tea sessions. Had tennis with bro, his friend and our fellow neighbour Matthew at night. Having not touched the racquet for almost a year I think, easily made me the lousiest player on court. More practice is needed Federer!!! LOL~30/6: Went down to Silver Strip with Ivan and Lyn, and Lyn's professional advice proved to be really helpful, thanks! Had dinner with the marist lads at this bak kut teh stall near clarke quay mrt. The food is pretty decent but the price is unexpectedly high. Wouldn't pay so much for bak kut teh I guess. We had drinks and finger food over at Brewerkz @ clarke quay, and as usual, hanging out with the marist brothers was fun and enjoyable.1/7: Had lunch with Kc and our new house mate Kaimin at Tampines One's Kim Gary HK cafe. Food was below average though, a tad disppointing given its high reviews. Later on, I went down to Silver Strip tailor again with Ivan and Yu Sheng, and after much deliberation we finally decided on our cloth design and the cutting for the suit and pants. All identical to that of Ivan's! Haha. Went to Zouk later that night with Amer. Ivan and Yusheng called to inform that results for International Banking was out. Didn't want to check it lest it spoils the night. Failed the temperature check at Zouk but passed it after I went to take a cold drink and cool down after a long and hot walk. After getting our stamps we decided to chill at the maccas in Great World City before hitting Zouk again when it's crowded. There I lost to the temptation of checking the results, and luckily, ti gong was overlooking me as usual as I barely managed to secure a distinction average for the module. That certainly helped to set the mood for the night as liquor, sexy babes and loud music took me to Utopia.

2/7: Amer stayed over at my place, a norm if we club together. We had our virgin experience @ Fish n Co express in Downtown East. It's sorta the fast food version of Fish n Co. Burger's quite delicious, drinks can't be any different, but the fries suck big time. Evening time came and I made my way to Levina's house for poker and dinner. It was fun and laughter as we played and gobbled hungrily all the various hawker food. Note the hilarious picture of Ivan. As mischievious as a monkey3/7: Helped out at the stall as mom and dad needs to attend to the catering order far out at Tuas. Turned out to be a rather busy matter as queues were forming (think they are curious as to what am I doing at the stall) and luckily I managed to do everything smoothly and calmly. Business has been rather slow recently. Maybe partly is attributed to the H1N1 scare that's every present now. At night was a ktv session with bro, Amer, Raine and Ivan over at Joms in Toa Payoh. It's pretty cheap at $10 for 3 hours with free frow of, I mean free flow of drinks. Pretty updated songs too. We proceeded to supper (I promise no supper in Sydney!) at the prata house along Thomson road. The prata bomb was disappointing, but the constant catwalk of really pretty girls made up for it!

More updates coming soon. In the midst of applying for internships and graduate training programs too. Going back to Sydney real soon. What a short holiday, arghz~

Winter break so far in SG:

26/6: Had dinner with family at Long Beach, East Coast Park. Ordered the usual black pepper crabs, baby squids etc. Freaking delicious. The thought of it is making me hungry now haha! After dinner, went to NSRCC for golf with bro to practice our shots at the driving range. Haven't played any golf since early March and the consequences are severe...I feel as though I don't know how to hit the balls properly anymore haha. More practice needed!




27/6: Met up with some of the marists over at Shiwei's house. Played a little mahjong and as usual the company was great. It's always fun and laughter with them around. We headed to the Hk cafe at Kovan to have supper, or maybe dinner. The amount of food we ordered was crazy. Let the pictures do the talking.

To be continued...posting the pictures is a real hassle!

YEP! I finally bought it. After more than 2 years since it's launch, I've decided it was time to purchase the ps3. Not an easy decision for me to purchase the ps3, given it's expensive price tag and my shallow pockets. On the third day after I'm back in sg, I headed down to Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre with Amer and bought the ps3 from Ah Lim, well known for his competitive prices for computer stuffs.

Tada! Victory pose. Till now, I haven't really utilise the ps3. But the plain look and admiration of it is enough to make me a happy man! :)

Semester 1 2009 passed by in a flash, like literally. It was so freaking fast that we (yusheng and me) did not even do the usual count-down-to-singapore routine. Workload isn't exactly the heaviest this semester, in fact, it was pretty much less compared to the semester 2 2008 (the worst semester ever). It's gonna be a different semester 2 without Yusheng. Certainly not as fun without him around. His presence will certainly be missed without doubt.

Exams were pretty manageable this time. I had quite a lot of time on hand to study for the papers but complacency came and I happily accepted it. Hopefully the audit paper will turn out fine for everyone, as it's the paper that was most unexpectedly tough.

Post exams activities were fun as usual, although it was a little rushed and insufficient I thought. The highlights were ktv, transformers 2, thai food @ thai express, seafood @ fish market and shabu shabu. During the last day, we cleaned up the house till around 430am and bathed and napped till 530, afterwhich we proceeded to the airport to pick up yusheng's family. My flight was 1130am and I had like 1/2 hr of sleep, not including the lack of sleep over the exam period I was like a walking zombie in kingsford airport. Mom told me to wear a mask in the airport and aboard the plane at all times. I wanted to, but the people around me did not wear any at all. Alas I was too paiseh to wear one too. Was surprised and overjoyed when I realised the person sitting next to me was ex-footballer Abaas Saad. What a legend he was, and a pretty chatty and friendly guy too.

By the time I knew it, I am back in Singapore again, into the arms of my family and friends.

*Tried posting pictures twice, took extremely long to upload and POOF! The pictures disappear into Mars or something. Something is wrong with Blogger.

F* pissed off. Cousin Amer's bicycle was stolen by some f* yesterday. Even when the bike is chained, they managed to saw it off or something. And you might think staying in a condo is safe cos of all the guard and security in place etc. Feel very bad and responsible for this case of theft. Amer's bike should be taken care of and kept safely in the first place, and this had to happen.

F* BULLSHIT I would say. This is not the first time things have gone missing at my estate. I lost bicycle seats before, my nike sneakers were stolen, so were my havianas flip flops. What the fuck are these security guards doing? We pay them to lift up the car barriers and to doze off and sleep during night shifts? Might as well put a scarecrow there?

Nvm about the previous items that I've lost, but this time round it's a freaking whole bike. The first thing I'm gonna do when I touch down in sg, go straight to the management and make sure they have a good explanation of how 'adequate' is the present security management, and which security company is being employed so I can bring the issue up to relevant authorities.

Not too sure if the bike has its own unique identity number, but this is the pic of the bike being stolen.I strongly believe in karma. This bunch of thieves, they are doomed. Good luck to them.
*Moderated expletives. Must learn to refrain from them.

Just a quick update...

Just had the worst diarrhea in my life. Think I lao sai-ed around 10 times on the first day. Felt like hell really. Spent 2 days bedridden, there goes my revision time. Luckily towards the end of the second day I'm able to resume some normal daily activities. Suay to get diarrhea, lucky to recover within 2 days.

Been spending my time camping and revising for the final exams at home. It wasn't that productive afterall and I think the spaced-out timetable attributed to my lack of motivation and ever present complacent spirit. First paper's this coming Friday, and the last being on the 23rd of June. Will be flying back home on the 25th of June, will this be the last break of my university life?

Even though I won't be working during the short 3 week winter break, there's plenty of tasks waiting to be completed. Have to really sort out all these tasks and get them settled asap. I'm nearing my graduation date and it is definitely time to start planning what I really should do.

The next update should be after my LAST accounting paper in my university life. Woohoo. Good luck to everyone for their exams. :)

Just added a new link to the section "Worth Visiting".

It's a link to a blogger called Peggy. Out of the countless number of blogs I've read, I thought hers was the most interesting, graphically rich (lotsa fotos) and most importantly, filled with plenty of sincerity, simply organic so to speak (Yu Sheng Et. al.). It's not like the kind of typical wannabe blogs that:

1) Post only glamour shots of themselves, some even resort to using photoshop. I got a shock when I saw Xuesha's real face in "S factor" for instance.

2) Showing off to the whole world what kind of lingerie they just purchased (I'm not complaining but normally you don't show off your undergarments to strangers do you?).

3) Elaborating with pictures the last fine dining meal they just enjoyed (Probably at the expense of some ah sia kia a.k.a. a person of prodigality)

4) Constant whining when partying is of utmost importance and worries seems to be the last item on their agendas.

There are of course other decent bloggers out there that do not fall under the above categories. I will add them in time to come, provided they pass my stringent criteria LOL. Ok just joking. I should be studying now, but I'm blogging instead. Obviously I can't concentrate on revisions for the final exam, and this has been the case for the past 3 days.

HELP! Hopefully the mugging spirit comes back to me soon.

And I thought I will definitely be on the 25th morning flight home. Business society called me up last night regarding the industry peer mentoring program and an interview was scheduled for the following Tuesday.

Darn.

I know it's a good thing to be selected for an interview, but I was all set to fly home this winter (half expecting my application to be rejected). Reunion with family and friends, getting a new hair cut and dye at Supercuts, tailoring a business suit, getting the ps3 (and finally touching my LCD tv which was bought on my behalf by my bro and cousin Amer), paying my respects to my grandpa on 15th Jul etc etc etc... Now I'm thrown back into a state of dilemma.

Decision decision decision.

On a happy note, a close friend of mine just got attached recently. That brings the tally to 2 this year. First was Daniel, and now it's Yongrui. Way to go bros. When is my turn ar?????????????

Finally, the dreaded projects are over. Spent lotsa effort and time on it, till the point that I'm quite behind schedule for the final's revisions. Hopefully can get a decent grade for both the projects!

Exam timetable is out too, and this time round I'm ending rather late. Urgh, gonna miss the Bangkok trip with mom and relatives. No cheap clothing, spicy tom yum and massages for me! Damn sad la. Anyone wants to go BKK in July? Haha. 台北 also can!! Anyway, this sem is the first sem that I do not have the strong urge to fly back. Keep wondering why is this so.

1) Last year of uni liao
2) Expensive air ticket
3) Used to sydney life (scary thought)

Anyway, it's 99.9% probability that I'm flying back. That 0.01% lies in the industry peer mentoring which is more than likely catered to aussie residents. Not too sure what my plans are. Definitely do not want to nua at home everyday. Anyone up for a short trip overseas let me know ya.

Darn the dust that's accumulating in my blog is as thick as 3 inches.

Dr Dust Clearing Expense xxx
Cr Accumulated Dust xxx

Lame. Anyway, been busy the past few weeks preparing for mid-semester tests and the normal catching up on school work. Bro and addie came over for hols, stayed for slightly over a week and bunked at our place. I was happy that they came, as it's the first time I have family visiting me over in Sydney. Sadly I couldn't entertain and bring them around as much as I was in the midst of the mid-sem tests mentioned earlier on. I hope they enjoyed themselves, though I felt I could be a better host. Also, thanks to a special friend who helped me brainstorm where I could actually bring my bro and addie around, although they didn't really cover many places haha.

Thought I could relax and chill a little after the crazy tests, but here I am slogging and losing sleep over 2 projects that are gonna be due real soon. After this 2 projects, it will be gearing up for the upcoming finals and playing catch up on work. Where can I find time to play? It's always the case in every single uni semesters, where I tell myself I have to really find time to put work aside and enjoy uni life. As in REALLY enjoying uni life.

Exams are around a month away, which means I'm also around a month away from true home sweet home, but there's a catch. Buddy Ivan and I had decided to apply for a mentoring program where students will be placed under a mentor who is working in the accounting or finance industry. I would think it's sort of like a mini-internship, as one would learn the ropes from the mentor for around six weeks (during the winter break, June-July). It would be great if we get the heads up, but that would also mean that we won't get to go back Singapore.

Dilemma isn't it. One side of us wish we can get the opportunity, one side of us wants to go back home. Who likes staying way from family anyway. Let fate decide ba. :)

Freaking irritated by the mosquitoes that buzz around your ear during the night. Since when did Sydney has so many mosquitoes to being with??? Anyway just posting some random pics...

On the coach to London Heathrow...end of the Europe trip. :(

My europe buddy Zhida...Scary tunnel in the cityA rare estate model of the Chrysler 300cBuddy Yusheng finally got his favourite Louis Vuitton Epi Leather Billfold walletYusheng and I attending a corporate networking session at Hilton Sydney.Patronised this new restaurant called Abang Sam, Kc's nasi gorengMy nasi lemak, the chicken was half raw btw.Luckily there was this wonderful Teh-Tarik. Soccer kakisGuess what is this???

Seems to be lacking the motivation to study lately. Concentration level is low and easily distracted. Work is piling up and the troublesome projects certainly didn't help at all. Urgh...Sometimes I really feel like I should just aim for a Pass grade, and totally enjoy my uni life...

Alas, I'm back to blogging again. Neglected this blog of mine for pretty much the whole summer. Pretty busy back then so didn't really have the chance to blog properly. Now, although I have free time, but I'm freaking lazy to update the blog. Kinda lost the blogging feel again, maybe I will find it back soon.

Anyways I enjoyed Europe lots, especially with the company of 2 very good brothers Zhida and Weiray. All the photos have been uploaded onto facebook so I won't be uploading them in blogger. I think I'm really enjoy travelling alot, and I'm already thinking of a trip to Bangkok and Taipei this winter holidays. Hopefully the plan will go through.

We did our part in Earth Hour yesterday, and used candle lights for our dinner. Kudos to my housemates for their enthusiasm. Everyone of us can play his/her part in helping the world against climate change.



The photos are so dark simply because we switched off all of our lights haha!

Apologies for the lack of updates. Ended internship only last weekend and the rest of my free time was spent catching up with friends, and also spending time with the awesome bunch of interns from Deloitte. I'm leaving for the airport soon, to Europe as Ray, Zhida and me will embark on a short euro trip.

Barcelona-Porto-Lisbon-Luxembourg-London will be the plan, and I will be back on the 5th of Mar. See ya folks real soon. :)

Busy busy busy...work is crazy. Thus blog is so empty. Will try to update something during the weekends. V-day's coming. It will be a lonely year again! Sweetness! :)

Saw an interesting post in a local forum recently. It was talking about how the emergence of franchise food courts in Singapore is harming the authenticity of Singapore food. In recent years, we have seen many food courts sprouting all around our tiny island. The usual culprits are Food Republic, Kopitiam and Kou Fu. With all due respect, there are still decent stalls in these various food courts.

So how can the authenticity be compromised? There are many factors that I have considered:

1) Hiring of inexperienced workers
2) Poor quality control of the food sold
3) Costing measures which lead to the purchase of lower grade ingredients
4) Lack of proper franchise monitoring system
5) Overheads that are often too costly for stall owners

All of the above 5 factors can directly, or indirectly affect the end product, which is the food being served to customers. How many times have you went to a food court, bought a plate of chicken rice at $3.50, and end up feeling that you have overpaid for something which you did not really enjoyed? I believe many will feel the same way, but they will still go to these places again, mainly due to the sake of convenience.

If you ask me where can we find authentic hawker food, I would say the old school hawker centres. There are a few hawker centres which I like to visit for their wide array of local delights, namely (not an exhuastive list):

1) Bedok interchange hawker centre
2) Bedok block 85 hawker centre
3) Marine terrance hawker centre
4) Clementi central hawker centre

So how do we prevent authentic hawker food from extinction? I guess we can only hope that the franchise food courts stop their expansion (mission impossible), or hope that the government do not think of plans to convert the land the hawker centres are on onto something useless.

Long live hawker food. :)

2009 : A brand new year, perhaps a brand new start...
Here we are again, at the start of a brand new year. Count down at Daniel's was awesome. This yearly event was a blast, just like previous years. Simply enjoyed the food, friends and place. Can't help but feel a little weird, as we leave 2008 behind, and embark on a new year. Every year at this point of time, people usually tend to look back at the past year, and think of the stuff that had occurred, both good and bad. I'm no exception, just that I don't really pen them down in my blog every year. I thought 2008 was quite a busy, as well as an eventful year for me. So many things happened...

Family
In 2008, I experienced the loss of a close one, my maternal grandpa. My paternal grandpa passed away when I was rather young, so I didn't really have much recollections about his loss. Grandpa's death was so sudden. He was like his usual self when I visited him in SGH before I left for Europe. I was in Rome when my mom called to tell me that he was in critical condition. Rushed back I did, and accompanied him during his final days. If we chose to drop chemotherapy treatment for him, he could still be around, perhaps enjoying the great seaview from the Singapore Flyer. I miss you Grandpa. Everyone misses you.
I'm thankful that the rest of my family are in good health. Dad underwent a minor operation and it went smoothly. Business is definitely on a smaller scale now but my parents need not work as much as before. Expansion plans can wait, perhaps till I graduate from university.

Friends
Friends will always be there whenever you need them. I'm blessed with having many friends around me, the closer ones being the marists and my jc buddies. Having close friends is really important, as you can turn to them for help/advice/listening ear etc. They are often the ones that help to get you back on track with life (my family too of course).

The marists have been wonderful as usual. It is amazing just how all of us made effort to keep this so called 'fellowship' alive and strong. Meet ups and gatherings are a must whenever we are free. Suan-ing each other is a norm, but having a girlfriend is not. So far only Mark, Gilbert and Zhida are attached. Keep it going guys. 加油 to the rest too.
2008 was also a challenging year for 2 of my closer jc buddies Marcus and Terrence. Both had problems with relationship, but both learnt a great deal of out it. Through Marcus I knew 2 other great friends, Xinyan and Jerlyn. Plenty of complications happened later on which is too confusing and complicated for me to explain. One of them seems to be missing already.Uni friends like Ivan and Yu Sheng proved to be awesome mates in Sydney. All the help and encouragement with life and schoolwork from them made me a more positive person than before. As many of you would have known, semester 2 2008 was a killer semester for me, without them, I wouldn't have survived.
Relationship
2009 marks the 10th year of my bachelor status. When will this curse be broken? I have no idea. Haha. Haven't gone on a date since 25th Dec 2007. Sure does bode lonely days ahead for me! Certainly hope that it doesn't get time extension to 11 years. One sms from her and I can forget the cold treatment she can throw me randomly. Damn! "Time to let go and move on with life" - by one of my friend. How true! I really need to grow up and move on. Move it!
University
Well nothing nice can be said about university in 2008. My grades fell together with the stock markets. Semester 2 was a killer semester (yes I know I like to repeat myself), as I chose not to heed others' advice and go ahead with 4 core modules which happened to be a deadly combination. Extremely late nights and insomnia became a norm (which later led to me losing 5.6 kg and growing quite a few white hairs urgh). Luckily I passed all, but my WAM suffered as a result. No longer was it a distinction average anymore, but I'm not far from it, and I'm determined to get that D back next semester.

Holidays
2008 was the year that I first step foot in Europe. Thanks to Wei Ray aka Alex, the marists and I were able to visit plenty of countries. I wasn't able to cover as much as the rest, but I'm glad to have visited places like Dublin, Edinburgh, Monaco, Madrid, Barcelona and Rome. Every country was unique in its own. I definitely want to revisit all these places in the near future. Overseas with friends truly rocks. Can't wait for our grad trip to Japan, although it won't be anytime soon. Went Hong Kong for the 2nd time in November. Simply love that place. Amazing shopping and food just makes you go back for more. Good Diu ar!

Year 2009
So what new year resolutions do I have for myself?

1) Get my grades back on the Distinction track
2) Exercise to lose weight and keep fit
3) Save more money/earn money
4) Visit more countries (Taiwan, Thailand, Bali, Japan???)
5) Brush up on musical instruments
6) Get a girl friend? (Considered a resolution? LOL)

The above are not in any order though, just some very rough ideas of what's should be achieved in 2009. Of course, I want to spend more quality time with my family and close friends. More than often I get lazy and just forget about all the targets I've set for myself. I should visit this post as and when to remind myself that I should work hard and achieve my goals.

2009 here I come.