Sleepy head versus Pile of readings

Fell asleep a couple of times this afternoon while reading my “readings” for various stuff.

1. Network Flow readings to read for the weekly RAS Group Meeting

Will have to do a short presentation on 1 application of Network Flow Model in reali life, namely – Reallocation of housing, as well as another presentation on Shortest Path Algorithm.

2. Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window VRPTW readings

This is for my on-going Honours Year Project and I am reading all these papers to get an idea of what I can implement for my Scheduling System which is at most 50% done up till now. (Still got 2 more months. Prays.)

3. Compiler Techniques and principles for my Compiler Course

The lecturer has reached the topic which corresponds somewhat with the page 277 of the text. Gosh, need to catch up!

Anyhow, the HUGE rain over the past day had really simmered the heat in Singapore. It’s nice and cooling over here now. So nice to snuggle up in bed and zzz zzz zzz … (Can’t sleep late tmr, cosh of lesson … nap will just have to wait till afternoon … )

I CUT MY HAIR! (“,)

So long, farewell!

The beautiful lyrics from the Sound of music echoes at the back of my mind.

Alright, enough nostalgia from that show …

A somewhat impromptu farewell at my grandparents place as my brother headed over to say goodbye, my aunties and uncles all came over to say goodbye too … even my elusive cousin from UK is back in town with his gf and so, I finally met him and his gf.

Anyhow, goodbye, for now, to my brother who will be heading over to Canada the following morning in the wee hours. All the best, hope you find your true calling and also a proper and decent job. You probably won’t miss Singapore all that much, so, I needn’t bother to even worry about you adjusting to life over there. well, have fun and do remember to come visit every so often (be it in Singapore or whereever I will be (“,) ) and your mum too – who will still be in Singapore.
… so welcome to Toronto … (hmm … looks similar to the skyline of Shanghai?! ok just vaguely … )

Compelling Macintosh

Introduction of the Macintosh (1984)

This video shows Steve Jobs introducing the 1st Macintosh back in 1984. Seeing that beige box, I remember my first encounter with a Macintosh.

It was in ACS (I) back in 1996 or 1997. ACS (I) had a Macintosh laboratory back then and it was state of the art. Only 2 schools in Singapore had a Macintosh lab back then (the other was at The Chinese High School).

I rememberd we had lab sessions where we could fiddle around with Macintosh. Back then, the interface wasn’t as great as it is now, but it was by far much greater than a normal PC of that era. It was a great computer then, and it would possibly be a great computer now.

I really look forward to getting one before the end of September.

满福圆

Had dinner at Intercontinental Hotel’s chinese restaurant 满福圆. The food was good! (Even though the fish was not cooked properly … some parts weren’t cooked.)

A cantonese restaurant, but the food had a good variety. I ordered 2 appetizers, Drunken Chicken and Fried Perch with lime sauce, expecting it to be as it’s name suggested appetizers or 冷菜 but the food was hot and simply appetizer sized. Oh well!

One interesting dish was asparagus with bamboo marrow and brocolli in broth. No pictures lah … and the dessert was Yam Paster (芋泥) with Almond cream sauce (Very different from the usual coconut milk or just milk.

Why the dinner?

Well, my brother is leaving for Canada. He finally got his VISA and he would be leaving by the end of the week. So, it’s a farewell dinner for my brother from my dad.

Bye bye, Kennie! (Though I still have a couple of more days to keep saying that … hahaha!)

Kennie’s leaving! Lalilalilala!!! haha!!! (ok … kiddings!)

Mee Soto, Soto Ayam & Me

Alamak!

I really cannot differentiate all the Malay Delicacies! Jialat! Besides the usual Nasi Lemak, Mee Siam, Mee Rebus, and Mee Soto, all other forms of Malay food eludes me.

What Soto Ayam? What Soto Nasi?

There were too much choices on the board and most of them did not ring a bell. I wanted to try the stall, cos’ it happened to be open and it happened not to have a queue (as it normally would). I asked for Soto Ayam. (In fact, I asked what soto ayam was, and got a reply saying only Mee Soto left.) So, without getting my reply, I ordered a bowl of Mee Soto for $2 (only). (I really did not want to continually pester that young lady at the stall. She looked tired and was too can’t be bothered with what I was asking.)

The bowl of Mee Soto, was good! The chilli was superb! It was HOT! BUT, beware, it’s really a small small small small bowl of noodles!

Oh, before I forget, stall is at Adam Road, and the sign board is a bright red, stall to the left of the Mutton Soup Stall. (sorry lah, can’t remember the stall number.)

At the end of the day, what did I learn … erm … Mee Soto is actually Soto Ayam with Noodles and Soto Ayam is Mee Soto without noodles and with more chicken.

Now, correct me if I am wrong!

Liquor! Liquor! Liquor!

My brother and I assisted my mum in cleaning out a few cupboards to catalog all the liquors that we had accumulated over the years.

Liquor

Aug 26, 2006 – 108 Photos

This is just one of the many bottles of hard liquor that we uncovered today. See the variations of liquors we have at the link above. Yet, this is not a full catalog of the list, cos’ for each type there are usually a couple of bottles.

We intend to sell it all off, since it’s rather useless to us. I could stay drunk for the rest of the year with the amount of liquor present. (Kidding!) Anyone interested or knows people interested, can drop me a msg. Please quote a reasonable price. Some are really vintage liquours that have been aged for a long long time!

It’s the beginning of Week 3 for the school term.
Time is flying by very quickly.
I like that!
(“,)

Pressure

Seems like alot of people who will be graduating this December have been sending out alot of CVs.

This is, definitely, adding alot of pressure on me.

I have yet to draft my CV or my Cover Letter. I have also not researched on companies that I am interested to join.

All I have been doing is programming, reading up on programming and debugging programming.

I think I really need to begin on my SEARCH! (If not, will be in PANIC mode in a few months time.)

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me

From Phil 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

This is a wonderful verse that I often make use of again and again. I tell it to myself when I am down, I tell it to myself when I am afraid, I tell it to myself when I am defeated.

This afternoon, the Pastor talked about how we can be conquerous in all our endeavours. He started the sermon with this verse and moved on to identify 3 things that we must do to truly be empowered by God and overcome all odds.

1. Receive abundant grace of God (2 Corinthians 12:9)
- Grace is the work of God
- Restoring to us the Right to be children of God (Rom8:14-19)
- Promise of sufficient Grace
- Sufficient in Greek is ARKEO which is “More than enough”

Therefore, we must accept the gift that God has given to us. The Grace of God is Jesus Christ dying and rising from the dead for us to overcome all sins. We need to accept that totally and allow it to be a part of us.

2. Walk in Active Faith
- Faith is our Response
- Faith + Grace = Manifestation of God’s Power

Grace is God’s gift to us. Faith is our way of telling God that we acknowledge Him and that we give ourselves onto Him. With the combination of both God’s Grace and our Faith, we can do anything!

(Matthew 17:20 – If you have Faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this Mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.)

3. Rest in God’s Amazing Love
(Ephesians 3:18)
- Firmly grasp the Love of God
- Many hear and experience God’s Love withont fully grasping it
- To walk in Faith & Grace, we must rest in His Love
(Romans 8:37-39)

Finally, we must rest. When we do, we must rest in God’s Love. It’s all encompassing and all surrounding. It’s an unfailing love that continues on and on.

Toying with Python

It’s a Friday night and I am about to continue my endeavour in “Toying with my python”. Have been reading up on Python recently, cos’ I wanted to get it under control. I needed to utilize it’s power to achieve a certain goal.

(“,) To the uninitiated, python is a scripting language which is quite like a full fledge programming language. Not sure if there really is a difference. So, I am still fighting against the beast in hope that it will quickly diminish the other giants in my school work.

I actually feel rather sleepy, considering how it had been a long day, beginning with the NOC Lunch Talk this afternoon where they introduced NUS Enterprise to the students and marketed NOC for Shanghai and Stokholm. A short 1 hour session, that saw very interesting characters in NUS. Shall not name any names or state any gender to be as neutral as possible.
1. Person who appears confident and knows what one wants, yet has huge grievances about the NUS System. Be it too beauracratic, or be it too impersonal. In fact, I found the person rather rude and a very unbecoming person. I hope the person’s true capabilities live up to the expectations of him/her self.

(No matter how good one thinks one is, be humble and polite. It helps!)

2. Then there is person who seems clueless about what person wants in life and also grumbles about the lack of opportunities and chances to do entrepreneurial related activities. From the look of it, it appears that the person had never been truly involved in any society, club or event and hance never really did anything significant.

(Opportunities might come knocking on the doors of some, but most people still have to go about grabbing them themselves. Don’t wait, go seize YOUR opportunity!)

To those that did not come to the talk, I started the session with this:

“You cannot control the length of your life,
but you can control its width and depth.

You cannot control the distance that your head shall be above the ground,
but you can control the height of the contents of your mind.

You cannot control the other person’s opportunities,
but you can grasp your own.”

It is part of a a full poem and I extracted parts which I felt were relevant. (Don’t be constricted by norms. You are the only one that puts restrains on yourself.)

So, the session ended off with a small sharing session. It’s nice to know that there are people who are interested to go to Shanghai for an internship. I sill advocate Shanghai as the choice destination. Why?! If the whole world is going East, what should we go West? Anyhow, as have been reiterated by many NOC Alumni’s before, Shanghai is truly a very different place. China is different from the rest of the world. Things are done their way at their time. Learning that fact faster will help you adjust your mindset much quicker and save you a whole lot of pain.

And thanks to everyone who came down. Thanks to huimin (noc) for the lunch.

—

I decided to do a quick switch in template. Just felt the old template running stale on me. It wasn’t exciting me. So, while I decide on what is good or rather while I find time to do up something I like, make do with this interim one which is simple, clear and concise. Nice too!!!

—

So, at the end of the day, after hosting the event today, which was aptly titled: Love what you do: Bringing out the Entrepreneur in you, what do I feel?

I feel like I still have not found what moves me. What keeps me up into the late nights (besides my deadlines for projects), what wakes me up in the morning, or what I feel passionate about.

One reasoning I feel for this state of mind is that I rather be safe and not decide on a passion. Cos’ if I say I am passionate then I would really have to go against all odds to make my passion come true. Too much work? Too much time? Too much effort? All these and I still have to cope with my modules. Yucks! … and so, I stay safe and … la di da da … I’m still seraching, yadada … will find it someday … meanwhile let me just fool around alittle more.

—

Oks … times to get back to my python … it feels neglected.

Have a great weekend everyone, whereever you might be reading this from.

The one with the **Evil** neighbour

Before I begin and you assume that I am bursting with anger as I type this. Allow me to say that I am not angry, neother am I upset. I am perplexed.

The human being can be so vicious and hateful. (and, whoever thought that 人性本善 … well!)

We got a letter from URA informing us that they would like to inspect the house premises. My mum called them up to check on what the matter was and was informed that someone had complained about our fence being too high. By LAW, there is a ruling that states that the fence should only be 1.8 m tall. (Now, first of all, I find that funny. 1.8 m is my height. A fence that high doesn’t serve any purpose except to keep kids, and animals out of the house. Any grown man could easily climb over the fence.)

So, someone specifically complained about this issue. Someone was so free to go check up on this very unique ruling which most people would never have bothered and bring it up to the authorities. Someone rich, perhaps. Someone petty, perhapys. Someone whom we had a certain dispute recently. Someone whom happens to be of such close proximity.

Thankfully, that someone doesn’t live here and rents his house out.

Yet, it appears that rental isn’t forthcoming. The house has been vacant for sometime and much renovation works have been underway for a good 2 weeks or more. Hmm … retribution for being a meanie!?

At this juncture, I would like to state that this person is super duper RICH. He drives either an old Mercedes or an old vintage car (that possibly is worth more that my house). Yet, with all that wealth, he comes across as one very unlikable person. I hope his children are not like him and are better contributors to society.