I’m moving!!!

Mao?

Looking through some old programs…

I was looking through some old codes from previous modules… and I chanced upon YK’s wonderful EE2001 code… Amongst all the beauty, there was this little portion commented away and clearly forgotten…

//welcome message

//lcd_puts(“BEE BEE!!!”);

//lcd_goto2(1);

//lcd_puts(“I LOVE YOU!!!”);

My nephew and his new toy/friend…

Codenamed : Koo Koo Jiao

Right, there’s nothing much happening so far, but this is big news… The little boy decides that nothing is more fun than watching Playhouse Disney while stroking his new found friend. Just the other day, Winnie and I were having dinner and he slowly comes up to us and say, “Uncle Jem, I am watching TV (while stroking his new found friend).” Me being the loving uncle, “Ok.” That’s one account. Winnie had it worse, “Auntie Winnie, come watch with me (again, with his new found friend).” Winnie being the future auntie that she is, “ok…” Of course, at heart, we don’t give a shit.

Today coincidentally was the day we were both having separate job interviews and at 8am, the nephew starts crying his ass off! For what reason? His baby sister was watching Barney and he wanted to watch Playhouse Disney! So, after his maid switched the channels, he continues to cry!!! (while stroking his new found friend) So, me being the loving uncle, caring for his wellbeing, went up to him and asked (with a 60dB voice) “what do you want?” All he says is, “I don’t want!!! I don’t want……. etc. (while stroking his new found friend).” Since the noise level was too high, I decided to throw him out of the house and have breakfast. Thing is, he could have simply opened the door, but he chose to bounce around outside the door screaming and throwing himself onto the door (while stroking his new found friend). He eventually opened the door by chance and he continues to cry! Only after threatening to slap him in the face that he decided to shut up and watch TV…

That’s just my interaction with him. Over the past few weeks, Winnie and I have been observing him and his interactions and have noticed that no one really gives a shit about him and likewise, he does not give a shit about anyone! When I come home, not a word from him, when my dad comes home, nothing and when his parents come home, nothing! Even after his parents ask him to greet, nothing! If that’s not enough, he continues to watch TV while stroking his new found friend!?

So in essence, I look forward to seeing him grow up and wonder what kind of child he would turn out to be. I strongly believe that he would make a good psych case study and that some graduates should consider taking him on for their PhD thesis.

Another reason why football fans in Singapore should stop being fans…

Read this…

Because of bloody football loving morons, Starhub sports channels cost a bomb. Now, Singtel sports channels will cost a bomb too! All this fighting is rubbish. Look at what Fifa is asking of us now! $100 million for bloody World Cup? No doubt, I’d watch a little of it, or perhaps try to keep track of what’s going on, but if it’s going to cause me to pay an extra buck (whether I like it or not), then forget it! FIFA is clearly out of line here, asking for almost 8 times the previous amount! Bloody World cup only lasts for a few weeks and we’re paying more that what EPL is giving us…

We should all just stop watching football and make FIFA realise that we will not fall victim to capitalistic greed…

Onward to the finish line!!!

It is now the second week into my final semester. I’ve got only 1 module to take besides my FYP and I still feel like crap. I’ve been looking at all the jobs available and it seriously seems that without a 2nd Upper Class Honors, I can kiss them goodbye… Anyhoo, as Winnie has pointed out, I’ll be a certified BENG by the time I graduate.

Knowing myself, I am want a decent job, one that challenges me and at the same time, one that I know I am capable of doing… I’m not willing to settle for a simple job that just pays me.

A relaxing evening…

With my dearest Winnie and friend Kev… We sat down at Denise to have a drink…

Along with something else…

Making the whole set up look like so…

So… This was a relaxing evening.

Oysters and Crabs…

Last weekend, I joined Winnie and her siblings for a buffet at Pariss @ Marina Square! Though it was a little bad on service, at least we got one thing…

Fresh Oysters FTW!

Aside from that, we had a good taste/reminder of what Singaporean Kiasuism is like… Queues after queues for black pepper crabs! The crabs kept running out, along with baked scallops and the oysters just came at a really slow pace. Even Winnie’s sister (Wendy) joined in the “fun” by spotting when the crabs were replenished.

Nutcracker got pawned...

There was one particular crab though, that was really tough to whack, my usual chewing on the shells didn’t work and I had to resort to the nutcracker… That didn’t go so well.

Anyway, the kids weren’t there but their absence allowed us to kick back and just have fun, without having to watch over someone! A great afternoon! Thanks Winston for the treat!

Why NUS is making everyone so pissed and just ruining our holidays…

To those people who study in foreign universities and feel that life is so great and simple, good for you that you don’t have to put yourself through the pain and agony that Singaporean bureaucracy has set upon us… So here’s how everything began…

Back in mid October, NUS decided to implement this thing called e-Learning week, where students should not be in class, but conduct self-study using materials by the lecturers online. The reason for e-Learning week was that they wanted students to isolate themselves away from the H1N1 threat and get better… So what actually happened. Students had an extra week of holidays, lecturers had to re-order their lectures to ensure students don’t get too lost, students continued to go out and party and get even more sick… On top of that, NUS issued out another advice stating that students should access their materials during the normal lecture times to reduce the load on the servers; not that bad, except that no one actually logged in during the normal times. Even better still, most of the material had to be accessed on-campus or via NUS-VPN. NUS-VPN kept getting congested and going to campus kind of eliminated the purpose for e-Learning and self-quarantine…

Sometime in the first week of December, NUS announces that they will be porting over all the student accounts to some new University environment called myISIS (my, Integrated Student Information System). By doing so, it somewhat provides a centralised location for students to access all their personal information, from tuition fees to exam results. On top of it, they sugarcoat the announcement with butt loads of good points and good reasons for doing so, trying to hide the fact that the servers would be down for a week and that the exchange server will be highly inaccessible. However, upon logging in, this is what you see…

myISIS home screen

I assure you, there’s nothing else on the home screen… So much for the hype. What they advertised is still there, but this is what awaits you when you log in, a boring little search box… Not even categories or other shortcuts to any useful information.

Then comes December 22, the release of examination results! So what happened this time was that students had to log in to the exams directory and fetch their results. However, students who are attempting to access their results off-campus had to log in via NUS-VPN, sounds simple enough, but the servers were full! Everyone I knew, including myself decided to just wait the extra hour and SMS in for our results. By doing so, we still had to wait about half-an-hour before we actually got our results!

Now, it’s time for the most stressful period of any NUS student’s life, aside from exams, MODULE BIDDING… This is what happened at the scheduled time that CORS would be open. Server is down and we can’t log in! When we actually managed to connect about 3 hours later, all our info is messed up, by my own calculations, I have obtained a total of 144 MCs allowing me to file for graduation, instead it was reflected that I had only obtained 132, though it allowed me to file for graduation, it set me into a state of panic as I wasn’t sure how many more modules I was required to take! I figured that they hadn’t updated the modules that I had taken last semester… The same story mentioned among my friends and lo-and-behold, I seem to have only accumulated 98 MCs!!! Good job CORS! You never fail to surprise me!

On another note, I will say this and not to anyone in particular, since I have had to deal with multiple parties before… Studying in NUS is NOT FUN and though many NUS students are seen having fun, when it comes to studying, we have to work our asses off just to earn our honours! For those coming from foreign universities, ask yourselves this, why did you even go there… There can only be so many reasons that point back to the fact that Singaporean Universities are not as easy.

Let me help you with some options:

- Did not do as well for A-levels/Diploma

- Wanted a more relaxed study environment

- You got an overseas scholarship

- You wanted to experience other cultures (and why would you actually want to experience other cultures?)

- You want to get a degree from a more prestigious University

- You just want to study modules/subjects that are only relevant to your course of study

I’m trying to be nice… Seriously, when your friends from local universities bitch about how stressful Student life is, please just try to be understanding and don’t say such things like “studying is fun”, especially if your reason for not studying locally is the first two…

Goodbye…

My dear dogs… Alfie and Reno, sorry for not being able to take care of you. You guys stink and are so ill…

My family’s had these two dogs for about 7 years already. My dad just showed up with them one morning and yea. Unfortunately, like my nephew and niece, once we got them, we didn’t give a care about them…

They had to endure years of abuse by my parents and lack of interest on my part. It was a heartbreaking moment watching both of them being put down…

Watch Hoochie fetch.

I was bored from studying in the morning, so here’s a video of Hoochie fetching!