Last Week

Ok, so it's confirmed. Will be leaving Singapore in exactly a week. It's gonna be a long way from home and yea, it's gonna be a pretty long period of time. It's not the first time I'm leaving home for extended periods of time, so yea, the excitement's not as overwhelming as my first time abroad myself. It's more of thinking about adapting to a new environment all over again. Haha. It really takes effort and yea, hope it goes smoothly. But at least it's Europe that I'm pretty familiar with. So it's not as scary. Haha.

Anyway, amid all the festivities and stuff, I found some time to meet my regular khakis for k and dinner before I fly off.

They're probably the easiest and most fun bunch of people to hang around with. Haha. =D

Chinese New Year '12

It's the time of the year again! A time to eat, visit, eat, visit, ... , eat visit. Not too much of the CNY buzz this year. I guess it's probably due to the shorter CNY holidays. Anyway, this CNY is really just about eating. Ate reunion dinner on Sunday. Visited most of relatives on Monday, which meant snacking (impossible amounts of CNY goodies) all the way. So much so that I sort of skipped breakfast and lunch all together. Haha. Great-grandpa's anniversary today. So coincidental coz my great grandpa passed away then. But it's good in the sense that everyone will remember and will have the time to gather together to pray and munch on good food. So it was family gathering as usual at my house. Home-cooked buffet for breakfast and lunch. Really remarkable effort by my mum and maid to whip up all the food for like 30 people.. and they're all damn AWESOMELY YUMMY! Bet I gained at least a pound or more from just that meal. Haha.

Anyway, food aside, today's the first time I got to see my nephew since he was born 2 months ago! DAMN CUTE OMG. Haha.

The innocence of a child. All he need to worry about is eating and sleeping. Damn envious of him. Haha. Oh another boy to the family. My entire generation were all boys, and it looks like the next one's gonna be all boys again. Haha.

Anyway more food coming up. Tomorrow's gonna be another home-cooked, buffet-styled family dinner with all my maternal relatives. After which, a short break, before more food on Saturday and Sunday! Looks like I have to exercise a lot harder once all the festivities are over. =P

New Year Resolutions.

I haven't really taught about them since eons ago. But recently, time was on my side, and I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. Reflecting on my life thus far, there are definitely things that I want to change in my life. And I've sort of set certain goals that I hope I can achieve by the end of the year. Let's see how it goes from here. =D

Satisfaction

Ok exams are long over and even the results are out. All I can say is that I'm satisfied. And that's all that matter in life. Be satisfied with anything that comes your way and believe that it happens for a reason. To be honest, life has been really kind to me all these while. I whine and complain at things, but come'on, I'm still alive and kicking. =P

Anyway have been stuck in camp for the past 2 weeks for my reservist. It wasn't as bad as I thought I would be. Everyone's so familiar, and I see many of them in school as well. So yea, turned out pretty well. But was down with fever for the 2nd week, but I still didn't take MC to finish my course. So now I'm suffering the after effects of the bug. Haha. Oh and did I mention that the army's such a pain. Just completed my 1st in-camp, and they already booked us for the next! And I have to shorten my SEP slightly for it. DAMN. And I don't wanna defer lest I change my unit and not know anyone for the rest of my reservist life. Haha. Oh well. Be a Singaporean and suck it up. Haha.

Anyway my SEP stuff is finally more or less settled. Hope the embassies won't give me more trouble and work anytime soon. Really want to relax for once this holidays. Spent quite a bit on all the documentation and stuff already. Hope I've seen the end of it. Really excited to head to the Netherlands soon! I really don't mind spending my time in a slower environment. All the hustle and bustle of Singapore city life is really not ideal. =X

Anyway being in a good mood recently, I rewarded myself for hard work well done 2011. Haha. Bought myself a Sony NEX 5N camera!

Have been eyeing this for a really long time. Didn't have a reason to buy the NEX 5 earlier, but now that my whole family is constantly travelling thanks to my parents retiring, I need another camera. Haha. Read lots of reviews and stuff before settling on this. Now I've gotta play around with it and figure out how to use it. Haha.

On a random note, my family and I are officially Sony fans! I think almost everything at home is made by Sony. =P

Mid-Exams Distraction

Alright I'm supposed to be studying but I'm not. Instead, I started watching lectures/talks on Asian vs. Western development by Prof Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of NUS. It's really interesting how he's so persuasive and a really interesting speaker. He's very pro-Asian, so westerners would definitely not take his words without feeling awfully disgruntled. His speeches and debates are very provocative, which makes them seemingly full of judgments and propaganda. But if you look up the facts, they are all indeed truly objective and as such, would come as quite a shock to westerners. Truly inspiring. I really recommend people to take some time of mugging (ony applicable for those who are still drowning in pyps and lecture notes) and watch some of them. Oh and on a side note, he was just voted one of the world's top 100 thinkers. He really deserve it. =D

Anyway I suddenly thought of Operation Orion 2010. I really miss that trip and the people there.

I really miss the kids! Omg the kids are damn adorable (ok I sound like an absolute pedophile, but I love kids! =D)! And I'm feeling really sore that I will be slogging out in camp instead (after all the studying that made me put on quite some spare tires -.-zZZ). Oh well.

Aww.. It's the exams season again.

This semester, I just so much more relaxed than the last 2. Am I confident? I wouldn't say I'm really confident, but I kinda changed my mentality towards studies this semester. And it's really making learning so much more interesting.

The university shouldn't be like the A levels. All the mugging and frantically doing all the possible PYP ain't studying. It's memorizing. That's why I kinda question Singapore's engineering education. We are just producing students who can study very well. But that doesn't make an engineer. That's why I'm so persistent to study in Europe. In Europe, the universities train engineers, not educate one. And this one word makes all the difference. Engineering is a discipline, and the way it's taught should not be like science and math. So far in the university, I feel that only a couple of modules I've taken have sort of met this expectation - Process Safety, Health and Environment and Separation Processes. All in this semester. It really trains an engineers intuition - it's not always about getting the correct answer (although it would be good to). It's more of understanding what you learn and applying them to new situations. That's something I really enjoy. So exams aside, I really feel that this semester has been really fulfilling.. in every way.

Alright studies aside, I have been listening to Adele's songs these couple of weeks. Here are 2 songs that I really like.

Rolling in the deep

Somebody like you

These songs really grow on you. The more you listen, the more meaningful it gets. And every time I listen to it, I get this new experience. It's really good. The 2 songs are exact opposites. Rolling in the deep is more about a strong individual living her life to the fullest despite all the adversities that come her way, while someone like you really describes how people sometimes lose themselves in relationships. Really meaningful. It really shows the different sides of relationships. Go ahead and listen to them - I'm sure everyone who listens will get something meaningful out of them. =D

The Future

Someone commented yesterday that I seem to have my future all planned out and stuff. But I sort of think otherwise. The fact that my life's been super fast paced ever since my days of formal schooling ended, just meant that I have to do things spontaneously - to make decisive decisions at every point along the way. It's really not as easy as it seems. Sometimes it really makes me wonder if the choice I made earlier is correct, or if it's really the best choice. At every turning point in my life, I am bound to ask myself questions like "have I done my best?", "is there anything that I would have done differently?" or "What are my priorities?". But at every stage, my answer seem to change.

Actually I wrote a pretty long post about my life story, but felt that a single idea can encompass my entire point. Sounds really cliche, but to me, everything happens for a reason. Don't feel sad or blame everyone and everything around you when things don't turn out the way you want it to. You just have to believe in karma - what goes around, comes around. It may not be in the most obvious and direct way, but everything you do will eventually come back to you. It's really amazing once you experience it once - at least I felt that a couple of times already. So yeps, that's actually the main reason why I'm taking things much more easily that I did in the before. =D