brain dead

took a day leave to do my research and to catch up with my readings. and it turned out worst than i had expected. you see, my supervisor had given me a stack of papers to read and to review and i had assumed that they are well coded and categorized... realized today that they are not and i had to go thru the net to search for the soft copies. and after that, it was a case of slowly organising them and sifting out the details... one whole day and i completed less than 6 papers (out of the 14). and i was told i need to try to search for 20 - 30 articles for my assignment. so, it's gonna be a huge task to search for them, code them, summarise them, do the literature review, and then to write up the review of research...

all to be completed by mar 08!

and this is only one of my two modules!

and oh, did i mention that i also need to complete my research proposal and post it by tomorrow for online discussion and to do a presentation in two weeks' time?

arghhhhhhhhhhh!!!

9th & 10th modules

realized that this time round for my 9th and 10th modules, i somehow cannot find the focus to do the readings and the writings! and it is really making me irritated!

atm

went to the atm last evening to draw some cash... pressed my secret pin, pressed the amount i wanted to withdraw, waited for a while, took the card and walked away... and left the machine beeping non-stop... the couple standing behind me had a shocked face... i walked away...

and i wondered why the machine did not stop beeping after i walked away... and next thing i knew, bee bee and my friends shouted at me... apparently, i had drawn my cash, but ended up walking away without removing my cash from the machine.... :-)

no wonder the couple standing behind me looked so shocked!

gay neighbours

interesting that last month, a gay couple moved into my block. their unit is one level above mine and their kitchen looks into mine.

the first indication that i have a gay couple as my neighbour was when i noticed 2 youngish `gay' looking men [ok, ok, call it my gaydar :-)] walking in the kitchen and one of them wore a sports cap. kinda weird to be doing that at home in the evening. anyway, i ignored that first encounter. a couple of days later, i noticed a huge group of perhaps 8-10 gaymen (this one i am dead sure... u don't need gaydar to sense them) walking in and out of the house. i concluded that they were having some sort of housewarming...

from then on, it has been interesting cos once a while, they would look into my kitchen when i am home. and as for me, i will be more aware of their presence. it's like cruising people from your own kitchen! and it was quite a weird feeling :-)

this aside, i am just glad that my neighbourhood has a couple more people like me :-)

fading away

i am not sure why, but somehow i find myself not as bothered nor do i think so much about james these days. perhaps it is a case of me going into my final phase (whatever that means...) of moving on. or perhaps it is a case of me getting pissed off with his coldness towards me. or could it be that i'm accepting that fact that we will never be friends if things go on like this. or perhaps it's just a case of me being so preoccupied with my life at this point in time. whatever the reasons, i am just less bothered about him and i do not think of him so often these days.

but one thing i am sure, he will forever be a very close part of me deep inside. & at this point in time, i am just so glad he is with jack and that they seem happy together :-)

chinese new year

at my age, chinese new year is not something i look forward to... all the housecleaning, all the fuss over that one single day of the year. very energy sapping. and i personally think the whole spirit of chinese new year has been diluted over the years. nowadays it is so bloody commercial, even all the cookies and decorations are sold in bulk everywhere! and things are so expensive too. it's no wonder why so many people prefer to keep things simple and just get away for a short holiday.

as a kid, chinese new year used to be a simple family affair where we would visit relatives and close friends, catch up with each other as well as to reflect on our past year. the making of cookies, kueh kueh, decor and so on used to be a very social affair where family members would come together to make. and the whole process itself would be so warm. and the value of it all lie in the process of preparing for the celebration as a family. i clearly remember how we would gather around the charcoal to roll freshly made love letters, or how we would gather to fill the batter base with cooked sweetened pineapple to make pineapple tarts.

somehow, all these have disappeared and in it's place, everything has become commercialised. it's all in the `instant' culture - instant cookies, instant decor, instant everything! all these, to my view are at the expense of the true spirit of togetherness and bonding...

anyway, this is what things are today. the day will still come. and i will still need to do the necessary preparations and cooking - on my own...

spring cleaning

it is so hard to spring clean when you constantly have dog fur flying around... enough to create a nice `carpety' feel around your house after a few days! well... anyway, think i better start doing some major cleaning... if not the floor, at least wiping the bed frame, washing the curtains, washing the bed sheets, wiping the walls, la la la... once a year affair. painful but necessary (don't ask me why, just necessary)... it's a habit. and to me, a good habit.

superstitions aside (which i don't think i am), the spring cleaning also allows me to get rid of unwanted stuff and consciously sweat the small stuff about cleanliness - at least once a year... it's a hygiene thing :-)

prancing dog

sapphie's eye has recovered and she is back to her usual self! prancing and playing again... very lively :-)

poor dog

sapphie's left eye got worst yesterday. it was so swollen she could hardly keep it open. and there was so much mucus formed around the eye it's rather scary. it was just so lucky that i was on mc too and that allowed me to bring her to the vet. it was interesting to see the vet administer the dye on sapphie's eye to check for lesions. thank goodness, no lesion was discovered and that her eye was ok. she has been given eye drops and anti-histamines to reduce her swelling and itch.

poor dog... :-(

my 301st entry

this is my 301st entry! and it is dedicated to my blog :-) never really appreciate the power of blogging until after sometime of blogging. to be frank, my blog started off as an attempt to maintain an e-diary in fridae in mid-2004. that was also when i was based in the states and was really bored. i needed something to keep me going. and so i started writing. and as i wrote, the habit kicked in and i continued to write more. sometime in mar/apr 2005, after derek was outed by our security office, i deleted all my e-diary entries. i was scared. i was afraid of being called up. but it was no used. little did i know that i was already being monitored as far back as 2004. i was eventually called up, questioned about my sexuality, questioned about my presence in the web and so on and made to sign a commitment to be responsible and so on... anyway, after things got settled after signing the commitment, i started writing again. this time, i was careful not to reveal my identity. eventually, i found fridae too restrictive in terms of the hci as well as the options for me to do up the page (the fonts, the aesthetics, the pictures, etc). also, i was pretty pissed off with fridae for imposing useless and unfair censorship guidelines on their members. i decided to migrate to blogger (blogspot) in 2006. i have stopped posting anything in fridae. decided on blogspot as i thought the interface is rather simple and straight-forward. the initial days were rather tough for i had to manually migrate most of my posts in fridae into blogspot. to ensure authenticity of the postings, i had to ensure the date and time of the postings were adjusted to capture the date and time of the original fridae post. it was not easy but i thought it was important to do so so that i can have an accurate reference point when i read it again sometime in future. i have since continued posting here. blogger has captured many good as well as not so good memories and has accompanied me through many of my life's experiences such as the difficult period with james, the period where i had to balance between su how and james, moving on, coming to terms with my break-off, how i was outed at work, the issues and difficulties i faced following this defining moment at work as well as about my family and friends. i started blogging in order to capture my life experiences. simple reason. this reason has somewhat deepened over the years. for as i blog and as i back-link certain issues to past blog entries, i was able to observe patterns - patterns of moods, patterns of experiences, and so on. and i asked myself why. my reflections led me to have a deeper understanding myself. this process of self-discovery is like finally seeing `what i do not know what i do not know'! this increased self-awareness also allowed me to better manage myself. it is ironic that when i wrote my self-intro, i suggested for readers to read my blog to know me, but in the end, i was the one who actually learned more about myself. and this motivates me to continue blogging :-) that, to me is the power of blogs.

sicko

couldn't really sleep the whole sunday night and was running a fever. yet, i felt cold. managed to drag myself off the bed. took a shower to cool myself down and went to work early yesterday. the feeling was one helluva weird during the drive... somehow something just wasn't right inside me, head spinning, stomach growling,... decided to take 2 painkillers after a quick bite of mee chien kueh, interviewed one of my student and after that i literally collapsed onto my office floor... think i fell asleep for 5 mins... it seemed forever, but i was literally hopeless during that 5 short minutes.

whole body was just too limp and weak and boy was it painful... the kind of day-after-a-super-heavy-gym workout kind of pain coupled with headaches. anyway, managed to do some reading, printed some articles for my assignment and then attended lessons... couldn't take it after lunch, reported sick and was given 2 days mc. suspected food poisoning and symptoms of flu.

nonetheless, i went back to the classroom and stayed till about 4 before giving up...

this, by the way, is my 300th posting in my blog... perhaps, i'll write something about it later :-)

sapphie's swollen eye

sapphie's tick-infestation has certainly been under control after all the medication and the daily picking. also, bought a new vacuum cleaner to vacuum the house. still, i was able to find a couple of them stuck onto her body daily. two days ago, i noticed her pawing (using her paws to scratch) her left eyes furiously. and when i check the fur around her left eye, i found one stuck onto her lower eyelid (the pointed corner near her nose)...

and the poor dog, after all the pawing, now has a swollen and blood shot red left eye :-(

pressure

things are piling up... but i guess the worst has yet to come, judging from the schedule that has been provided. so much to balance between work and studies now. both modules are expecting very high degree of commitments in terms of time and energy. will need to submit one assignment and one proposal of paper next week!

well, but looking on the bright side, time pass very fast... and gee,... it's already mid-jan!

333 days to my leaving the organisation.

... buts of t3

well, my previous post states how super duper solid the new terminal t3 is. of cos, there are some things that one reeeeaally ponders about... and they include:

• why are the car parks not fitted with vacant lots auto-indicators? you know - those green and red lights above the lots... considering the fact that the terminal prides itself to be so so technologically advanced?

• why does one get a very `vivocity-feel' when one enters the basement 2 food-court? and ooohhh, the price of the food are really over-inflated!
  

• what was that propeller structure all about? rotating away quietly...
  

• i also cannot help but noticed those super duper huge toilet signs all over the place! seemed so disproportional in terms of the size and numbers compared to other signages. it's like as though visitors to the airport all has some form of loose bladder controls

• ultimate of it all was - can they not think of better and more creative names for the road? imagine - a road called "t3 arrival drive"! phwoah! how much more uncreative can they get!?

beautiful t3

visited the new terminal couple of days back. amazed with the simplicity of the whole design. yet in the midst of this simplicity lie the complexity of the infrastructure... :-) very well thought through and simply blows one away!

certainly very high wow factor!

photograph taken by sha

patches

so happy to be able to get a soft copy of this song called `patches' from bryan :-) it was such a beautiful but depressing song. as a young teenager i would romanticize the love and felt sad and how the affair ended... but today, as i took a relook at the lyrics, i kinda thought `too bad they didn't have handphones at that time, else, they could have called or sms each other... for that matter, if they had internet, they could have msn/ chat with one another; or even webcam and have cybersex in the privacy of their rooms'

lol! :-)

patches (by lee dickie)
down by the river that flows by the coal yards.
stands wooden houses with shutters torn down
there lives a girl everybody calls patches
patches my darling of old shanty town

we plan to marry when june brought the summer
i couldn't wait to make patches my bride
now i don't see how that ever can happen
my folks say no, and my heart breaks inside

patches oh what can i do
i swear i'll always love you
but a girl from that place would just bring me disgrace
so my folks won't let me love you

each night i cry as i think of that shanty
and pretty patches there watching the door
she doesn't know that i can't come to see her
patches must think that i love her no more

i hear a neighbor telling my father
he said a girl name of patches was found
floating face down in that dirty old river
that flows by the coal yards in old shanty town

patches oh what can i do
i swear i'll always love you
it may not be right but i'll join you tonight
patches i'm coming to you

ticks

sapphie has been infected with ticks in the recent few weeks. and everyday, as i comb through her fur, i would invariably find 4 - 5 ticks (both the soft and the hard type) and somehow i just couldn't get rid of them despite putting on the tick collar and frequently changing her pee spot. yesterday was quite the ultimate when i saw a humongous blood gorge tick clinging onto the living room wall - very still, apparently, full after a good meal!

and today, it was the ultimate of all ultimate possibilities with ticks... i had the greatest and most goose-pimply experience... i was doing my routine of checking her body fur and decided that i should check her nails... when i took her paws and check her nails, i saw no more than 7 - 8 super duper huge ticks between her fingers... and when i tried to pull them out, what i saw was together with each one super huge tick (the soft engorged ones) were another 2 - 3 hard ones - all biting onto the same spot apparently! and one by one, i pulled them out and the whole thing was such a bloody messy affair! i was really lucky that sapphie is really tame and actually stayed still as i pluck the ticks out one by one.

eeeeeeeeeeee...... even typing this makes my hair stand! cleaned her up and quickly made my way to the pet shop. bought the anti-tick medication to spray on her as well as to drop on her back. i hope the extra and intra-body treatment helps!

my poor dog...

good start

been an interesting first 2 weeks for 2008. apart from the commencement of a new course in my college that i am teaching, i have also started 2 new modules in nie. at the same time, i am putting in effort to start my exercise routine and to also attend the career transition programme. what this all mean was that over the last 2 weeks, i have been terribly busy, leaving house at about 6.40am and returning home no earlier than 10-ish almost every evening.

my students comprise a good mix of people whose age range from 31 to 43. it had been an interesting two weeks with them. guiding them through team activities, team building, visioning and so on. over this short period and intense team-building activities, i have observed how their awkward, cold, courteous and rather impersonal interpersonal dynamics (that arises from the differences in their culture and life experiences) transform to one that is more warm and open. lessons proper will start next week onwards and it will be interesting to see how they continue to work and learn with one another and to further their team bonds. it will be an exciting experience to see the bonds develop :-)

for my studies, the two modules are real killers. both require extensive research, analysis as well as paper writing. and that means that the following 13-weeks will probably see me spending a lot more time and perhaps sleepless nights doing my assignments! well, considering these are the last 2 modules before i graduate, i better be a bit more focused and disciplined :-)

i have also officially informed management that i intend to leave my organisation this year. and i am also putting a bit more emphasis to attend networking events and to keep a look out for employment outside my current field of work. if all go well, i will probably ask for early preparation to seek employment outside from june onwards. nonetheless, i am keeping my options open. if i am not able to get a new job by june, i still have the option to staying in my current job till dec this year.

these hectic activities mean that time will pass very quickly, just like it did the past two weeks. it also means that the time available with my parents and bee bee will be affected. i will have to see how i can perhaps do more things with bee bee more often and spent a bit more time at home over the weekends.

2008 has been good and exciting to me so far. 2 weeks down. 50 weeks to go :-) hmmm.... why am i counting down? perhaps i just want this year to quickly pass... 2009's theme will be - a new beginning - by default i guess. and well, i am pretty much looking forward to it!

supplementary card

i had finally called uob to terminate the supplementary gold card i had applied for james - two years after he moved out.

exercising

decided to increase my exercise regime from this month. realized that one's waistline grow faster than one's age after 40! and i am glad i have friends who are fully supportive of this :-) just last evening, lk called me up and suggested heading for a run at east coast. the 4.5 km covered (together with su how) was certainly a very good work out.

of course, my feet hurt like hell after all the run. but i guess the pain will go off after sometime. the feet needs time to get use to this punishment :-) and i am sure this is one of the most effective way to maintain my health and bmi!

for the sake of beauty... eeeeeee, so gay hor? :-) lol.... ok, health too!

9th & 10th

obtained my results last week for my 7th & 8th modules. obtained an `a' and a `b'. well, not too happy nor proud about the `b', but what the heck, considering all the work-school-life demands i had to balance during the last two modules, i guess the grades are justified :-)

will start my 9th module today and my final and last module tomorrow. the coming 3 months will be most demanding for me. but well, it will go, just as it has arrived. bring it on!

:-)

justin

had a most amazing exchange of mails between justin over the past couple of days. through these exchanges, we have probably revealed more about ourselves more than what we covered in the several years we were together during our school days.

and i am truely happy to know that he is happy and contented!

eugene & dan

met up with eugene and dan for tea over the past weekend. pleasant tea and nice time catching up. there was a time when eugene had envied how james and i had got a long well and how he wished he could find a good partner to settle down.

now, he is happily settled down with dan and this year will be their seventh year together. happy for them. and i sincerely wish that they will be happy for many many years to come!

laughter

i cannot recall when was the last time i had a hearty laugh...