Monalisa Drawn Using Paint?

It's really amazing that Monalisa can be drawn even with Microsoft Paint.

Hmm, the facial expression is alive and the background looks vivid enough...

Check it out how to do it here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk2sPl_Z7ZU

Home Sweet Home

It's a truly short holiday back home (21-25 June). I didn't do much things, only helping to tend the shop, chatting & eating... Ok, a list of “big incidents" are shown below.

Incident 1 : Dad’s Motorbike Stolen

Date of theft : 22 June 2007
Time of theft : Afternoon, in broad daylight!
Bike owner : Sis & Dad
Bike info : Grand Prize from Lucky Draw (won by sis)
Ownership period : 6 months
Main suspect : Unknown
Cause of theft : Lost motorbike key. Too many customers in the shop. Too busy to notice.
Feeling : A real pity, it’s a nice bike. Thought we could never find it back.
Corrective action : Lodged police report
Result : Bike found after 2 hours @ thief’s home… Amazing!

The next day, read from newspaper that the thief was actually the parking attendant who usually help us to park the bikes. Who would have suspected him? He was known to be a nice & friendly guy. My mum told me he once checked with her the price of a babywalker, for his few-month old daughter. According to the paper, he felt remorseful & stole as he needed money to pay his debt (viz. 2.5 million rupiah, equivalent to S$420) for his wife’s delivery expenses at the hospital. It was a huge amount for a parking attendant who doesn’t earn much in a day. The sad thing is if convicted, he gotta serve a 7-year jail term. Oh my God! Even in countries known for its stringent laws like Singapore, punishment for minor theft is usually a few months jail & a sum of fine. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel angry, but somehow felt sad for him. How his wife & his 6-month old daughter going to cope without him? It’s a real sad story in a society where many people still live below the poverty line.

Incident 2 : A Brief Encounter with The Singapore Police Coast Guard

Date : 25 June 2007
Time : 12.50 pm - 1.00 pm
Ferry taken : Falcon 3
Location of interception : Nearby water off Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal
Reason for interception : Unknown

When the ferry I was taking was intercepted by Coast Guard, I thought there were terrorists hiding inside the ship! Yeah, I had my reason for that. This ferry is the ulu-est out of the 3 ferry operators for Singapore-Tanjung Pinang trip. Anyway, I decided to take this as I didn’t want to wake up too early for my trip back here. Haha, lazy me… Then, after their ship got close to our ferry, a few of them hopped onto our side, checked around & then returned to their ship. Yeah, it’s a false alarm. Hmm, maybe they got a wrong tip-off or maybe just a random routine check. Most importantly, I arrived safely in Singapore.

Incident 3 : Falling Sick (Part of A Series of Unfortunate Events)

Period : 25 June – now
Symptoms : Throat inflammation, sore throat, slight fever, runny nose, tired & heavy eyes
Reason : Ate too much “heaty” or "chilli-ed" food while back home

Under diligent effort by mum & grandma to achieve “Mission Impossible 5 -白白胖胖的华安“, I managed to gain 1 kg in just 5 days. That's the only good thing... But, this is just the beginning of my week-long suffering T__T

In the ferry, I already felt uneasy. It must be the "goodies" that I’ve been consuming "in moderation" for these 5 days. I've eaten You Tiao, Malay Mixed Rice, Nasi Padang, Curry Rice, Chilli Crab, Fried Guo Tiao & miscellaneous fried & spicy stuff. Haiz! (Note: In moderation = compared to previous worst experience)

Imagine coming back on 25 June feeling sick in the evening, went to see doctor with brother late at night in cold heavy rain & have to go for IA medical checkup on 26 June early morning. The checkup was at a 29th floor clinic in Republic Plaza @ Raffles Place. Hmm, I did urine test, blood test, X-Ray, vision test, audiometry, height & weight measurements & consultation with doctor. The entire process took almost 3 hours! I was shivering in cold, having slight fever, waiting helplessly for my queue number to appear & my name to be called. I told the doctor about this. He said it shouldn’t affect the test results. Hopefully everything is ok, because I don’t wanna return again for checkup!

Ok, I shall end here & have a good rest. Just wanna recover a.s.a.p., as I have tons of things to do before IA... Read up some IT books, old poly notes, room clean-up, shop for clothes for IA, etc. Sooooo many things!

God bless!

Outing @ Pulau Ubin (19 June 2007)

Yesterday, 六个人 (me, CS, JY, TK, SZ & RJ aka Ren Jian) went to Pulau Ubin for cycling & sightseeing. It's my 1st trip there. As far as I know, P.Ubin has a kampung feeling, which I verified it to be true after seeing countless trees, some kampung houses & the "burnt rubbish" smell, just like what I had encountered back home when I was young. By the way, thanks to JY for the nice pics taken.

The background is the Pulau Ubin Quarry, with a rather blue-green & clear lake-view. It's beautiful! Finally, I managed to catch a glimpse of water body with non-greenish or non-brownish colour in Singapore!

Me, RJ, TK & CS (left to right)

Me, JY & RJ

The New 三角 Combi (Pls don't beat me!)

Dean & Vice-Dean

Nah, here comes the long-awaited natural wonders...

The Guan Yin Stone (观音石) was spotted about a month ago. Look! The similarity is amazing! Or should I say nature is amazing?

观音石

The Giant Lizard or Small Komodo??

Hmm, saw this creature hurriedly crawling to the bushes while cycling along the road. We didn't see clearly how it looks like. Haha, now caught it in the act! It looks so sianz...

Then, near the end of the cycling marathon, we found The 贞子 Well! Finally! A great opportunity for SZ to take pics. Haha...

RJ jaw-dropped after catching Kawaii 贞子淑铮 in action!

淑铮 & her famous well

After a long search, we finally found the legendary Chek Jawa. I was quite disappointed, as it wasn't as beautiful or as exciting as what was described in books or TV. However, there is this nice Swiss Cottage near Chek Jawa. Haha, not really a wasted trip...

The Swiss Cottage (front view)

The Swiss Cottage (rear view from the bridge)

Modern Sanzo (TK) & his top disciple (CS) @ Chek Jawa

Hahaha, here comes the nominated "Most Kawaii Pic Of The Day - The 1,2,5 Pic". See the nice new bridge behind... An ideal location for a-couple-run-towards-each-other scene or for Titanic pose at the corner! Haha..

Say cheesez!

五个人 looking suspicious

What did TK & CS see? Me looking stunned...

Yeah, the Swiss Cottage is the last stop. It was a nice experience @ P.Ubin. Haven't had such a vigorous workout for so long. Thanks to RJ for being our tour guide & JY for organising this outing!

Arigato gozaimashita!

Introspection

Since I’m so free these few days, I did some self-reflection & decided to make some changes to myself. This mission is called “H-Reengineering Operation 1”. Here's a list of “Top 10 Changes“ which I wanna achieve, not in any order of priority.

1. Be more confident in myself

Used to be confident (poly & working time), thou not obvious. For some unknown reasons, my confidence level dropped after I got into uni.

2. Be more mindful in thinking, listening, speaking & doing things

I can be “blur-like-sotong”, sometimes making mistakes for very-simple tasks! I'll seriously change this. I wanna be a person whom others can depend on, in any kind of situations.

3. Be more humorous, more fluid & less 罗唆 in communicating with other people

Definitely in my high-priority list! I know I appeared very quiet on the surface. Actually I can be talkative de, but also depends on the topic. If I really feel tired, I'd prefer not to talk. Also if I dunno much about a topic, I’d rather not talk about it, so as not to embarrass myself (bcoz of my ignorance) in front of others.

4. Be a person armed with wide general knowledge

It's good to have more topics to talk about with others (other than academic or other serious matters) & not be stereotyped as an “ice-man”, “bookworm” & "blockwood".

5. Be clearer of my direction & purpose in life

Maybe too occupied with trivial things? Sometimes, in the midst of doing sth, I'd stop & ask myself “Hey, why am I doing this thing? What is it for?” It’s a bit weird.

6. Be more pro-active in anything & not passive most of the time

Well, this is the main side effect of my bad communication skills. I once read somewhere that 1st impression of a person is formed within 10 seconds of observation. Non-verbal cues have the most impact. Maybe I don't give good 1st impression on others, so that's why people would feel uncomfortable or weird while talking to me. Yeah, I can really sensed that. When I sensed that people are uncomfortable talking to me, I'd feel uncomfortable too. So as not to make it worse, I'd rather not talk too much. What a stupid thinking!

7. Be wiser, more logical & creative in anything

Sometimes I made stupid decisions. Besides to learn to be more flexible & less stubborn, I must also learn how to talk nonsense, creatively!

8. Be more decisive & have good time management

I can really get carried away by things that I enjoy doing or matters that have troubled me for some time. So I tend to spend too much time on sth, at the expense of other more important things. This is REAL REAL bad habit & I urgently have to change it.

9. Be more adventurous in trying out new things & to experience life

Probably, I'll try more outdoor sports, arts, more travel trips, etc. I wanna learn new languages too, Japanese, Chinese & French!

10. Be a healthier person

I tend to be absorbed while doing things & frequently eating unhealthy food, esp. when I'm busy at work. I also seriously lack exercise!

I wanna clarify sth here, so that I won't be misunderstood next time. Actually the "sianz/dark/gloomy" face that u see is not bcoz I’m sad, angry, arrogant or anything, but really bcoz I'm tired. I dunno what happened to me, I almost always feel tired (esp. my eyes) in the afternoon, regardless of what time I sleep the previous nite.

So the highest priority now is to eat more healthy food, exercise & rest enuff everyday! As the saying goes, Mens sana in corpore sano, i.e. a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Yeah, I know this is going to be a very big project. I’ll put in effort. Hopefully I can be happier & people would be more refreshed with the new me.

Updates on IA Allocation Results

This afternoon was just like any other days. Got a new email & I stared closely & carefully at the screen. What?? Is this for REAL?? I got it!

We have been informed by Pfizer Asia Pacific Pte Ltd that you have been accepted for Industrial Attachment after the interview.

This finally ended my troubled IA adventure. Haha interestingly, this also further proves my hypothesis "Number 3 is my lucky number". I don't really believe in this, but evidences below show otherwise.

J In Sec 2, I got my lowest grade of all times in my report card, in auspicious red colour, due to heavy addiction to video games. The culprit was Mathematics, I got 3 out of max possible grade of 10.

Since then, I 悔过 & managed to salvage it & passed my Maths.

J In high school, I was in 3rd position more frequently than any other positions.

J When I applied for admission to poly, chemical engineering was not my 1st choice. It was my 3rd choice.

J After graduating from poly, it was only until the 3rd interview that I got my 1st full-time job @ SOXAL.

J Only at the 3rd IA selection, after unsuccessful 1st round interview & unsuccessful 1st round allocation, I got my IA placement.

Yeah I know, this is kinda hard to believe. Good thing is that, for the moment, I dun need to think of IA anymore. Just wanna make full use of the remaining holidays.

Anyway, this IA programme is gonna be a challenge to me, as I'll be doing IT jobs (which I'm not very good at) & this also marks the 1st time Pfizer formally offered an internship to NTU CBE students. I'll try my best & I hope I can meet their expectations.

Ganbatte!

Relieved...

Finally finished EM103 exam today. Yesterday also went to Pfizer interview liao... 终于等到这一天了!

About the interview, it was just ok i think. It's the least-tensed interview that I ever had. I told myself, I must smile & cannot be nervous or else I'll screw up again! But, then the interviewers said it wasn't really on process control & developing control graphics & modules, but more on IT-support & troubleshooting kinda tasks (i.e. software/hardware helpdesk). In my heart, I was like "Oooh ok, hmm...". Frankly speaking, I was so enthu to do IA @ Pfizer, as it has been one of my dreamz to work in a pharma company. But this time, I'll be doing non-mainstream job. I hesistated, dunno if I should grab it if offered, since I'll be doing it for 22 weeks! In the end, I decided to just let nature take its own course. If successful, I'll take it else just choose ICES. Hmm, see how bah...

Haha, by the way, last nite or should be today, I wasn't really in study-mood & started MSN-ing from 11+ pm - 2+ am. Chatted with CS, JY, SZ & started reconstructing ATP relationships. Played all sorts of combinations, including pairing up those obviously unworkable pairs, haha... Getting too high while laming & couldn't sleep after that. Decided to read a bit more & I slept @ 4 am & exam @ 9 am! I asked myself, am I mad? It's exam leh! As expected, I woke up late @ 7.50 am, then quickly rushed to sch & scanned notes again... The exam should be ok I think, hopefully..

Now I had plenty of time to think of what I wanna do next during holidays. Erm, dun really like the feeling of doing nothing, as the mind starts wandering around when it's unoccupied. Anyway, it's time to have a good rest...

The Sentimental Adventures of the Heart and Soul

Dunno why, recently I seem to be hit by waves of sentimental emotions. Entire mind filled with memories of the past & present and images of the future. While revising for exam earlier, felt a bit bored & decided to listen to some music. Then saw Ayumi's album. Without much hesitation, I plunged into it. Before even I realised it, the sentimental adventures of the heart & soul began...

Sentimental Adventure 1 [ HEAVEN - (miss)understood ]

The moment I heard the background music, I kind of travelled back in space & time, to my 1st encounter with the song in CS blog. At that time, I have a very special feeling, even thou I didn't understand what the song was about... My heart said "This is the one. The feeling that I'm lookin' for". It brings back so much memories of the past. Only when I saw the lyrics & listened to the song again, I felt the message the song wanted to bring across. Two lovers were unfortunately separated. Even thou one of them was gone, the other felt & yearned for the love to remain by her side. Their unfading love will always be remembered. This is their destiny. Maybe it's the way Ayumi bring the song across, the feel of the entire song is so heartwrenching... T__T

Sentimental Adventure 2 [ JEWEL - Secret ]

Jewel represents of one of man's most-wanted desire, as it is one representation of material wealth. But, can jewel itself represent emotional wealth? Here, the different jewels represent different human desires in this world. Maybe the jewels also represent someone that she misses so much. As she look into the jewel, tears roll down, as feelings sank painfully deep into her heart. If the jewel is able to speak, how she wish it could tell her its sorrow. The precious jewel..

This song somehow gives me a feel of missing someone deeply. Someone that may be long gone, someone who may be in a very far away place. The deep feeling for that person is contained in the jewel. How I wish I could communicate with the jewel...

[ The screenshots for this part are by courtesy of CS ]

Sentimental Adventure 3 [ Momentum - Secret ]

Literarily, momentum means a force that increases the rate of development of a process. The winter season is freezing cold & everyone yearns to be around other people, to get warmth in coldness. Her love is the sole driving force behind her courage to stay on in this cold world. Even when the night comes & she is freezing in the white snow, she recalled the days when they were together & continued to hold on & waiting for time to slowly tick away... It was a miracle that she could continue to survive in this world, despite that he's no longer around...

This song gives me a feel of emotional strength, as great courage is needed to stay on in a lonely & freezing cold world, without the person you wish to be together with. [ Hmm, the above were my interpretation of the lyrics and emotions of the songs. It may not be accurate, but this is how I feel. ]

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Other songs that also bring back much of the past memories include Hanabi, Heartplace, Rainbow, We Wish [ Rainbow ] and I am..., M [ I am... ].

Well, it seems that I'm really too free to write all these things. It's time to let go of these emotions & be more rational. Gotta start mugging for exam again, haiz...

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Release of Exam Results

What an exciting & also tiring day! IA allocation results & exam results released! Just managed to check the latter. So surprised! It's not as bad as I predicted. Really grateful to all the profs who marked so leniently. Most importantly, there is no C, haha... Thank God!

This sem results dropped slightly, but still at the borderline. Overall, managed to increase by a very very minute amount. But it's still an improvement after all & I'm very glad. But seriously, I should specialise in taking all sorts of electives, as I generally do better in electives than core modules. Haiz..

Now I don't want to think too much le.. Just try to learn as much things as possible during IA and give my best.

That's all for today!

Results of IA Allocation

Yeah! Finally I managed to select an IA organisation of my choice! Phew!!

It was a tough time for me, after several attempts of trying to secure an internship.

First Interview : Merck (Unsuccessful)

1st Round of IA Allocation : Unsuccessful

2nd Round of IA Selection : Pfizer (Pending for Acceptance / Waiting for Interview Notice)

Since yesterday, from the moment I learnt that I wasn't allocated any companies after the 1st round, my mind was in a whirl. From 6 June (9 am) - 7 June (9 am), IA-related things kept flying around in my head. "What if this happens? What if that happens? What should I do then?" It was a real trauma. I tried to estimate probabilities of getting various IA programmes, IA companies, etc., until finally came up with a choice, viz. Pfizer, with favourable chance of getting in, where my interests lie & where learning opportunities are abundant. Thanks a lot to JY for her suggestion. It was a smooth choice, walk-over "Fastest Fingers First". Phew! Finally managed to understand the psychology of fellow CBE coursemates...

Hope this is the turning point of my Luck Curve & all other things proceed smoothly. Now, I only hope & can only pray that I can successfully get my IA placement without anymore interview, coz I really dread it. God Bless!

ATP Chalet @ Costa Sands Resort (Pasir Ris)

The 4-5 June were the very special days of this month. It's such a 难得 occasion that all ATP members, together with visiting scholar (Liming), were going to chalet to celebrate Chiu Seng & Tat Kuan's birthdays together. Hmm, I have a lot of things to say, so please bear with me...

The adventure started from NTUC FairPrice @ Pasir Ris MRT Station, where we all shopped to prepare for steamboat "makan-makan session" in the evening. It has been a long long time since the last time I had steamboat with a group of friends. Haha, the shopping process was fun, as it's chaotic to have 八个人 shopping together. Bought a trolley of stuff & Shu Zheng was threatening to deduct Chiu Seng's birthday budget for subsequent years, haha... All these things started bcoz of Liming's constant worry if the food was enuff for 八个人, again. In the end, this 八个人 became buzzword of the day! The fun-loving 八个人 are :

From left to right : Kit Bun, Liming, Zhi Rui, Shu Zheng

From left to right : Jia Yee, Chiu Seng, Tat Kuan and Me

Then from FairPrice, we headed straight to the chalet. After settling down, went to have bicycle-riding session along the Pasir Ris Park. Cycled for almost 2 hours & then went back to chalet to prepare for steamboat, haha! Most of the preparation work was done by 3 个劳苦功高的 chefs, Shu Zheng, Jia Yee & Zhi Rui, while the boys happily sat down watching TV & chatting while waiting for the ingredients to be prepared...

ATP 全家幅

After the steamboat session, the 重点 was on the birthday boyz & the cake! Hmm, CS is 22 & TK turning 23. So we're fretting over how many candles to put for both. Then going by the CBE tradition, i.e. everything must be done in a mathematical way, soooo... we take average! Yah, so it's 22.5 years old, haha!!

Haha, see how happy they were with 2+2+0.5 candles = 22.5 years old!

Then after birthday celebration, the mahjong lab session starts. The lab instructors consisted of KB, CS, TK & SZ and with 3 students, LM, JY & me. The exciting thing was that I won on my 1st attempt, under guidance of KB, hahaha.. But after that, in return for their effort, paid a lot of blue, purple, yellow & red-chip stocks to all the 师傅s...

The 3 师傅s & Liming happily chatting & laughing

Me looking blankly at the mahjong tiles

Poor me trying to make sense of the complicated mahjong theory in the middle of the nite... Must have made the instructors suffer a lot, teaching this clumsy & as-usual-always-blur-and-always-forget-the-rules student.. Haha, but observed 1st-hand the accuracy of "风水位". At 1st SZ kept winning, then the "财神" shifted to CS & he frequently won again... Hmm, next time must use my EM103 know-how to predict the 风水位... Haha, looks like this Suppie is becoming a mahjong-addict!

Nominated Farniest Picture of the Day

"The Fuming Tat Kuan"

Near the completion of mahjong-marathon, the sun slowly rose... Then gradually experiencing a feeling of 舍不得. Why must it end so soon? It's not the mahjong that I'm referring to, but the gathering... Although my eyelids already half-closed n brain also half turned-off (obvious from the photo above), but I'm strongly aware that.... I have such an amazing bunch of very good, sincere, understanding, caring, fun-loving, interesting, thoughtful, humorous friends and the list goes on... A lot of times, I feel that I'm so weird, coz I'm too shy for a person of my age. I'm trying to change this annoyin' thing, hoping more people can accept me. The good thing is that I know I have a good start, since I got to know such a group of precious friends who dun mind my weirdness, willing to accept me, sharing joys & solving difficult problems together... Yeah, I can be very emotional sometimes, especially when I deeply feel about sth...

In short, I'm so fortunate & glad to know u guys. I really had a great time and it was a fun-filled chalet!

Stiff Hands & Fingers - Signs of RSI ?

Earlier on, while trying to write some notes on EM103, found sth shocking! I couldn't hold my pen properly and my fingers were rather stiff & couldn't be moved freely. Somemore, my handwriting has mutated into an "Curlyitalicised" font type. Oh no! What happened??

Then remembered recently Prof Lim (EM103) mentioned about The Blackberry Thumb. It's a type of repetitive strain injury or RSI (a.k.a. cumulative trauma) due to occupational overuse of computer or hand-held devices, which affects muscles, tendons & nerves in the thumb. It occurs when muscles in these areas are kept tense for very long periods of time, due to poor posture and/or repetitive motions.

He said older-generation students did a lot of hand-writing, while new-generation ones mostly use computers & handheld devices. This is one of the reasons why nowadays, students' handwriting are soooo intelligible. Upper management people, e.g. executives, CEOs, Deans are also victims of this medical condition, due to frequently using Blackberry... Haha, I do agree with him on this, except about the bad handwriting.. Hmm, I do know people who use computer a lot but still have very nice handwriting...

For the past week, I've indeed been lazying around, not doing much writing, at most only scribbling. Haiz, I wonder how am I gonna write in the exam with such stiff fingers... Haha, it's ironic that, humans, after going thru so much advancement in technologies, in the end, cannot even properly perform one of the most primitive tasks of writing with a pen. I think this not only applies to this case, but many other cases as well...

Healthy Juices - Healthy Life

Thanks to Weiming, who emailed me this interesting and useful information.

Carrot + Ginger + Apple

(Boost & cleanse our system)

Apple + Cucumber + Celery

(Prevent cancer, reduce cholestrol & improve stomach upset & headache)

Tomato + Carrot + Apple

(Improve skin complexion & bad breath)

Bitter gourd + Apple + Milk

(Avoid bad breath & reduce internal body heat)

Orange + Ginger + Cucumber

(Improve skin texture & moisture & reduce body heat)

Pineapple + Apple + Watermelon

(To dispel excess salts, nourish the bladder and kidney)

Apple + Cucumber + Kiwi

(To improve skin complexion)

Pear + Banana

(To regulate sugar content)

Carrot + Apple + Pear + Mango

(Clear body heat, counteract toxicity, decrease blood pressure & fight oxidization)

Honeydew + Grape + Watermelon + Milk

(Rich in Vitamin C + Vitamin B2 that increase cell activity & strengthen body immunity)

Papaya + Pineapple + Milk

(Rich in vitamins C, E & iron; Improve skin complexion & metabolism)

Banana + Pineapple + Milk

(Rich in vitamins with nutritents & prevent constipation)