making progress...
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 (8:49 PM)
everyone's all so excited about the recent progress package that the government is going to hand out in 2 month's time and announcing the amount they are getting.
staying in a 5-room flat, i am given $600 growth dividend and $100 ns bonus. i was lamenting the fact that if i hadn't shifted to hougang, i would be able to get $800 + $100. it was until i saw shuwei's msn message that i realised i'm getting quite a significant amount already. staying in a condo, she's only awarded $200. not to forget no ns bonus.
someone submitted an article quite some time ago and i think what this person said is quite true. it doesn't mean that your family is more well-off if you stay in a bigger house. because like the case of my family, if we hadn't moved and had stayed in the 3-room flat, we would've completed the payment of the house loan long ago and will have extra cash to spare and still getting $800 growth dividend. now that we are staying in a 5-room flat, we are struggling to keep up the payment of the housing loan and still get lesser.
but it's good enough that we are getting something. so let's not be the typical human being, complaining about everything. be glad at what you are getting. i am glad with mine. thanks to shu. =)
a message from mum
Sunday, March 19, 2006 (10:18 PM)
the following message is from my mum:
大约一个月前，我写了几张鼓励的纸，给几个比较脆弱的人，其实我的感触比他们更深
endlessly scrutinzed scripts and yours-truly
Friday, March 17, 2006 (5:39 PM)
uni life is an endless scrutiny of my scripts and yours-truly, me. perhaps i'll have to change the heading to "a life revolving around endlessly scrutinzed scripts and yours-truly". if possible, i'd choose to bold the letters of essay further. it's constantly essays and reports and essays and reports.
introduction to japanese studies - 1 preliminary outline + 1 group report
modernization of the malays - 1 group report
nature of language - 1 group report
communications and new media - 1 group report
singapore's military history - 1 field trip essay + 1 critique essay
introduction to computing - 1 individual report + 1 preliminary outline + 1 group report
philosophy (reason and persuasion) - 2 papers
out of the 10 modules i take/am taking, 7 of them requires essay writing or report writing. is that the life of arts students? undeniably, yes. i'm getting sick of writing essays. especially as a group because everyone has different modules and we can't meet up that often. basically, i'm just sick of not being able to make many friends due to the kind of system where we no longer have a so-called class. you can be taking the same modules as someone one semester and the next semester, you are probably not going to see him/her again. or you can take one same module and every other break times clashes. but then again, why are people still able to make so many friends?
am i really that unsociable? maybe guang can give me a lesson or two. he's the best in this field. if there's a module that reads:
bs1101e - introduction to being sociable
maybe i should take it up or even do a major in it.
national university of singapore
this is to certify that lim jin han has completed the requirements and obtained a
pass in (hons) bachelor of arts (being sociable)
i don't think i can even manage a 3rd class honours in that field. i can picture guang starting up his business already:
www.beingsociable.com
my metal grandma
Thursday, March 16, 2006 (6:32 PM)
i'm still there everywhere, i'm the dust in the wind, i'm the star in the northern sky...
i just heard those lyrics coming out from my grandma's room. what!? grandma is listening to stratovarius??? i will never believe that but it's a fact that something on tv that she's watching is playing this song. the next thing that came to my mind was, "ah... must be commercial" but!!! it's not possible to catch stratovarius on singapore television. so my next instinct was to run into her room. ah... there's the answer. a korean drama she's watching called 初恋 by 裴勇俊， 车太贤，崔智友 and the likes is using stratovarius' forever in their soundtrack. i just ran into the room again to check if i typed the names correctly. grandma must be wondering why i'm so excited about it now. she's probably thinking i'm interested in korean dramas. for a moment, i thought something new is happening. no one in the house shares my interest for finnish metal and i don't even listen to insane rampaging of the bass drum and bass guitar kind of metal. bands like stratovarius, sonata arctica, iron maiden and such are fine, aren't they? *tag question*
last month, i bought season 2 region 1 dvd of friends at hmv for $93. today, i went to gramophone and the same thing is going at $69.95. damn! i've wasted like $23.05! anyway, they don't have seasons 1-4 in stock now.
speaking of friends, i don't know if it's because of jasmine, but after what she said about not connecting with the school, i realised i am pretty much not connected as well. i travel in the school alone and don't make many friends. jolin also commented, "这样可怜". really? that was why jasmine chose to take part in freshmen orientation projects and many other activities held by the students' union or arts society (whichever) and came to make many friends. me? i'm still attending lectures alone, lunch alone, go library alone, attend tutorials alone. i'm not even that close to some of my group project members.
really? yes really...
paying to see a transsexual
Monday, March 06, 2006 (8:24 PM)
i feel like going overseas, not all of a sudden. most people would suppose it's japan again. yes, no doubt i would like to return to japan some day but for now, i feel like visiting paris and italy. particularly the louvre and vatican city. i'm not sure if it's too much da vinci influence but one thing's for sure, i'm won't turn a bisexual, much less paint a transsexual self-portrait of myself. there's no hard proof that mona lisa is indeed a female version of da vinci himself but there has been speculation about it. one thing i found out reading some book recently that 'da vinci' isn't da vinci's family name. not even his actual name. his name is leonardo, no doubt but, 'da vinci' means 'from vinci', related to a place he was born. anyway, you probably aren't interested to know.
but i really wonder what would i do in paris and italy because how long would it take me to visit louvre and vatican city? at least i know where i can go in japan. anyway, all these are not going to happen anytime soon. anyone game to pay to see the mona lisa with me?
change
Sunday, March 05, 2006 (12:55 AM)
i just met up with close to half the c31d ay2002/2003 classmates at sakura last night. it was quite enjoyable except for the long table that we didn't really get to talk to everyone. almost everyone seems to have changed some way or another. michelle's got a haircut which is so much neater and better. pam's got a nice tan, wendy's got a lizard on her left shoulder, bryan has decided to go back to the books after rejecting nus, and so many other changes.
army has changed my life quite a lot, for better and for worse. i'm still the shitty, crappy me, that's why to people, i may not have changed, but i have. something happened during the oeti training phase of my army life and it's been hanging on to me till now. sometimes i really wonder, if i had the chance to go back to that time again, will i change all that? will i do something to change it? am i willing to go through all that army shit again to change it? i don't really know but all i know is if i had known this would happen, i would've risked my 面子 to prevent it from happening. i don't even know if there's a cure, but just read this for the sake of reading and don't ask questions because there are things that can't be told.
i remember having a conversation with linxi when she was still in australia and she too had some kind of problem that can't be told in detail. just a brief idea of what it's about and it's that same kind of problem for me. i remember during the final stretch of her studies in australia, we would talk on msn almost everyday but we haven't contacted since she came back. i remember details of significant events that happened back in secondary school, but she doesn't seem to remember one bit. not even the idea that something of that sort happened. do i really have incredible memory, or just that i'm not significant enough for people to remember? sorry about side-tracking.
anyway, whenever people ask me about army life, whether i liked it or not, i would always say 'if given a choice, i won't do it but i cannot deny that i have learnt a lot of things from it.' it's the politically correct answer but that's also from the bottom of my heart. but everytime i talk about this, the incident that happened in oeti would always flash in my mind. i get this urge to say it and that i kinda hated army life for that single incident. or maybe if i had opted to go for officer course, things would've been different but i can't say it because of unexplainable reasons. i used to believe that 塞翁失马焉知非福 has been what went on in my life and what will continue to go on. because everytime something that seems bad happen, it always turn out good for me.
when i wanted to go tpjc science and didn't make it, i enrolled for tp and it was because of this that i get to learn japanese language and subsequently met tons of japanese friends. i met some people online and they introduced me to a language school when tp decided to scrap higher level language classes, and then i got to know more and more japanese friends through this school. there are many other examples that i can't really recall at this time of the day but my point is, until now, i can still hardly see what good has come out of the incident at oeti. if the problem can't be fixed, it's going to haunt me for the rest of my life unless something comes around and prove that it is after all still a case of 塞翁失马焉知非福.
this april, i'm going back to army. i just hope nothing worse comes out of it.
when relationship sucks big time
Wednesday, March 01, 2006 (8:58 PM)
i'm not cynical when it comes to love but when i see my friend in such predicament, i wonder why people behave like that. selfish? i don't know but his girlfriend asks him to give up his passion for music or give her up. she probably watched too much idol dramas. for someone like her who has no interest or passion in anything, watching movies, going shopping and she'll be happy. what if one day someone asks her to choose between shopping and my friend? it's the same as the cliche mother-and-lover-fall-into-the-sea-who-would-you-save-first question. it's mean of me to use this word, what's more on a girl, even worse on my friend's girlfriend. but FUCK! this will be one of the rare caps you see here. relationship means compromising and giving in while receiving. it's not about dictating and receiving. if you really want to dictate, go run for election in autocratic countries. don't throw your crap here and don't give me that i-gave-you-an-option shit. what kind of option is this? girlfriend or dream? why can't they co-exist? my friend is not asking for 2 wives. relationship is a wonderful thing but when things wither to such pitiful state, it sucks big time.