it's the night before hari raya tomorrow but i'm stuck here in school in the computer lab still trying to get my essay sound coherent. this sucks.
just now i ran into mehmet, one of the muslim international students here from turkey. he says tomorrow he'll be studying away in his room. that's pretty ultimate.
this year's ramadhan hasn't been the best of ramadhans. i think i can do better next time round. just didn't feel like i've done much. even raya doesn't feel like tomorrow. somehow i don't feel the excitement and the hype surrounding hari raya this year. i don't know why. it doesn't help that raya comes smack in the midst of tests and essay deadlines for many people, yours truly included.
well my mom says raya every year also have, but the chance to sit for your exams etc come only once. haha. very practical reasoning. oh well, its better spending the night of raya away in school struggling to finish essays rather than spending it in the jungles of taiwan 3 years ago.
okay selamat hari raya people.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
attitude
within the short space of 1 week i've been scolded/reprimanded/suan-ned by 3 different lecturers. i realy feel like a student with an attitude problem. maybe i am deep inside. i know in my jc days my form teacher did resort to calling my mum up after i skipped class once. haha.
last week, on monday in tutorial the lecturer, i think upon seeing me sharing notes with another guy, suddenly said out to the whole class that for the forthcoming test we had to bring all our notes, printed out on paper since it was an open-book test. tsk. i kinda looked around and realised i was the only one who didn't bring my notes to class. what an open way to suan me.
then the following wednesday i got reprimanded by the lecturer in lecture for talking with nick. okay that was really my fault, but well it was surprising. i mean the fact that i got reprimanded to that extent. although actually i've always had a history for being told off for talking in class. like countless times i think. from being scotch-taped to the mouth in p4, to jc1 when my teacher said in class - 'muhamad yusri! stop touching tan xing yi!' haha. so embarrasing, in a full lecture some more.
and then earlier on monday, me and fab got reprimanded for apparently laughing at the picture the lecturer screened during lecture. yes we were laughing softly, but for some weird reason or another the lecturer thought we were laughing at his powerpoint. twice he remarked on it in a general statement, but it was obviously directed at us since he kept eyeing us throughout the lecture and right after the moment we laughed he immediately reprimanded us. tsk. we weren't even laughing at the pictures he screened.
so 3 times within a week i got scolded/reprimanded etc. i'm showing streaks of a student with attitude i think.
okay that's all.
last week, on monday in tutorial the lecturer, i think upon seeing me sharing notes with another guy, suddenly said out to the whole class that for the forthcoming test we had to bring all our notes, printed out on paper since it was an open-book test. tsk. i kinda looked around and realised i was the only one who didn't bring my notes to class. what an open way to suan me.
then the following wednesday i got reprimanded by the lecturer in lecture for talking with nick. okay that was really my fault, but well it was surprising. i mean the fact that i got reprimanded to that extent. although actually i've always had a history for being told off for talking in class. like countless times i think. from being scotch-taped to the mouth in p4, to jc1 when my teacher said in class - 'muhamad yusri! stop touching tan xing yi!' haha. so embarrasing, in a full lecture some more.
and then earlier on monday, me and fab got reprimanded for apparently laughing at the picture the lecturer screened during lecture. yes we were laughing softly, but for some weird reason or another the lecturer thought we were laughing at his powerpoint. twice he remarked on it in a general statement, but it was obviously directed at us since he kept eyeing us throughout the lecture and right after the moment we laughed he immediately reprimanded us. tsk. we weren't even laughing at the pictures he screened.
so 3 times within a week i got scolded/reprimanded etc. i'm showing streaks of a student with attitude i think.
okay that's all.
Monday, September 08, 2008
birthday
i turned 22 yesterday.
today i shall blog about my birthday. maybe i've talked about it before but it's okay i shall just repeat.
birthdays in my family have never been an occasion to celebrate. it's really one of those standout points of my familial culture. birthdays pass like they never exist. it's not like we forget each others birthday, it's just that we don't celebrate. so at most i'll get the occasional kiss from my mom or hearing my sis saying 'wah nari birthday seh!' haha.
which is enough for me really. i don't really know why we don't celebrate birthdays, but i think it's tied to this other point - we don't eat out. very very rare, if ever. so no going out to eat, hence no going out to celebrate. even at home, i can only recall my sis' birthday being celebrated only once with a cake (when she was 6 i think?). the cake had strawberries on top, and if i remember correctly it was a mango cake. or something like that. the only birthday cake i had was when i was 4, and although i'm not quite sure who bought it, all i remember is it was a chocolate cake with strawberries on top, and we had it at my grandparents' place. since i was 4 then, there was only my elder cousin and my sis who was just born months earlier, and my mom and maybe my aunts, so it was quite a low-key affair. my next birthday cake was when i was 18 - a hello kitty cake, shared between me, fab and jj in a combined birthday celebration at pizza hut after our maths prelims exams. why hello kitty, i asked my classmates. oh, we couldn't get dear daniel, so we had to settle for hello kitty. right. i still have the photos of them up on friendster amazingly. haha.
the fact that i can remember my cake had strawberries on top of it almost 2 decades ago probably sums it all up.
hardly anything exciting happens on my birthday. in 2004 i went to school to study, in 2005 i was in camp doing running in the morning. in 2006 i spent it fixing some hardware up for my pc. i can't even remember what happened on my birthdays when i was in primary school or secondary school. it didn't help that my birthday always fell in the september holidays. haha. so last year was really weird in having to come to school for lessons on my birthday.
in any case don't take me wrongly - it's not that i'm lamenting that my birthday doesn't get recognised/acknowledged/celebrated. it's really fine with me. i know nowadays people interprete having birthdays to honour themselves in a way. out of the 365 days in a year, the birthday then becomes a day for people to rejoice and be happy for themselves and having the people that they love around them. it's perfectly normal.
in my case, mum and dad grew up in tough times, and celebrating birthdays are probably the last thing on their minds while they were growing up. i suppose that mindset still carries through to today. being as practical as they are i would really understand if they never celebrated anyone's birthdays in the family. even my sister has never grumbled or anything on this point. i accept this as the culture of my family which would really deviate much from the typical familial discourse of contemporary singaporean families. haha. so i'm fine with that no worries. and i'm sure there are people who have similar familial cultures too, and i'm sure they don't feel the least disturbed about it. of course in the event i have children in the future, i shan't impose such a culture on them - since kids nowadays seem to be born naturally as spoilt brats.
last year i had my primary school friends celebrate for me at amirah's grill. it was fun. a small mini-party of sorts. i appreciated that since i've never had any birthday dinner of any kind before. very sweet of them, especially nurul rather, to have organised such a thing. we played peribahasa charades and taboo. haha. very fun.
what about this year? as always i woke up on my birthday feeling normal, like the day was just another day. i went to school to study actually, since i knew i wouldn't do anything productive at home anyway. after studying for quite a while then i went to choa chu kang. a dinner with izy and iza. well, not exactly correct.
we made our way to cck park, and wow i was surprised and amazed at the turnout. a surprise guestlist was already waiting! for a fact i knew more people were invited, but the turnout was unexpected really. i probably can't act being shocked well, but in my heart i was telling myself wow, these people actually bother to come from afar to come and eat. i'm touched really at the turnout. so far the biggest number of people i've somewhat celebrated my birthday with. at least the food was great, and so was the company. can't really say the same for the presents, but well - i shouldn't complain should i? haha. thanks anyway. the gifts that they gave centred upon the theme of bottles, so now i have bottles of all sorts and sizes just occupying the already-packed fridge, and they are also lying around in the kitchen. haha.
in anyway thank you very much people for coming down. even though the dinner did not last long, i'm touched and amazed by the fact that the turnout was really good, and many bothered to set aside time to come from afar and be there last night. and a special thanks to my dearest who organised the dinner for me! thankyou for the cupcakes too dear! (amazingly they have strawberries on top too) oh and her friends too - funnyfriend, onion and whatever-her-name-is - for the card. thanks to all of you who also gave me gifts and cards, and thank you very much too to all those who smsed, msned, or even facebked me well wishes. really alot of people wished me well this year. haha. a far cry from those days of the jahiliah era. haha.
on another note i think my lecturer was sindir-ing me abit in class just now. tsk.
today i shall blog about my birthday. maybe i've talked about it before but it's okay i shall just repeat.
birthdays in my family have never been an occasion to celebrate. it's really one of those standout points of my familial culture. birthdays pass like they never exist. it's not like we forget each others birthday, it's just that we don't celebrate. so at most i'll get the occasional kiss from my mom or hearing my sis saying 'wah nari birthday seh!' haha.
which is enough for me really. i don't really know why we don't celebrate birthdays, but i think it's tied to this other point - we don't eat out. very very rare, if ever. so no going out to eat, hence no going out to celebrate. even at home, i can only recall my sis' birthday being celebrated only once with a cake (when she was 6 i think?). the cake had strawberries on top, and if i remember correctly it was a mango cake. or something like that. the only birthday cake i had was when i was 4, and although i'm not quite sure who bought it, all i remember is it was a chocolate cake with strawberries on top, and we had it at my grandparents' place. since i was 4 then, there was only my elder cousin and my sis who was just born months earlier, and my mom and maybe my aunts, so it was quite a low-key affair. my next birthday cake was when i was 18 - a hello kitty cake, shared between me, fab and jj in a combined birthday celebration at pizza hut after our maths prelims exams. why hello kitty, i asked my classmates. oh, we couldn't get dear daniel, so we had to settle for hello kitty. right. i still have the photos of them up on friendster amazingly. haha.
the fact that i can remember my cake had strawberries on top of it almost 2 decades ago probably sums it all up.
hardly anything exciting happens on my birthday. in 2004 i went to school to study, in 2005 i was in camp doing running in the morning. in 2006 i spent it fixing some hardware up for my pc. i can't even remember what happened on my birthdays when i was in primary school or secondary school. it didn't help that my birthday always fell in the september holidays. haha. so last year was really weird in having to come to school for lessons on my birthday.
in any case don't take me wrongly - it's not that i'm lamenting that my birthday doesn't get recognised/acknowledged/celebrated. it's really fine with me. i know nowadays people interprete having birthdays to honour themselves in a way. out of the 365 days in a year, the birthday then becomes a day for people to rejoice and be happy for themselves and having the people that they love around them. it's perfectly normal.
in my case, mum and dad grew up in tough times, and celebrating birthdays are probably the last thing on their minds while they were growing up. i suppose that mindset still carries through to today. being as practical as they are i would really understand if they never celebrated anyone's birthdays in the family. even my sister has never grumbled or anything on this point. i accept this as the culture of my family which would really deviate much from the typical familial discourse of contemporary singaporean families. haha. so i'm fine with that no worries. and i'm sure there are people who have similar familial cultures too, and i'm sure they don't feel the least disturbed about it. of course in the event i have children in the future, i shan't impose such a culture on them - since kids nowadays seem to be born naturally as spoilt brats.
last year i had my primary school friends celebrate for me at amirah's grill. it was fun. a small mini-party of sorts. i appreciated that since i've never had any birthday dinner of any kind before. very sweet of them, especially nurul rather, to have organised such a thing. we played peribahasa charades and taboo. haha. very fun.
what about this year? as always i woke up on my birthday feeling normal, like the day was just another day. i went to school to study actually, since i knew i wouldn't do anything productive at home anyway. after studying for quite a while then i went to choa chu kang. a dinner with izy and iza. well, not exactly correct.
we made our way to cck park, and wow i was surprised and amazed at the turnout. a surprise guestlist was already waiting! for a fact i knew more people were invited, but the turnout was unexpected really. i probably can't act being shocked well, but in my heart i was telling myself wow, these people actually bother to come from afar to come and eat. i'm touched really at the turnout. so far the biggest number of people i've somewhat celebrated my birthday with. at least the food was great, and so was the company. can't really say the same for the presents, but well - i shouldn't complain should i? haha. thanks anyway. the gifts that they gave centred upon the theme of bottles, so now i have bottles of all sorts and sizes just occupying the already-packed fridge, and they are also lying around in the kitchen. haha.
in anyway thank you very much people for coming down. even though the dinner did not last long, i'm touched and amazed by the fact that the turnout was really good, and many bothered to set aside time to come from afar and be there last night. and a special thanks to my dearest who organised the dinner for me! thankyou for the cupcakes too dear! (amazingly they have strawberries on top too) oh and her friends too - funnyfriend, onion and whatever-her-name-is - for the card. thanks to all of you who also gave me gifts and cards, and thank you very much too to all those who smsed, msned, or even facebked me well wishes. really alot of people wished me well this year. haha. a far cry from those days of the jahiliah era. haha.
on another note i think my lecturer was sindir-ing me abit in class just now. tsk.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
smrt
the past 2 weeks or so have been spent doing some things that i haven't done before.
last last sunday was spent running in the early morning in the safra bay run/army half marathon. okay well, granted that i actually signed up for the non-competitive 6km route. haha. i ran with hadi and liz. more of jogged rather. hadi fetched us and by 8.40 we were off (missed the flag-off by 10 minutes but no worries). eventually we did catch up with the main body that ran off at 8.30am anyway. 2 years ago i ran the 10km non-competitive one with my bmt colleagues, but this time i'm back as a civilian! haha. oh and i saw my old encik at one of the water points, and i purposely ran past the water point to avoid him seeing me. haha. during the race too i saw moms pushing prams with their children inside, and i wondered at the pace they were walkig at they were going to take forever to finish. because it rained in the wee hours of the morning, it was really cold and damp in the day, and what was worse was that the padang turned into a mudpool. many resorted to walking barefooted on it. well we managed to get the goodie bags and take as many free 100plus cans as we could. haha. luckily hadi drove, so we could change and dump ur stuff inside his car. haha. after drying up we were off to tanjng pagar railway station!
i suggested lunching there because i've been told the food there is nice but i've never had the chance to eat there. 1 problem is i've only been there once, like more than a decade ago, and that was just alighting from the train from kl and then heading home. and secondly, the railway station is really out of the way for me, and i've no particular reason to be there or anywhere near that area. well in any case the food is quite nice. should go there again sometime. the murtabak i had was really something, and the food my friends bought were quite nice too. so i spent the whole sunday morning doing 2 things that i've never really done before on a regular basis - run on sunday morning with friends, and eat at the tanjong pagar railway station. something i should really do more often (the first one see how, but the second one shouldn't be much of a problem. haha.)
last friday i went to comex and got myself an external hard disk drive from western digital. i think it's got a sleek look, and for 250gb i got it at 109bucks. an okay price for me i guess. far cry from the days when an 80gb external hard disk costed 179 bucks. now they sell 1000gb (or rather, 1 terabyte) at 199bucks! freak! i got my thumbdrive last year at 19.90 for 1gb,and now 1gb can cost you $5 only. tsk. even the cost of printers have gone down. haha. i met up with fahmi for a while and walked around comex to see other deals. like a telescope for 40 bucks that was being sold. haha. we didn't think a telescope could ever be that cheap. oh and i got to see the iphone. i didn't play with it but i just saw fahmi play around with it for a while. looks cool but abit too pricey, even the singtel plans that come with it.
last sunday was spent taking part in the smrt challenge! haha. a chance to win 2K cash was up for grabs, so me, firdous, rahman and juliana signed up as a team! initially we were put on the reserve list but on wednesday they emailed me saying we were taking part. so yup. again on sunday i had to wake up early (even earlier in fact this time round, at 5.30am!) and make my way down to toa payoh. other friends also took part in this, like hanan who teamed up with his family; iza, fahmi, fadhli and nadia formed a team; haekal was with his girlfriend and her friends; there was aisyah and her family too and hazirah and maryam with their friends. haha. well the whole thing was quite fun, even if there were alot of lame parts. haha. well the thing is it's a great way to spend with friends to escape the monotony of everyday life. running around and doing lame challenges on sunday morning was at least something different to do. after the challenge ended (came in too late to be in any prize-winning positions haha) we just hung around in the hope of winning lucky draw prizes but to no avail. after the whole thing i joined the gang in bowling, but actually we never really managed to find a bowling alley after going 3 places. so we just did what malays excel best in - just sitting around and talking nonsense. haha..
today was spent doing something i've never done before - shop in chinatown. haha. well not exactly in chinatown though. today i slept like pig and only woke up at 2pm. by 3pm we were out driving down to people's park complex (or centre) to shop at og. apparently my aunt isn't sure of the way so my mom asked me to drive. i don't really enjoy driving to the cbd at this kind of hours because of the jams, and in any case the way home was horrible, because it was really pouring and the peak hour jams were quite nasty. at least at og i managed to get myself a shirt and 2 belts so it's still okay. i've never really gone shopping at og, with my mom and aunt at that. og isn't really the kind of place youngsters would really go to shop at, and furthermore, we were in the heart of chinatown. haha. i hardly saw any malays, in fact i think i only saw one. and of course alot of aunties. haha. and now i'm thinking that i should have gotten that portable dvd drive from comex for my lappie, now that my pc is down and out for some time i reckon. but i suppose that's gotta wait. haha.
so now the fasting month has started, but even after 2 days i don't feel the atmosphere or the feeling. what kind of atmosphere or feeling actually, i can't describe properly in words, but i just can't feel it yet. in any case it's good, because obviously one can save pocket money during fasting month and still look forward to getting even more money during hari raya. haha. oh and the progress package due in october. that's quite lot of cash due. *rubs hands in glee*....
okay that's all.
last last sunday was spent running in the early morning in the safra bay run/army half marathon. okay well, granted that i actually signed up for the non-competitive 6km route. haha. i ran with hadi and liz. more of jogged rather. hadi fetched us and by 8.40 we were off (missed the flag-off by 10 minutes but no worries). eventually we did catch up with the main body that ran off at 8.30am anyway. 2 years ago i ran the 10km non-competitive one with my bmt colleagues, but this time i'm back as a civilian! haha. oh and i saw my old encik at one of the water points, and i purposely ran past the water point to avoid him seeing me. haha. during the race too i saw moms pushing prams with their children inside, and i wondered at the pace they were walkig at they were going to take forever to finish. because it rained in the wee hours of the morning, it was really cold and damp in the day, and what was worse was that the padang turned into a mudpool. many resorted to walking barefooted on it. well we managed to get the goodie bags and take as many free 100plus cans as we could. haha. luckily hadi drove, so we could change and dump ur stuff inside his car. haha. after drying up we were off to tanjng pagar railway station!
i suggested lunching there because i've been told the food there is nice but i've never had the chance to eat there. 1 problem is i've only been there once, like more than a decade ago, and that was just alighting from the train from kl and then heading home. and secondly, the railway station is really out of the way for me, and i've no particular reason to be there or anywhere near that area. well in any case the food is quite nice. should go there again sometime. the murtabak i had was really something, and the food my friends bought were quite nice too. so i spent the whole sunday morning doing 2 things that i've never really done before on a regular basis - run on sunday morning with friends, and eat at the tanjong pagar railway station. something i should really do more often (the first one see how, but the second one shouldn't be much of a problem. haha.)
last friday i went to comex and got myself an external hard disk drive from western digital. i think it's got a sleek look, and for 250gb i got it at 109bucks. an okay price for me i guess. far cry from the days when an 80gb external hard disk costed 179 bucks. now they sell 1000gb (or rather, 1 terabyte) at 199bucks! freak! i got my thumbdrive last year at 19.90 for 1gb,and now 1gb can cost you $5 only. tsk. even the cost of printers have gone down. haha. i met up with fahmi for a while and walked around comex to see other deals. like a telescope for 40 bucks that was being sold. haha. we didn't think a telescope could ever be that cheap. oh and i got to see the iphone. i didn't play with it but i just saw fahmi play around with it for a while. looks cool but abit too pricey, even the singtel plans that come with it.
last sunday was spent taking part in the smrt challenge! haha. a chance to win 2K cash was up for grabs, so me, firdous, rahman and juliana signed up as a team! initially we were put on the reserve list but on wednesday they emailed me saying we were taking part. so yup. again on sunday i had to wake up early (even earlier in fact this time round, at 5.30am!) and make my way down to toa payoh. other friends also took part in this, like hanan who teamed up with his family; iza, fahmi, fadhli and nadia formed a team; haekal was with his girlfriend and her friends; there was aisyah and her family too and hazirah and maryam with their friends. haha. well the whole thing was quite fun, even if there were alot of lame parts. haha. well the thing is it's a great way to spend with friends to escape the monotony of everyday life. running around and doing lame challenges on sunday morning was at least something different to do. after the challenge ended (came in too late to be in any prize-winning positions haha) we just hung around in the hope of winning lucky draw prizes but to no avail. after the whole thing i joined the gang in bowling, but actually we never really managed to find a bowling alley after going 3 places. so we just did what malays excel best in - just sitting around and talking nonsense. haha..
today was spent doing something i've never done before - shop in chinatown. haha. well not exactly in chinatown though. today i slept like pig and only woke up at 2pm. by 3pm we were out driving down to people's park complex (or centre) to shop at og. apparently my aunt isn't sure of the way so my mom asked me to drive. i don't really enjoy driving to the cbd at this kind of hours because of the jams, and in any case the way home was horrible, because it was really pouring and the peak hour jams were quite nasty. at least at og i managed to get myself a shirt and 2 belts so it's still okay. i've never really gone shopping at og, with my mom and aunt at that. og isn't really the kind of place youngsters would really go to shop at, and furthermore, we were in the heart of chinatown. haha. i hardly saw any malays, in fact i think i only saw one. and of course alot of aunties. haha. and now i'm thinking that i should have gotten that portable dvd drive from comex for my lappie, now that my pc is down and out for some time i reckon. but i suppose that's gotta wait. haha.
so now the fasting month has started, but even after 2 days i don't feel the atmosphere or the feeling. what kind of atmosphere or feeling actually, i can't describe properly in words, but i just can't feel it yet. in any case it's good, because obviously one can save pocket money during fasting month and still look forward to getting even more money during hari raya. haha. oh and the progress package due in october. that's quite lot of cash due. *rubs hands in glee*....
okay that's all.
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