There was a technical glitch at the library@orchard closing ceremony when they were loading the tribute to bloggers video and for some reason, I was called up for a short interview on stage. Of course, what I’d have wanted to say was:

Thank you. I’d like to thank the library for giving me this opportunity and thank God for giving me the courage. I’d like to thank my friends who helped out in the casting and production - Alice Edmund and Xinhui who are here, Ridzuan, Tianhong and Yip Leng who are not present today. Thank you all for making this a great moment. This award goes out all to you!

Of course, that didn’t happen and I was made to answer some questions about how nerve-wracking it was to interview people for the first time and how heart-wrenching it was to see people feeling sad and missing the library.

Still, it was quite a good experience - because for the first time in years, I had no less than 6 cameras clicking away in front me me during the interview on stage. Oh well, too bad, no golden globe award for my amateurish video. =P

It’s been a long and memorable journey since the library@orchard opened in 1999. For the past 8 years, I grew up with the library, and I am really sad to see it go today.

There is a closing ceremony for the library@orchard today and I made a special video for it. As with Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and that includes the music video not playing, or the screen going blank, or out-of-sync movements in the video. You know? Anything really can go wrong.

3:00pm Managed to reach the library in time to check out the music video with Jillian. Made some last minute changes to the music video so that people will not have seasickness while watching the music video. =P

I basically reduced the number of frames and have lengthened each frame so that there will be less transitions. The result? You won’t go giddy after staring at the screen for too long. =P

3:30pm Woohoo! Final touch up is done. Time to save it… erm… 11 minutes? Ok…

3:45pm Yes! It’s done! Eh? How come credits out of screen? Hmm…. cham… but looks very artistic! Haha… Hmmm… let me try to figure this out…

4:00pm Aiyah! Silly me! I saved it with 16:9 aspect ratio. See lah! Too greedy for HD quality video. =P Must watch out to save it with the correct aspect ratio. Well, at least now I have something for wide-screens! Heh heh… Ok better save video.

4:30pm Hmm… looks good! Woohoo! Done! Heh heh…

4:45pm Going out to look at the playback on the big screen. Keeping my fingers crossed. Heh heh… argh. ldkgvdhnile4/535$^%^G#$BBtynrstvyrt …. Sorry, fingers entangled. =S

5:00pm Yes! Success! Woohoo! Heh heh… time to eat something light. Hmm… had been feeling rather hungry quite easily these days. Hmm. Did I mention that there is food? Heh heh. Had some samosa, sotong rings, fish, tempura… yup yup. More pictures later, ok? =)

5:30pm Argh again! Forgot to upload to youtube! What was I thinking of? Auto upload? Hmm…

5:32pm Seems like it’s going to take ages. =( Got express ways of uploading videos? Hmm…

5:45pm Yes! The video is uploaded here!

6:00pm Overhead… the PM’s here? huh? Okay… better go out and see what the commotion is all about. =P

6:23pm Heh… no PMs around. If he were here, I bet security would have been tighter! Haha… I was entertained by a magician just now. He’s Jeremy, who is with RiTZ Events Asia and he had been performing magic professionally for the past 10 years. He got his skills from his father, who also performed magic professionally. I will upload some videos here soon. =)

Photos anyone? Yup… later too! Haha.. sorry la, one woman show here.

6:36pm Computer trojan/virus/malware detected! Oops! Hope the presentation laptop guy didn’t install the trojan =(

6:50pm Xinhui is here! Whoopie! Okie… more fruit dessert helpings. Yum yum! Hmm… they are also having a jazz band outside. Ridzuan just asked me for the lyrics for the music video. I guess Lenniez just got a new fan! Haha… her music is really good. I hope she will go far with her songs.

7:00pm Guess what? Chin and SO and Yuhui are here too! Haha… big crowd today. Come’on down if you are somewhere near? It’s at the 5th floor of Ngee Ann City. Nice crowd, good food, good music

8:15pm Oh! They played my video! Sigh… so sad to see the music video. =( hmm… going to cry le.

8:20pm Oops! technical glitch for the tribute to bloggers =P hmm… guess what? I got called in to be interviewed on stage on the spot!!! Argh! So unprepared. Oh well, thankfully I was a little composed =P They asked about what inspired me to do the music video, the people involved, the challenges of interviewing people in the library and all… hmm… and there were cameras! so many of them! *faint faint*

8:55pm oh, the library will be closing in 5 minutes’ time! and everyone was ushered out! oh… out out out…

9:00pm my bag!!!! my stuffs! they are still inside the library! argh…

9:15pm oh.. thank goodness there is backdoor =P hehe… okie. knocking off le. more updates later

Hehe.. heading to Sitex now. I quite dread going for shows that are all the way to the east in that… it favours only to the Easterners (while some may prefer it, for various other reasons); and it’s so far (I am a Westerner now).

Target for this show would be the Nikon D40/D40x, depending on which will burn less of my pocket, and which is better. I am hoping for the D40x to be sub-1000, although I am quite sure that that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. So, if I have to get a D40, then it’d better be really cheap or be filled with freebies. Greedy? Not really, because if it’s the same price, I can get it any other day.

The next thing on the list is a decent Nokia handphone that can store more than 500 contacts. For some weird reasons, none of the Nokia phones that I have used can store more than 500 contacts. Alright, for the record, I have about 758 contacts now… and still counting. Do I keep in touch with all of them? Well… most of them, I’d say.

Yup. That’s all for now. I had been contemplating about getting a replacement colour laser, but since the prices had been quite stagnant since 2 years ago, I think I’d just wait out. I might get a decently fast monochrome laser though. For this, I prefer HP LaserJets. The reason being HP provides a full toner while most others provide half-filled toners, commonly marketed as “starter kits”. Most people do not know what “starter kit” for a laserjet really means, well, for the uninitiated, it means 1/2 fill toners - and they are usually, not always, but usually not cheap to get.

That’s about it for this visit. I have my recorders, monitors, a rather barely decent tablet that crashes everyday, a pretty good digital camera (that could be better, but I’d save up for that another time). All I need to do now is to wait to replace my tablet that crashes everyday. The Fujitsu U1010 seems rather good, but can only last for 85 minutes. Not much use, aye?

I’d be down from surgery later today (depending on what time your read this), which may see delayed updates in my blog. Still the first thing that comes to my mind when I learn that I have to go for surgery is, “Can I still blog?”.

Haha… welcome to the life of an addict blogger. I’d probably be non-active for a grand total of 4 hours, following which, I’d still update relatively regularly. =P And oh, it’s nothing major, just a dental surgery, and it’s not the wise ones.

My condolences goes out to the 5 paddlers who drowned after the race in Cambodia. This isn’t another of those “I-don’t-know-them-so-I-won’t-care-less” kind of situation because (i) they were friends of my friend and (ii) this was an accident that could potentially have been avoided.

I won’t like to talk about things on hindsight because it is usually very sad when I have to do that. The natural question would have been on why the use of life jackets was abandoned. However, I can almost put myself in the shoes because there is a chance that I would have done the same. I won’t call it peer pressure, but rather, if you were from a dragon boat team, you would understand the cohesiveness (and perhaps, to a certain extend, the competitiveness to win) of a team. When something is decided upon, the whole team stands with it.

For this team spirit, I applaud them. No, I don’t mean that abandoning the life jacket was a good idea, but I applaud them for their unity. It’s sad that this had to happen, and from a governance point of view, investigations would probably have to do into why this was not discovered earlier. But hey, if you were ever in competitive sports like this, where donning of life jackets are not compulsory, then it really depends on the team to make a decision call.

While I stand by their decision, I mourn for them at the same time. To them, thank you for fighting to do the nation proud. We will remember you.

Hehe… no marks for guessing it correctly! =)

Do you know who this is? Answer below:

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I whipped out a camera and recorded it. There’s nothing else that I could have done, but I felt so ashamed. What has blogging done to me? =(

Went back to “office” again today in the evening and was greeted with a new face behind the counter.

“This is Jason, our new partner”, said a familiar face.

Apparently, Jason just joined Starbucks and is getting familiar with the environment. I placed my usual order of Tazo Chai Tea Latte, more foam, less milk, 4 pumps of Chai, which will probably get him confused should I order from him one day without his mentor around. Soon after, another staff presented a cup of warm water to me and that apparently got him confused.

“Why did they give her a cup of warm water?”, Jason asked his mentor, and she told him that I was their regular customer. Haha… apparently the entire usual team is behind the counter today and almost all recognised me.

Oh well, I guess I am all too comfortable being in a place where everyone knows me. I wonder how it’d be like if they were to change the entire crew one fine day. Hmm…

I once spoke to a Malaysian Malay who told me that the Malays in his country are actually not lazy, but rather, they believe that the land was given to them (I think he mentioned that it was by Allah, but I am not sure) and that they do not need to work very hard, but instead will be able to harvest the crops that’s provided for them.

From him, I found out a few things:

• that the Malays were thought to be lazy
• that this supposedly resulted in Malaysia being not as economically competitive as its neighbour - Singapore
• that when Malaysian Malays come to Singapore, they start to work very hard and be very competitive

To me, it was something very new, partly because I have never considered Malaysian Malays to be lazy. I have always thought that because the country is big and that they have natural resource, they thus do not need to slog hard as Singaporeans, where the country is deprived of all other natural resources.

However, I came across this statement by someone who posted on RedCafe.net:

We’ve been put in our place by Singapore for years, simply because the Singaporean government know exactly what it takes to survive. The Malaysian government on the other hand, is interested in 2 things (i) how to enrich themselves at the country’s expense, and (ii) how to dispense patronage and exert influence to enrich their friends and relatives at the country’s expense.

We’ve turned into a country of lazy, stupid people who go to the government for handouts, which will run out pretty soon. It’s very sad for the minority who genuinely want to survive on their own two feet with a decent standard of living in 20 years time. I think in about 30 or so years, we’ll be in the same situation as Bangladesh and the Philippines are now - exporting our skilled labour to fill unskilled jobs, because the relative difference in wealth will be so great.

I’m not sure if the author of this post is a Malay, but even he/she also slams her own country on their supposed laziness. To further quote from my Malay friend, are people really meant to work this hard? Or are Malaysians really lazy?

For this, a Christian friend of mine shared his views - that everything that Christians have is provided by Jehovah Jireh - the Lord will provide. He believed that the moment he has to work extremely hard (read: long hours, no rest, etc), it is a sign from God that he has to move on (to another job) because God never meant for his children to slog.

True enough, he changed from Company A to Company B then to Company C before going to Company D, where it got bought over and he took a break looking for a Company E before he eventually went back to Company A - with an overall pay increment!

If I were to take him as an example, then I would really believe that God does provide because he seemed to readily find a job every time. However, I am quite a pragmatic and realistic person where work is concerned because I don’t think my future boss will pay me if I just work in a mediocre fashion.

Perhaps it’s because this is Uniquely Singapore and not Israel? Hmm…

Today reminded me of the first day going to STC - not being able to sleep the previous night, waking up very blur in the morning, getting dressed up and ready for work on the first day and not knowing what to expect. All these seemed to familiar. Not to mention having butterflies in the tummy and not being able to even eat 1/2 your breakfast.

Well, all’s so familiar except that I am not going to STC. Today’s my first day at NYP - where a whole beginning starts. I am supposed to report to the student’s office, but I guess I’m a tad too early. So, what’s the next best thing to do? Blog. =P It’s an occupational hazard - if blogging is considered an occupation in the first place.

The trip to the nearest convenient MRT station turned out to be faster than expected - a mere 10 minutes bus ride, but that’s considering that it is holiday period now and that the bus came rather quickly (not that it had anything to do with the duration of the trip but it does make the wait seem shorter).

The train came rather just 2 minutes after I alighted from the bus, and I eventually reach YCK Station in just about 13 minutes. Couple this with a brisk walk of about 10 minutes, I reached the school building. So the entire journey took me about 10+13+10 = 33 minutes of travelling time excluding bus and train waiting times, which added together should be about an hour.

Oops. I gotta go now.