The run of my life

Today, I had a run in the afternoon, nothing special about this particular run, but I think about quite a few philosphical things along the way. And I came up with this conclusion: Life is like a run.

Like Tom Cruise said in Minority Report, everybody runs. Don't you? Well, I do, in fact I believe that everybody runs at one point or another. Running towards a certain goal in life, running away from certain incidents and many more other examples. Did you have the urge once to give up halfway when you are running sometimes just because of some pain in your leg or when you couldn't catch your breath anymore, but you still keep on running just because you had to? The same goes for life, there are some parts of life where you think that you just cannot take it anymore and want to just give up, but you still carry on. Why? Because you had to, because of you family, because of your loved ones. Different people have different reasons but there is one thing in common, we cannot give up.

There are times where we get run over by other more ambitious or sinister individual, but come to think of it, who hasn't been run over. I had my fair share of being ran over but I still running, ain't I? Then there are times that YOU run over some innocent or naive individuals as well. Sad to say, I must also admit that I had my fair share of wrongdoings in my days. But life goes on. Then there are days that nobody did anything to you but you just feel like you have the runs, shit coming out like nobody's business. That can't be helped too. I have my share of getting the runs, but mostly due to unclean seafood though.

Anyway, my point is that in life, the road is stretched out in front of us. Whether you are in a race or a leisurely jog, you look to the front when you are running and you don't look back. How to run properly when you are looking back? I'm sure you can make the connections of this with how you live, right? However, having said so much, I am still trying to practise what I am preaching now. It's not easy, but I will try to run my life this way.

Look for the next guy in front of you and overtake him, and never ever let him overtake you back. That's my method of running. What's yours?

Character Test!

Wow, 2 entries per night! Now you believe me when I say I'm really really BORED tonight. Anyway, its a character test! Those who are interested may try it and leave it in my comments, okay? I'll be really interested to know your type. Here goes:

Grass Fragrance Type (No idea what it means)

You have very strong will (is it?), no dependent on others and gives an impression of being a lone- ranger (I guess I like being alone at times). You are extremely curious (YUP!) and sensual, living a clear-headed, modern life (Hey, I'm a retro guy, okay?). At first glance, you place yourself on a pedestral, and are difficult to get along. But once others talk to you, they know you are easy going (How true, how true). And when the relationship develops, they realise you are affable (Whatever this means). You have an androgynous charm(Oh my, I'm blushing already~), which make you popular with all genders (Sorry guys, I'm only interested in girls). But you don't like your weak side to be seen (Bull's eye again). You might look cool on the surface (Hey, I AM cool!!) , but beneath it all, you are really passionate (Yeah baby, a volcano is BURNING inside me!!). Only people who know your true self can maintain a long-lasting relationship with you. (I wonder...)

** Text in red are personal comments

Okay, so that's my character analysis results. How do you feel about it? True for me anot?

Just sat there on a saturday night~

It's a saturday night, and like any other saturday night in the past 2 to 3 months, I have been sitting down in front of my computer, doing nothing constructive nor destructive (thankfully). I ask myself why? Is saturday considered a rest day? Do I even deserve a rest day?

As I pondered over these questions on my bed, I conveniently rested my eyes and began to think hard. 2 hours later, I still do not have any solution. So I guess maybe watching some television may give me some much needed inspiration on my doubts. And so I watched for another 2 hours with no inspiration at all. Maybe I'm giving myself too little time to absorb any inspiration that the television might have given me. Hence, I decided to to try for another 3 hours.

After sitting in front of the television for a total of 5 hours, I finally decided that it was not working. Time to move on, I thought. Remembering that despite my record breaking time for completing KOTOR, I had some side quest that I did not manage to tend to, so being the determined chap I am, I started the game from scratch again. This time, having the iron will to complete every single side quest there is in the game. Another 2 hours passed. Still no clue on my initial questions.

Thinking hard again on my bed, another 2 hours have passed. Then something finally struck me, I should not waste my saturday like this, I must at least do something useful! So I opened my research paper document file and went to make some Earl Grey to get into my working spirit. On the way to the kitchen, I saw something interesting on the newspaper in the living room and sat down to read the paper. After that, I switched on the television to check out any interesting shows on the air. Another 2 hours flew by.

Came back to my computer to close the research paper document that haven't even been touched. Giving up on doing something constructive, I decided to do some really useless things. And here I am, blogging away and here you are, as boring as me, reading away my utterly pointless blog entry. Better than nothing to do, right?

So I have concluded that saturdays have a very interesting research value in its meaning. Further research on on this topic will be continued next week, same time, same URL.

Memoirs of the slim and young

Good morning! Very very morning it is, at 3am in the morning. Just came back from my friend's birthday celebration in town. Not much off a happening celebration just a $40 buffet steamboat dinner that brought tears to my eyes and a nice video session at my friend's working place.

2 things that I need to clarify, that is the tears and the video. Although I nearly cried when we had to foot the bill of $200 for 5 person, it was really the super spicy soup base of the steamboat that really brought tears to my eyes and made my lips swollen like a pair of german weiners. Not that it was bad experience but it was a little too much for my standard who will sweat everytime I have a bowl of laksa. However, trust me when I say that the steamboat dinner is well worth the 40 bucks, although my heart ached abit.

Next, is the video. Usually when people hear about a video session at a friend's working place in the middle of the night, they will think astray easily. As you all know, I'm not that kind of person and we really had a nice video session of our own past homemade videos of chalets, BBQs, camping trips, etc. It is really nice to see how slim or how young we looked 3 to 4 years back, until we snapped back to reality and start cursing how fat or old we look now. I really enjoyed this little flashback and it made me want to create more happy memories before I get really old and boring. I'm already getting boring so getting old can't be too far away, right?

By the way, there is hard evidence in our video that my gang and I are the pioneer of the famous "taupok" phenomena in Singapore. Although we did not leak out our secret, but somehow, someone managed to steal this idea and use it. I really regret not patenting this concept of a human taupok.

Anyway, this once slim, once young author of the TCWM is signing off, with happy thoughts, regrets and fond memories of the past and hopefully have a nice cholestrol free dream. Sweet dreams to you guys too.

Oops, I blogged again~

Feeling dead tired after lugging my laptop around, trying to hunt for the perfect gift for my buddy's birthday. Kind of reluctant to blog, but what the hell, how much harm can a teeny weeny entry do, right? *Grins*

Started off my hunt with burning enthusiasm that we can find THE perfect gift. 1 hour and 2 rounds around Jurong Point later, we concluded that JP is kind of small and lacking in nice shops. Why can't there be a shop that caters specially to gift hunters like us? I'm sure they will have great business. Well, they would have easily earned my money tonight anyway. I have forgotten the agony of shopping due to the lack of 'training' in this aspect. Anyway, few more rounds later, my friend came up with a lame idea, buying perfume. Thankfully it came out earlier than my lamer idea of buying a pen from Popular bookshop.

Hence, away we go to the Land of the many Scents. Inside the shop (a certain shop that sells perfume beside a shop that sell something intimate), the stench was overbearing. Allow me to explain why I had used the word stench.

2 or 3 types of perfume = fragrance
20 to 30 types of perfume = stench
(UNDERSTOOD??)

Anyway, while my sense of smell was deteriorating by the minute in this outlet, my friend managed to pick out a nice smelling perfume from cK. How he did it, I really have no idea, but I really admired his great sense of smell despite the situation we are in. We paided and we got out, letting my nose recover by taking in the recycled, stale, air-conditioned breeze of our beloved JP. Then I started thinking, will he like the present we got for him? Did we just buy for the sake of buying?

I didn't say anything about what I thought to my friend at that moment, but I did hint to him that I really really *really* don't want to get perfume for my birthday present. Was it subtle enough? As for you all reading, don't worry, I will remind you guys again when my birthday is nearing~ Till then, better feed your piggy bank. ;P

Gran Turismo VII: The L-plated road warrior

I finally finished the task that the stranger sitting beside me in the vehicle ordered me to do. Fear knotted my stomach and panic starts to set in. Adrenaline rushes to every part of my body as I waited in reluctant anticipation of what the next task this stranger will have for me. My throat goes dry while my hands are drenched in cold sweat. Finally, he spoke. "Okay, now that you adjusted your mirror, you can fasten your seatbelt." Gotcha!

Sorry for people who were hoping for a suspense-filled entry, anyway this is my blog, for goodness sake, what ever suspense can actually happen to my life? For those people who still cannot catch the ball, today is my first driving lesson and I'm actually quite excited over it. Yes, I'm a late starter so BITE me if you are not happy with it for all I care.

"When can I learn drifting or handbrake turns", I eagerly thought before my lesson started. Half an hour later, I was doing all I can to prevent the car from stalling. Whoa, driving is not as easy as the arcade games make it look. For games, it's pedal to the metal all the way and for real driving, my instructor keep telling me,"Accelerate slowly. Step on the pedal softly but firmly". To tell the truth, my right foot almost cramped trying to control the accelerator. Maybe I should dedicate a gym session especially for my right foot?

In all, it was a great session, where my top speed of the day is 10 km/hr. Not exactly hyperspace speed, but, hey, I'm proud of it, okay? Anyway, for your own road safety, try to avoid going to the Bukit Gombak area for sometime. If you really need to go, stay clear of any roads or L-plate cars because I might be driving and I really don't want to run down anyone who reads my blog. So good luck to me and if you want to contribute to my "Learn to drive" effort, I'm always open for donations in cash, petrol or cars. ;P Cheers~

My ass freezes over

Judging from the title, you must have guessed that I'm freezing my ass off in the library again. Bingo! No prize for you though. Aww... Too bad. What better thing to do in the library, with your braincells being massacred and your ass frost bitten, than to blog? Well, there is always the option of going home to sleep, but being the 'highly determined" and "strong in the FORCE" individual like me, it never really did cross my mind. Okay, enough of crapping already.

Let's see, I did some brainstorming on what can we blog about and some pretty crappy topics came up. So let's ignore all those crappy stuff and let's talk about being frozen! After all, its the title of this entry isn't it? Apart from my ass, I'm pretty sure that there are other people out there whom personality is described as frozen. What exactly is frozen? Rock hard, non responsive and cold. I think this description suits my poor butt cheeks better, but I'm sure there are some individuals out there who you can think of that you feel that he or she fits my description. Think about something, how much do you know about the person before you make the judgement? Is he or she really that cold to everybody or is it some misunderstanding that caused you to make the statement?

Being the imperfect being that I'm born to be, I must confess that sometimes I behave in an ass-like manner, the frozen type to be exact. Usually this type of behaviour comes in an entire alien environment where shutting down is the best defence mechanism I can come up with. To be a party animal in the company of new accquaintances is not really my forte, so please understand my plight alright? As for greeting accquaintances on the road, I adopt a pretty passive stance. Wave and smile ONLY after they wave at me. I have good reasons for doing so as I have endured much embarassment waving at somebody that does not seem to recall knowing me. After saying all this, I feel that you can't really say that someone is cold before really knowing them.

No special reasons for this topic. Can't find anything that relates to frozen at the moment unless you are really interested in my frozen ass. You are? You are so sick.

I saw a rabbit!

I saw a rabbit tonight! You all must be wondering where got rabbit on the streets of Singapore for me to see? Well, its not an actual rabbit, but an imaginary rabbit. Oh great, now you all would be thinking that I suffered massive brain damage due to overuse of braincells when I completed KOTOR in 2 days. Damn, I'm so proud of that. ;P Anyway, I did not suffer any brain damage, neither did I smoke pot or take any drugs. It's the rabbit on the moon! The legendary rabbit that is accompanying Miss Chang-Er on the moon, didn't you know about the legend? If you are starting to think that I'm such a romantic to be looking at the moon, then I'm sorry to disappoint you because I had nothing better to do while waiting for 179 in school. I thought you knew me better than that.

I'm too tired to tell any stories so just look it up yourself, okay? Anyway, how long has it been since anyone of us take any time off to stop, smell the flowers, look at the moon and appreciate our surroundings? Our life is so busy busy busy that we tend to neglect the things we have in our life? How is it so that our ancestors are able to see Scorpions and hunters and all sorts of weird weird stuff in the sky whereas we can only see stars in various formation? The answer, my friend, is your imagination! Our lives have become so materialistic that we have forgotten our fundamental skill to imagine. With imagination, comes creativity. Don't our government encourage creativity nowadays?

So come on all my friends, let your imagination loose and your creativity flow. And please let your creativity flow to somewhere constructive and don't come running to me saying that you took a dump this morning and saw a rabbit floating in the water. Gosh, I don't even want to imagine that~ ;D

Are you game enough?

Howdy to you folks that have nothing better to do than to read my rantings. Since you are reading this then I can safely assume that you are bored and want to find something interesting to read here? Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm also looking for that something interesting to do/read/play for the past 3 days already, so you won't find interesting stuff here. So BUZZ OFF already!

Still here ah? I guess you must be more bored than I thought, so I guess I'll share something with you bah~ It's been quite a long time since I seriously played a game. Seriously play a game meaning being obsessed with the game until you can play til late into the night and the first thing you do when you wake up is to boot up your computer to carry on where you stopped earlier in the wee wee wee hours in the morning. Well, I did that for the past 2 days and I actually completed the 4 CD game in 2 days! After that, I really don't know whether I should be proud of it or be ashamed that I didn't spent as much time in my project.

Back to the main issue, at the last day of playing, meaning second day since I started playing, I was like rushing through the main plot to complete the game for the sake of completing the game. It was like there was some side plots or side quests there screaming for my attention but I just ignored them and wanted to get the game over with. I'm sure some of you may have shared my experience before and is saying, "Chey, no big deal mah. Like this also have to write out meh?". What I'm trying to say here is, what if this kind of attitude doesn't just apply to gaming, but to more important aspects of life?

For you all who THINK I'm going into another boring lecture on relationships then guess again. I'm going into a extremely boring lecture into life. ;P I'm sure you all are aware on the various stages of life, birth of an individual, adolescent years, years of mugging, teenage years, hitting the 20s, finding work, finding a partner, hitting 30s, having someone to carry on your (husband's) family name, raising your little devils, hitting 40s, worrying about your not-so-little devils, hitting 50s, bonding with your teenage/young adult devils, hitting 60s, hoping your not-so-young devils will take care of you, hitting 70s and finally a meeting with Mr Maker (aka meet your maker).

So, I have pretty much summarised everybody's life in this little paragraph and let's say this is a game, a game of life. So I have started to play this game for 20 over years (my age is confidential) already and at this point I am at the finding work/finding partner stage. Seeing the already drawn out path ahead of me, will I just complete the game blindly and as quickly as possible, ignoring the side plots, aka interesting events that may happen along the way, or will I have enough energy to jump into every single side quest just to check out whether its interesting anot?

I hope you are not lost yet, although I'm feeling abit lost myself. Honestly speaking, I wouldn't want to play this game merely for the sake of completing the game, but neither do I have the energy to complete every side quests there are. Hence the question of the day is, What is the meaning of life? Hah! Just joking there, the real question is, How game are you when it comes to living your life?

For me, I would hope that there are cheat codes available. How about you?

Is Economics the subject of LOVE?

I had my interesting Economics tutorial again today. And yes you guessed it, I did not touch my tutorials, nor did I even gave them a glance prior to the tutorial lesson. Hey, I'm just a normal guy, okay? So cut me some slack~

Anyway, back to the lesson. The tutorial today was on the lesson of utility, which means level of satisfaction (happiness) to those who have taken econs before. When explaining the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility (LODMU) to us, our tutor used a very good example of relationship to help us visualise the concept of the LODMU. Let me try to repeat what she had said during the lesson.

I quote:" Okay, visualise you have a date with someone you like for the first time. You will comb your hair, dress nicely, put on makeup/perfume and plan the place to have dinner. To summarise the point, you will do your best for the date and you will enjoy the date immensely if nothing screws up. (Okay, I added the 'nothing screws up' part). This means that the marginal utility is high. Marginal utility (MU) is the rate of change of utility, which means the change in the amount of satisfaction or happiness that you experienced now compared to your last date. And total utility (TU) is the total amount of satisfaction/happiness that you have accumulated so far. So lets say if utility can be measured in units, and we assume that the MU of the first date is 100. So after the first date, the TU is now 100."

Okay, I admit, up to this point, I was like staring at her with a very blank look, unable to understand the connection of economics and the intricate structure of relationship. Struggle as I might, but I, how shall I put it, still catch no ball. Anyway, she fires on without even noticing my blank look.

I quote again:" With the current TU at 100, you go on a second date with your dream guy/gal once again. This time you still dress nicely, comb your hair and put on makeup/perfume but maybe just forgetting to plan the date. Once again you enjoyed the date greatly and this time the MU is 99 instead of 100. As you can see the MU drops, but that doesn't mean that you don't enjoy the date as the TU increases to 199. It is just that you do not enjoy your second date as much as the first date. So as time goes by, the MU will drop steady as TU keeps increasing. What this mean is that you still enjoy going out, but you won't dress nicely, won't put on makeup/perfume, etc. So with this analogy, do you all understand the concept of Marginal Utility?"

At that moment, it was like a lightbulb went berserk in my head! "I understood!", I nearly shouted out. "So it is normal for guys to slacken in a relationship ah? Since it is defined in the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, it should not be wrong lah", I thought. Apparently, this is the case in relationships. It is not the LODMU at work, but our own sense of comfort doing the evil coercing that since together for so long already, no need to put in so much effort anymore. That, I think, is more possibly the case as compared the the Law defined in the world of economics. But then again, considering the relationship between love and money, maybe economics does have some ground when it comes to proving the solidity of relationships yet. I can't wait for my tutor to explain the supply and demand curve using relationships! Maybe with a short supply of girls in engineering school would mean the high demand of engineering guys wanting a girlfriend? Maybe not.

Here is where it shall start!

Another saturday, dull dull saturday. Ever though what having a life means? Well, its definitely not what I'm doing now. Been sitting in the library since 10am struggling to write a stupid paper. 6 hours later (its 4pm now) and what have I achieved? 80% of a pathetic looking introduction, a blog entry to my personal blog and starting a newer, more crappy blog. Looking at my personal blog, I decided to split up my personal tragedy-life with my crappy cock talking life so here I am!

What should I start complaining about? Lets start with Uni life, okay? Nearing the end of my 4 year university life, with the hope of next semester being easier and more motivated than the last, I found that I have really learnt nothing much here! By the way, I'm in NTU, the 'less hip' Uni in Singapore. On that topic, I feel that I have the obligation to defend my school for abit. Why do people like to discriminate our dress sense? What is point of wearing very stylish clothes when our campus is tucked away in one corner of this island? I really see no point in that but I have to admit that I'm belong to the typical t-shirt and bermudas category. So please leave it as that and stop critisizing us already, we like what we wear! Oh yah, and gals, shorter is better, okay?

Enough of the distraction! Back to the topic on Uni education. So after 4 years or more of Uni education and being $20K poorer after paying the school fees, what do we have? Just a piece of paper saying that you have completed Uni education. So is the education important or that paper being the more important one? Don't ask me that, I still trying to figure out what have I learnt here. Anyway the grading system here is seriously flawed too. Grades, being one of the more important factor that determines whether you get employed and how much will you be paid is still based on exams only. What happened to the so called 'creative education' that the government has been preaching for ages? Creative questions in exams means creative education? Oh, please save this crap for someone else. For those alien like beings who have the knack of absorbing everything, and I really mean EVERYTHING, in the syllabus into their brain have been stepping poor local students like me every year! Allow me to define the term step. Step, action of doing better in exam than the rest. Stepper; one who steps other people. Steppee; one who is stepped on. Have a better understanding on the term already? Good. I have to say that for 3.5 years, I have been a steppee for the most parts here and only for a few lucky modules have I been fortunate enough to be a stepper. You may think that I'm stupid or what. Well, you are right! I'm not one of the super smart, alien like beings but I'm hardworking for most parts of the semester! (emphasis on the word MOST) So does that mean that with those aliens around, poor normal beings like me will have to settle for a second rated grade and ultimately, a second rated job? I mean, seriously, is this fair?

After so much of a serious talking I'm also hungry already. Only had breakfast for today and its 430pm soon. Talk about a crash diet. Hahaha. Shall end the first entry here then.