Friday, December 29, 2006, 11:03 AM
The year that was
Another year is passing by,
I feel like it was a lullaby,
Gently singing a tune I chose,
How I wish it had a toast..
As the year draws to a close, I look back at the things that happened throughout the year, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the funny and the sad, the happy and the not so happy, the successes and the failures, the adventures and the misadventures, I can indeed say 2006 was a fantastic yet bittersweet year. If I remember, the highlights of the year (in chronological order) were:
I feel like it was a lullaby,
Gently singing a tune I chose,
How I wish it had a toast..
As the year draws to a close, I look back at the things that happened throughout the year, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the funny and the sad, the happy and the not so happy, the successes and the failures, the adventures and the misadventures, I can indeed say 2006 was a fantastic yet bittersweet year. If I remember, the highlights of the year (in chronological order) were:
January - Working as industrial trainee in Faber Medi-Serve in Kuching. Hanged out a lot with the cool people in Kuching. You know who you are folks. Sorry I couldn’t be there this year, I know I should… Chinese New Year 2006 was a blast with u guys.. hope next year is gonna rawwkkk more!! Haha.. get ready the chivas!!
February- Finished the trainee job and back to Melbourne! Third year a lot harder but enjoying it all the same. Looking back at the late evenings spent in the engineering lab, I can safely say that I am an ‘almost qualified’ engineer now. HAHAHA..hopefully..
OK I think I’m lazy to write in chronological order oredy. HAHAHAHA!! Well, let’s see what are the major things that I remember
July Camp- Indeed a great learning experience organizing the camp, although I helped out in only a small part of it which was designing the bookmarks and T-shirts. Was really swamped with uni work just as the bookmarks and t-shirts deadline were approaching, and was very thankful for a kind soul who volunteered her helping hand. Thanks.. you know who you are… The camp itself was, quote ‘bigger,breezier,better’ unquote. A term I had a part in coming up with. Muahahahha.. Anyways.. I thouroughly enjoyed myself selling bookmarks, scooping rice during the fundraising lunch, making videos during the familiarization trip and of course, I had a blast during the camp, which was quite surprising because I usually don’t enjoy camps and had actually come to a point of dreading it.. up till JULY CAMP 2006 that is.
Melbourne Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony- I almost forgot about this until I looked at my photo albums and saw the pictures! Hahah.. It was a last minute call from a friend to go to Yarra River to catch the opening cerermony.. actually it was quite boring la standing by the river but the experience is exhilarating nonetheless.. fireworks were awesome as well.. sadly I didn’t manage to catch any of the sports except on TV.
Days in the Library- actually I only start going to library to study for exams this year. Given that we have 30 odd assignments each semester, swot vac time is the only time that I can put more effort into studying. First semester I went to ERC most of the time, and in 2nd semester as well, although I must say 2nd semester was crazy becoz I went almost everyday for 3 weeks!! Library almost became my 2nd home oredy.. hahaha.. 2nd semester was funny becoz from a few persons at the start of swot vac, it became like a mini-OCF study session towards the end of the exams, because of many people wanting to join in the ‘fun’. Hahahah…
Gold Coast Winter Trip- A fairly big group of friends and I went to Gold Coast for the winter break. Very nice and unforgettable trip as we went to MovieWorld, DreamWorld, and Surfers Paradise. Also got to meet up with Kuching buddy Mike.. hahaha.. one thing I definitely won’t forget is waking up at 5 in the morning to catch the sunrise in Surfers Paradise.. simply .. priceless…
OCF events- Fishing Trip, Merdeka nite, enite, movies, flare dance, cmg musical, belgrave heights convention, royal Melbourne show, dinner at Melvin’s house, dinner at Auntie Oi Lee’s house, my birthday, Vivienne’s birthday, dot’s birthday, song ai’s birthday, shake’s birthday, omega’s birthday, serene’s birthday, basketball on Sundays, yien ching’s wedding.. all these things lah…
Nites in the Gym- u see, college square (the place I stay in Melbourne) has a gym and being kiasu as I am, I intend to put the facilities to good use. Actually, do u believe all that nonsense? Truthfully speaking, I want to build more muscles!! I love muscles! Yeah, that’s why I go to the gym like 3 times a week. had a lot of fun with gym buddies serene, yanyan, pinghan, and shake (in 1st sem only). Doubt I will be able to maintain the same consistency next year though.. some more I haven’t seen any muscles yet!! Daymmnnnnn…
Uni – of coz wat’s the year without uni. Had a lot of fun with coursemates doing our late nite assignments, projects and ‘personal’ projects. Hahaha.. the engineering projects we had this year was a lot of hard work but in the end a sense of satisfaction descended upon us as we pulled through. Next year, a different ball game, hopefully the ride is just as bumpy and fun…
Industrial Training- most thankful for this, as I thought I screwed the interview, some more I got the acceptance reply quite late, and up to the point I landed here in Penang, I worried so much about it. But it turned out I got a place to stay before I even came here, then on the same day found someone to carpool with to work, got internet connection at home, and a supervisor that’s extremely fantastic! Colleagues are nice, and I like the working culture here which is demanding but exciting. Also very good to get to know other trainees working here. I couldn’t have asked for more. Indeed God has been gracious to me.
Finally, just a simple story to share… A circus trainer thought he knew his tiger quite well. He knew it so deeply that he was convinced that the tiger would not hurt him. But one day, he provoked the tiger a little too much, and the tiger pounced and tore open his heart. He licks his wounds and picks up the pieces, and still could not understand why. How could a trusting friendship turn into one of disdain in a brief moment? Would things ever be the same again? I don’t know the ending of the story. But I wonder, and never stop wondering..
That’s 2006 as I remembered it.. How was your year?
Wednesday, December 27, 2006, 11:29 AM
long time no blog
I’ve not been updating for so long I wonder if I should just ignore that the last 2 weeks ever happened, for indeed I do feel that way.. But I guess for all my fans’ sake, I shall just write something..
Last week supervisor started giving a real task to me, and I’m quite happy with it because I’ve not been doing much except following the other engineers around to the lab for testing and stuff. Of course, I’ll be busier but I think it’s what I came here for which is to learn something. Indeed very thankful that I have not too bad colleagues who are willing to help all the time eventhough they seem super busy.
OK let’s see what I remember.. There was this Technical Symposium on 20th Dec which was held at Equatorial Hotel, which is like one of the poshest hotels in Penang. First time I’ve been to such an event where there were around 1000 engineers sharing their knowledge.. hahaha.. of course the main highlight were the ladies dressing up for the day. Did I mention that Motorola has the ugliest looking uniform I’ve ever seen?? I shall not post the picture of me wearing it for fear of being laughed at. Yes. That’s how BAD it is. So you can understand why the ladies dress up..hahaha.
Thurday, nothing much, then Friday, last day of work.. for lunch we went to Bukit Jambul where they had this famous nasi lemak…whoaaa.. first time I’ve eaten quality nasi lemak since coming back from Melbourne.. lol. But it was quite expensive though..
Then dinner, colleagues and I headed to Gurney where we had a posh dinner. Felt so paiseh bcoz boss treated me, the trainee… and he didn’t treat the rest!! LOL.. damn paiseh lar… after dinner the rest of my colleagues went to watch the stupid Jay Chou movie while I walked around Gurney aimlessly ( and of course feasting my eyes ). I couldn’t watch with them bcoz they got the tickets earlier and didn’t include me.. hahaha.. anyways fortunately didn’t watch becoz they said it was nothing spectacular except for the ladies’ boobs almost spilling out from their costumes. LOL
On Saturday morning, I took the early bus to KL. After 4 + hours in the bus, I reached KL and while waiting for ph to pick me up from pudu, I bumped into Ivan!! Wahlao..wat a coincidence man.. very glad to bump into him and catch up. After that, ph picked me and we went to his ex-sec school to park his car and went to chee cheong kai to have lunch. Thereafter we proceeded to Midvalley where we spent 1 freaking hour trying to park the damn car!! Dunno if it’s ph’s lack of skill or bcoz our lady luck had a full-blown PMS that day. After parking ph’s stupid car, we met with the OCF gang at Starbucks.. Attendance: Vivienne,Juwen,pinghan,yokeling,percy,Kelvin,tohsin,pang, latecomer dot and I. very nice to see them all…spent about 2 hrs sitting there chatting. After that, I went back to sister’s place in Kelana Jaya. The stupid LRT HAS to break down when I’m in a hurry to get back>> had to wait about 30 minutes for the LRT to arrive. Dammnittttt..
I finally reached sister’s house and brother was also there. She was still having a bad jetlag from the flight so we just went to the mamak stall for dinner. Chatted for a while after that before we went to bed. The next morning, we went to have Sarawak laksa for breakfast at this stall in taman megah. My first time eating Sarawak laksa in a year, but this one didn’t taste so good. And damn expensive ripoff some more. Anyways, after that we went to the Curve and bro used the internet at starbucks to check some stuff while we went shopping around. Near to lunch time, we headed to KLIA to pick mum up from the airport. One hour of driving.grrr… then for dinner we went to this place in Centerpoint which has western food. Damn ripoff again.. we had a steak for rm35 which tasted like rubber, and some spaghetti marinara which tasted like it just came off the pre-prepared packet. Daymnnn…
Christmas day came and I had to go back to penang becoz of work on Boxing Day. Traveling on a bus for 4 hrs on Christmas Day.. a bit depressing I thought at first but actually not as bad as I thought.. Gave me time to think, and indeed thinking back of what has happened throughout this year, I have so many things to thank God for. Well let’s leave that to another post.. hahah..
So that’s how I spent my previous week and Christmas weekend… Hope you all enjoyed yours
Last week supervisor started giving a real task to me, and I’m quite happy with it because I’ve not been doing much except following the other engineers around to the lab for testing and stuff. Of course, I’ll be busier but I think it’s what I came here for which is to learn something. Indeed very thankful that I have not too bad colleagues who are willing to help all the time eventhough they seem super busy.
OK let’s see what I remember.. There was this Technical Symposium on 20th Dec which was held at Equatorial Hotel, which is like one of the poshest hotels in Penang. First time I’ve been to such an event where there were around 1000 engineers sharing their knowledge.. hahaha.. of course the main highlight were the ladies dressing up for the day. Did I mention that Motorola has the ugliest looking uniform I’ve ever seen?? I shall not post the picture of me wearing it for fear of being laughed at. Yes. That’s how BAD it is. So you can understand why the ladies dress up..hahaha.
Thurday, nothing much, then Friday, last day of work.. for lunch we went to Bukit Jambul where they had this famous nasi lemak…whoaaa.. first time I’ve eaten quality nasi lemak since coming back from Melbourne.. lol. But it was quite expensive though..
Then dinner, colleagues and I headed to Gurney where we had a posh dinner. Felt so paiseh bcoz boss treated me, the trainee… and he didn’t treat the rest!! LOL.. damn paiseh lar… after dinner the rest of my colleagues went to watch the stupid Jay Chou movie while I walked around Gurney aimlessly ( and of course feasting my eyes ). I couldn’t watch with them bcoz they got the tickets earlier and didn’t include me.. hahaha.. anyways fortunately didn’t watch becoz they said it was nothing spectacular except for the ladies’ boobs almost spilling out from their costumes. LOL
On Saturday morning, I took the early bus to KL. After 4 + hours in the bus, I reached KL and while waiting for ph to pick me up from pudu, I bumped into Ivan!! Wahlao..wat a coincidence man.. very glad to bump into him and catch up. After that, ph picked me and we went to his ex-sec school to park his car and went to chee cheong kai to have lunch. Thereafter we proceeded to Midvalley where we spent 1 freaking hour trying to park the damn car!! Dunno if it’s ph’s lack of skill or bcoz our lady luck had a full-blown PMS that day. After parking ph’s stupid car, we met with the OCF gang at Starbucks.. Attendance: Vivienne,Juwen,pinghan,yokeling,percy,Kelvin,tohsin,pang, latecomer dot and I. very nice to see them all…spent about 2 hrs sitting there chatting. After that, I went back to sister’s place in Kelana Jaya. The stupid LRT HAS to break down when I’m in a hurry to get back>> had to wait about 30 minutes for the LRT to arrive. Dammnittttt..
I finally reached sister’s house and brother was also there. She was still having a bad jetlag from the flight so we just went to the mamak stall for dinner. Chatted for a while after that before we went to bed. The next morning, we went to have Sarawak laksa for breakfast at this stall in taman megah. My first time eating Sarawak laksa in a year, but this one didn’t taste so good. And damn expensive ripoff some more. Anyways, after that we went to the Curve and bro used the internet at starbucks to check some stuff while we went shopping around. Near to lunch time, we headed to KLIA to pick mum up from the airport. One hour of driving.grrr… then for dinner we went to this place in Centerpoint which has western food. Damn ripoff again.. we had a steak for rm35 which tasted like rubber, and some spaghetti marinara which tasted like it just came off the pre-prepared packet. Daymnnn…
Christmas day came and I had to go back to penang becoz of work on Boxing Day. Traveling on a bus for 4 hrs on Christmas Day.. a bit depressing I thought at first but actually not as bad as I thought.. Gave me time to think, and indeed thinking back of what has happened throughout this year, I have so many things to thank God for. Well let’s leave that to another post.. hahah..
So that’s how I spent my previous week and Christmas weekend… Hope you all enjoyed yours
Monday, December 18, 2006, 11:28 AM
office
I'm blogging from the office.. LoL..
Not feeling very well lately..:(
Not feeling very well lately..:(
Sunday, December 10, 2006, 4:24 PM
Pearl of the Orient
It's been an eventful one week..
My industrial training started on Monday and we had the orientation for trainees the whole day. It was a very boring day because we had to go through about 8 presentations on company policy, safety, benefits, health plans etc etc.. Then On on Tuesday,I met my supervisor who then assigned me to one of his subordinates. I feel very lucky coz she's very friendly and helpful, and we found out we had mutual friends..hahah. What a small world indeed. My colleagues are very nice people too..Thank God indeed..
The rest of the week then passed by very quickly, although I didn't have anything much to do in the office except asking questions and seeing how people work.hahaha.. Only next week will I have tasks assigned to me and hopefully then it'll be more exciting at the office...
The weekend came and it's true what they say that when you're working, weekends are a Godsend. On Saturday, me and my housemate took the bus to Prangin Mall in Komtar. The bus here is very rundown, which reminds me of Kuching buses. Imagine no aircon, rude conductors, smell of sweat and exhaust mixed together.. yup. that's Penang buses :p
There wasn't anything much there to see lor. We were quite disappointed la. After getting bored with Prangin Mall, we took another bus to Gurney Plaza, which is bigger and has more things to see.
I've heard so much of Gurney Drive and the food there, and was very excited to try it out. When we reached there however, I couldn't understand what the hype is all about though, coz it looked like the normal pasar malam fare you get all around Malaysia. Plus, the food is super expensive. Not that you could not find that type of food anywhere else in Penang.. But for the sake of it, I tried the char kuey teow there. It had large prawns and tasted fantastic, but not really worth my 4 ringgit lar.
Every Saturday near our area there is pasar malam, or in england,nite market. So after coming back from Gurney, we headed to the pasar malam and jalan some more. I'm amazed myself at the amount of energy I have man.. hahaha.. Sorry la, no picture of the pasar malam. Next week..
Today didn't really do anything except go swimming at the swimming pool down my rented apartment. I dunno how to swim. But after about 30 minutes trying, I realize I'm able to float and swim a bit, but when I try to lift my head out of the water to catch breath, I'll sink again. I need to learn how to lift my head out of the water while swimming. But I guess I'm making good progress. Hahaha..
Ok then. It's back to the grind tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates...
My industrial training started on Monday and we had the orientation for trainees the whole day. It was a very boring day because we had to go through about 8 presentations on company policy, safety, benefits, health plans etc etc.. Then On on Tuesday,I met my supervisor who then assigned me to one of his subordinates. I feel very lucky coz she's very friendly and helpful, and we found out we had mutual friends..hahah. What a small world indeed. My colleagues are very nice people too..Thank God indeed..
The rest of the week then passed by very quickly, although I didn't have anything much to do in the office except asking questions and seeing how people work.hahaha.. Only next week will I have tasks assigned to me and hopefully then it'll be more exciting at the office...
The weekend came and it's true what they say that when you're working, weekends are a Godsend. On Saturday, me and my housemate took the bus to Prangin Mall in Komtar. The bus here is very rundown, which reminds me of Kuching buses. Imagine no aircon, rude conductors, smell of sweat and exhaust mixed together.. yup. that's Penang buses :p
Prangin Mall looks uncannily like a shopping mall in Kuching.
There wasn't anything much there to see lor. We were quite disappointed la. After getting bored with Prangin Mall, we took another bus to Gurney Plaza, which is bigger and has more things to see.
The obligatory Christmas tree
yours truly in Gurney Plaza.
I've heard so much of Gurney Drive and the food there, and was very excited to try it out. When we reached there however, I couldn't understand what the hype is all about though, coz it looked like the normal pasar malam fare you get all around Malaysia. Plus, the food is super expensive. Not that you could not find that type of food anywhere else in Penang.. But for the sake of it, I tried the char kuey teow there. It had large prawns and tasted fantastic, but not really worth my 4 ringgit lar.
It was raining when we were there, hence the umbrellas
Every Saturday near our area there is pasar malam, or in england,nite market. So after coming back from Gurney, we headed to the pasar malam and jalan some more. I'm amazed myself at the amount of energy I have man.. hahaha.. Sorry la, no picture of the pasar malam. Next week..
Today didn't really do anything except go swimming at the swimming pool down my rented apartment. I dunno how to swim. But after about 30 minutes trying, I realize I'm able to float and swim a bit, but when I try to lift my head out of the water to catch breath, I'll sink again. I need to learn how to lift my head out of the water while swimming. But I guess I'm making good progress. Hahaha..
Ok then. It's back to the grind tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates...
Monday, December 04, 2006, 10:34 PM
melbourne kay ell penang
woohhooo!! i got an internet connection here!! hahaha.. and it's unlimited broadband unlike College Square's ripoff internet...
from Melbourne, i flew to KL on a day flight..then sent off sy at the bus station:( then waited for my mum to arrive from Kuching.. Spent almost a week in KL shopping and shopping with mum but the sale only started the day before I'm suppose to leave for Penang! damn..
On Saturday, I took a bus from Pudu bus station to Penang. This is the first time I'm in Penang.. hahaha.. call me sakai, jakun, watever. I thought the bridge takes 30 minutes to cross but it actually was quite a short journey.. hahaha.. see how jakun I am. Anyways, haven't done much exploring yet except going to the new Queensbay Mall and PISA for the PC Fair. Penang taxis are damn rip offs!! RM10 flag fall even though it's a 5 minute walk!! wah lao eh!!
started working today.. Orientation the whole day which was super super boring. Hopefully the real work is interesting.. hahahah.. gonna go eat nice nice penang food for dinner now.. hahahaha... *burp* ooops
from Melbourne, i flew to KL on a day flight..then sent off sy at the bus station:( then waited for my mum to arrive from Kuching.. Spent almost a week in KL shopping and shopping with mum but the sale only started the day before I'm suppose to leave for Penang! damn..
On Saturday, I took a bus from Pudu bus station to Penang. This is the first time I'm in Penang.. hahaha.. call me sakai, jakun, watever. I thought the bridge takes 30 minutes to cross but it actually was quite a short journey.. hahaha.. see how jakun I am. Anyways, haven't done much exploring yet except going to the new Queensbay Mall and PISA for the PC Fair. Penang taxis are damn rip offs!! RM10 flag fall even though it's a 5 minute walk!! wah lao eh!!
started working today.. Orientation the whole day which was super super boring. Hopefully the real work is interesting.. hahahah.. gonna go eat nice nice penang food for dinner now.. hahahaha... *burp* ooops