Thursday, June 30, 2005

Programming Makes You Smart

Programming makes one smart. It makes you feel intelligent. And it gives you a sense of accomplishment. I just finished my module. The sucky module I had to do because the IA student couldn't make it. Anyway, the better side of the story is that I made it in time to allow me 2 more days of leave to go Australia. Isn't that great?

Programming is FUN.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 2:41 PM with 0 comments

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

NETBEAN

Is an extremely dumb application.

It has the capabality of jumbling your keyboard characters so that you type not what you press.
So clever.

Testing my patience.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 6:51 PM with 0 comments

Monday, June 27, 2005

INITIAL-D

Its a simple show adapted from a Jap story. And some say, its not worth watching.

I never did know that coolness racers exude.
To be a racer, its not just about cars and speed.

It's about your knowledge of the car too.
It tells of understanding your car.
And modifying it to reach peak performance.

A simple love story:
It says, love, with all your heart.
Just don't lie.

A comical show:
Characters very uniquely crafted.
They blend in very well and complemented one another.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 10:58 AM with 0 comments

Friday, June 24, 2005

Interview 4

SUNNY SIDE UP?

It was a weird process. There was one person there acting as a facilitator. But the actually person conducting was far away in the US. This isn't the first tele-interview I've had...but its just weird being in a room with someone and talking to the person in the phone and ignoring the other one. Everything was just so 'kentang'.

Interesting interview, interesting job scope. I hope I get this one. It sounds somewhat fun (for the first time in x interviews I've been to). And for the first time, I was able to say, I did it mostly out of fun rather than for work. Good? Bad? We'll wait and see..

Then there was a take home test! We were asked to be imaginative...but I really think its more of a personality test!

If you cooked a nasi lemak that's too salty and burnt. You have no time to cook another pot and your friends are coming over to a party. How would you salvage the situation and what could you have done to minimise such occurences?

Hmm..what would YOU do?

Now, for the most happening thing. The cab I was coming back in langa! My cab stopped in time but the one at the back didn't and langa into mine and me into the front cab. 3 cabs! When I turned around, there was a 4th vehicle, a van with its shattered headlights on the ground beside the back cab.

I heard the screeching of the brakes behind me. Before I knew it, I felt the impact as though someone had hit me hard on my back. Nothing serious happened though, my seat belt didn't jerk but ya, it was a 4-vehicle accident along busy Victoria Street.

It was easy for me. Get out and hail another cab :P

Now, is this a good or bad omen?

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 3:00 PM with 1 comments

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Interview 3

Stupid interviewer.

He asked me to fill in the application form and do a written test.
I was to call him after I'm done. And I did.

Said he will be there in 10 mins. That was 430pm.
Time passed and he isn't here. 15 mins, 20 mins...

5pm, I called. He actually forgot about me!
Even if you were offered, would you take it?

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 11:37 AM with 0 comments

Interview 2

Stupid bank...wasted so many days of my leave.
Thru the agent, said they wanted to offer after round 2.
Things were delayed.
They were very concerned and asked me to hold on.
They had to convert a contract post to a perm one.
Letters had to be written.
Things were delayed.
Made me go for round 1, round 2 and later round 3 to do a test.
Then, I saw an ad in the papers from the same bank for I suspected the same post too.

I called my agent, who got back to me 4 days later.
The headcount didn't get approved.
I think its really lame.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 11:30 AM with 0 comments

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Ex-Colleuge

My ex-colleauge jio-ed me to KK. Diving. No, he ain't a diver but his female friend was and was looking for a preferably female diver.

So I met him and his friend for dinner.

I last saw him about half a year ago and remember asking why he didn't want to stay till bonu$ before leaving. But he decided to leave anyway.

It's the sickening bozzo again. He then told me he left 60% cos of that bozzo. Now, I really think the problem is with the bozzo. Why?

He gave me a mean appraisal. Told me about this other colleauge (who to me looks ok) is actually "at the bottom of the stack". And this other colleauge, has since tendered as well. Now that I know why my ex-colleauge left....I start wondering if he's secretly trying to drive people away for whatsoever reasons?

Anyway, I'll leave it as that and forget about reasoning with an ancient dinosaur who has been here for eternity.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 3:25 PM with 0 comments

Monday, June 20, 2005

Stupid bus driver

My ez-link is blacklisted again. The fund deduction must have not gone through. Today is Monday, payday was yesterday. How is it that the fund deduction didn't get through? GIRO has some funny system to deduct your money before your balance is totally wiped out?

Anyway, so I asked the driver:

Me: How much is it to Paya Lebar?
Driver: That card is yours?
Me: Yes, how much is it to Paya Lebar MRT?
Driver: Is that card yours?
Me: Yes.
Driver: Don't use this card.
Me: But I don't have another card. How much to Paya Lebar?
Driver: The card cannot use.
Me: !!! How much to Paya Lebar?
Driver: $1.20

Stupid bus driver. Cannot understand English...
%!@%~&

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 11:39 AM with 0 comments

Pulau Ubin

I guess it is sad. I think of Ubin, in years to come, being very much like Sentosa..losing all its rustic charm. No kampong houses, no farms, no chickens, no boars, perhaps no off roads as well.

TODAY online
18 June 2005

FAREWELL, FARMER
----------------
Pulau Ubin says goodbye to its chickens and farmers

Loh Chee Kong
cheekong@newstoday.com.sg

THE birds have gone. Mr William Chen casts a casual eye at the fenced-up area, some 20 X 20m, where his chicken, ducks and turkeys once ran freely.

"What's there to remember?" he says with a shrug. "What's past is past."

The ban on poultry farming on Pulau Ubin officially took effect yesterday. For the romantics who speak wistfully about Ubin's rustic charms, it marked the passing of an age.

But for several farmers, the process of change had started years ago. Perhaps a kampung by Singapore's shores is too much of an oddity. The 75-year-old Mr Chen is shedding no tears as he prepares to leave the island where he first settled as a 14-year-old during the Japanese occupation. Before the end of this year, he will move in with his son to start a new life here.

As someone who is 100 years old, with a lifetime of memories inside him, you might expect Mr Tan Hai Liang to rage against change. But as the government is compensating farmers on Pulau Ubin to give up their farming licences, Mr Tan is surprisingly upbeat. Or just pragmatic.

Speaking slowly, in Hokkien he said: "It's good the government is taking over."

He explained: "Already, there are fewer and fewer homes here."

According to the 1970 census, the population of Pulau Ubin was 2,028. Now, villagers say, less than 100 families remain.

Times have changed. Once, Mr Tan used to rear about 400 chickens, not to mention pigs and fish, on the farms he owned.

He said, "First, cannot rear pig. Now, cannot rear chickens. Earning money is difficult."

And when wild boars attacked their plantations, Mr Tan remembers with bemusement that they were told they couldn't shoot them.

"Cannot shoot wild boars. Cannot rear chickens, " he said with a hearty laugh.

The fact is that living off the land _ the only way of life that many Ubin residents knew _ was becoming increasingly untenable.

Take Mr Chong See Sua, 52, who plans to use the compensation to apply for a new flat. The father of a seven-year-old boy has been losing money on his farm.

To make ends meet, he has been operating a bumboat for six years while juggling several other odd jobs.

In a sense, Mr Chong and other farmers have known for a while that they were living on borrowed time.

They don't even own the land that their houses and farms sit on. It is state land and the residents were issued a licence to occupy it temporarily.

Said Mr Chong: "I can't sell my house because nobody wants to buy it, knowing that the government can always take back the land and not compensate you a cent. All I can do is wait to be chased out. So, I'm thankful now."

He had found himself increasingly hemmed in, while he options ran out.

Mr Chong lives in a hut near Kekek Quarry which faces the Johor Straits. It is kilometres away from the main jetty, so some years back he thought of building a small jetty in front of his house.
He was still toying with the idea when tall metal fences were erected along the coast to keep illegal immigrants away.

"Now, I can't even come back to my house directly," said Mr Chong. "I have to cycle such a long distance from the main jetty. It's like you live in Pasir Ris and they say you can only go home from Punggol Road."

The 75-year-old Mr Chen understands the feeling. "I've never dared to make my house better," he said. "You never know when the government will take it away."

Apart from living in a limbo, the farmers faced a very basic problem. There simply wasn't enough money to be made.

One resident, who wanted to be known only as Mr Soh, has been renting a piece of land for $1, 000 per month since. He used to rear about 500 chickens on it and made about $400 every month, after paying his expenses.

He stopped two years back because of poor business. Since then, he gets by doing odd jobs. And now he is in an odd fix.

While full-time farmers will be offered compensation of $26,000 to give up their farming licences, as well as further payment for their homes and farm structures, Mr Soh, who is 60, gets nothing. The licence, after all, was not in his name.

As he looks at the remains of the fully-covered bird cage he had built and the $4,000 incubator that is now useless, he says: "What can I live on? Three meals a day is difficult. I'm not asking for much. Just compensate me for all the money I've put in."

That is unlikely to happen and other farmers sympathise with him. But they are glad that their own struggle is over and it is time to move on. Five out of the nine licensed farmer have already accepted the government's offer. "At least I can get some compensation before I die,"
said the 100-year-old Mr Tan.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 10:15 AM with 0 comments

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Sickening Bozzo

I tendered! At last, counting down to freedom, not.

The bozzo can actually ask me to do coding because the IA interen wasn't up to mark. And the deadline couldn't wait. WTH.

Before I threw the letter, I had even volunteered to do some of the smaller and less critical stuff but days went by without anything and this has to happen! PO. I mean, if its existing stuff, I wouldn't be making so much noise. But this is NEW. Grr..

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 3:22 PM with 0 comments

Monday, June 13, 2005

Walking Stick...

I bought a walking stick yesterday. I'm getting old, I need a walking stick. Called a trekking pole, actually, its for hiking use, its good to have just in case. 3 legs are definitely better than 2. You balance better and put less weight on your existing 2, how good is that?

Its easy to climb up the mountain, but going down is never quite the same. I learnt how to appreciate the use of one when I went to KK last September. I learnt how a walking stick can save my leg.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 6:01 PM with 0 comments

Split

Never in my life did I figure that I could perform a split. It was a front-back split and not the side-side split but its still a split though. OK, I knew I had flexible muscles that could stretch fairly well..but never....a split. Here I am, ripe old age and I did my first split. Am I supposed to celebrate? Haha.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 5:37 PM with 0 comments

Why you so like that?

Right, so I visited my dentist earlier remember? It was for a strange ache in my mouth. Well, the ache has gone away for quite some time now. I remember very clearly that the dentist had asked me to let him know if his "prescription" works.

And so I did after a couple of weeks. But I only did send a single sms to him since a friend of mine asked me about a dentist. And so I asked about his chargin rates for treating chipped teeth and at the same time thanking him for my previous "prescription".

The dentist, is a strange person. He actually thought I was try to chit chat with him. Geez...I have better things to do than to chat on sms. Besides, smses don't come free you know?

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 12:28 AM with 0 comments

Thursday, June 09, 2005

A Little Respect

Scream and shouting at the top of your lungs to get attention. I think not. Insist people do things your way. Giving the black face because I am not doing things your way.

Finally, fancy comparing who's more sick or sick for a longer period of time. Do you know my health better than I do? Grow up, little princess.

And, showing me your tantrums is not going to work.

I really do not respect people who first do things by screaming and shouting at the top of your lungs.

As I was reading my mail this morning..do you really have to make it known to the whole wide world you are working more than just your eyes?

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 9:54 AM with 0 comments

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

I'm gonna puke..

Not because I'm sick. I'm doing a multimedia presentation and as puky it is, nothing is more puking than seeing this face in the photos over and over again while I'm trying to pick out the nicest pictures to include.

We need better photographers :P

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 1:06 PM with 0 comments

The result of a stupid policy...

If you were really sick and had to walk across half the estate to see a doctor just so that you get an MC, so that you will not be accused of AWOL.....I'll probably just die. And I did. I reached the doctor's and couldn't do anything but rest my head on the thankfully comfortable sofa there.

I had to put on clothing decent enough to step out of the house, walk across 2 bus-tops and 2 other clinics so that I could see this one. Anyone who has been to this part of Bishan would know that this is a place where there are no lack of clinics. RMG, Children's, Womens, GPs, Skin, more little clinics, what have yous. This place is just not short of specialised GPs. Yet, I need to walk 10 minutes, I'm lucky. Or otherwise take a shuttle bus that will probably take me 30 minutes inclusive of waiting time, so that I can reach the other doctor at the other end of Bishan.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 12:51 PM with 0 comments

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Something about Iron

Dietary Iron
Today, I learnt that not all iron in our diet are "equal" or the same. The are 2 forms: haem and non-haem iron.

Iron Absorption
The amount of iron absorbed from our diet is also affected by other substances. For eg.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 2:13 PM with 0 comments