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After working for so long, I’ve realised I’ve gained a certain degree of independence and initiative. This directly means that when school starts, someone who has worked for awhile would possess a higher level of responsibility and an intuitive ability to better discern problems and develop more creative solutions. I have found this to be very true, in fact. Perhaps too, the long rest since I last attended a school served me well.. Maybe it’s also the fact that computing is my favourite course of study. Yes.. all this combined, I’m extremely passionate about my school. It’s time to have fun. The next four years will have its ups and downs, but I know at the end of it, I’ll look back and reminisce all the moments happily, and contentedly.

Besides work and the ClinicWare project, I’ve decided to embark on a new project. This project, I feel, has been long overdue. It has been my desire to do something like this for awhile now, and recently I’ve decided to realise it. I’ve decided to write a story about my life, but more importantly, about the lessons I’ve taken from it. While I can’t think of anyone who would want to read a story about how I grew up, I hope that it will help those who do decide to read it; that it will bring about a positive change in character while, at the same time, inspire hope and encourage people to pursue their dreams.

I will upload it here when it’s done. More likely than not, this will be my last post until then.

I thought politics, especially local politics, would never interest me.. Not until I heard that the paychecks of the ministers were going up! $3 million…amazing…wonder if it’s enough for them.. I mean, they’re only getting that meagre $3 million.. how will they survive like that?? Die lah..they’ll have to sell their expensive cars, forego their oversized and resource-wasting homes … I cannot believe it. The mere thought makes my blood boil.

Today was the first time I got to go home before 8pm..it felt good! Managed to have a relaxed dinner, surf the web, read up on stuff I’ve always put aside .. I wish life was this good… I’m okay with loads of work..I just need to feel like the project will end one day… Candice asked me what I want to do when I retire next time…good question. I just thought about the exact same thing about 4 days ago. Hopefully I can get my Masters..and maybe at a later time, even a PhD… then I’d be able to do research my whole life… because I really hope someday my love for computing will benefit someone..maybe even the whole world. I’m not looking to start a new innovative service..I want to do something that will have an impact on technology itself, not on the accounting sheet.

I like my job in BMT right now..but I hope they start giving me bigger, more challenging projects. I hate this braindead projects … and I hate doing website maintenance..I mean, any retard can add/remove/edit website content right? I don’t know why after so many years, they still make me do all these..if it continues, I won’t be able to progress… I want a challenge. I need the rush that comes with realising you’ve just accomplished something different. I hate, absolutely detest website-making, -maintenance. Please oh please..someone hear my plea.

To the one who keeps me going day after day: You’re all I need..I can never repay all the kindness, patience, fun, laughter, and sillyness that you’ve brought and continue to bring into my life. Life is good only because you’re in it with me. I promise I’ll always go the extra mile to make you happy…simply because I love you.

Half a month has passed me by .. I didn’t even realise it till I saw the date of my last entry. In that time so many things have happened.. I’ve come to realise many things, some bad, most good…but more on that later. When I have the presence of mind and the time to do so, I’ll pen down my inner thoughts.

For now, I’ve moved over to the Jurong East office.. there are rumours that all underpaid technical professionals congregate in that area. I don’t know about that, and won’t be able to confirm that for some time to come.. While the general atmosphere is more appealing at the International Business Park, the food there just can’t beat the variety Beach Road used to offer us.. in fact it doesn’t even come within breathing distance of it… and so we depend on a few good souls to drive us away from agony every lunch time, and steer us toward food heaven: Jurong East Central. Everything, absolutely everything, can be found in that cramped tangle of shops.. from $26 tailor-made pants to professional dermatology.. the food there is a giant leap away from the overpriced, sucky-tasting IBP foodcourts. Then again … I still wouldn’t be complaining even if I was stuck with IBP food eveyday. It takes 15 minutes by way of bus, or 5 minutes, if I choose to hitch a cab… what more could I ask for?

This week has been one hell of a week.. tomorrow’s Saturday, and I’ll be heading to the office to finish up (or try to) my work that’s overdue.. I’ve never done this much .NET in my life, let alone one week..but I’m getting the hang of it, and I’m really starting to love the technology.. haha. Everyday it’s this hectic…

8.30AM   Wake up and start to realise I’ll be late for work.

9.15AM   Come to the realisation that I am late for work.

9.30AM   Find the strength to drag myself out of bed for a shower and to change into something presentable.

9.45AM   Leave the house, run to the ATM at Cold Storage to withdraw my daily limit.

9.55AM   Grab a cab.

10.05AM   Reach the office.

10.06AM   Think of what to eat for lunch.

10.30AM   Get coffee … or water, if I’m too lazy, and start going through my e-mails.

11.00AM   Start work proper.

11.04AM   Open Media Player and start creating a playlist for the day, depending on whether I want to work fast and efficient or slow and .. err… slow.

12.30PM   Break for lunch.

1.45PM   Return to office and start replying e-mails.

2.30PM   Realise it’s halfway through my work day and come to terms with the fact that 1) there’s not enough time to complete my work today or 2) whoopie! it’s almost the end of the work day!

5.00PM   At this time, one of three things could be happening. 1) Panic. 2) Press on and ramp up my work tempo .. or most of the time, 3) Give up all hope and start to slack.

x.xxPM   Twilight zone – state of mind where time and space warps and nothing can be recalled.

10.00PM   Reach home, shower.

10.08PM   Start reading e-mails regarding ClinicWare and OnBETA. Try to get some work done.

10.55PM   Start to feel sleepy… feeling like I deserve a good rest …. BUT……………… because I drank n cups of coffee during the day, I can’t sleep.

11.00PM   2nd twilight zone.

2.45AM   Realise it’s so super duper late and if I want to go to work in the morning and not look dopey I have to sleep now..like… NOW.

3.00AM   Sleep..ZzzzzzzzZZzZzZZzzzz.

4.00AM   Ooops…Ellen Degeneras just woke me up.

4.30AM   go back to sleep…

6.30AM   Alarm rings … I don’t wake up.

* return to first point

Oh the boredom…the pain…the monotony! Ohhhh….. =P

 I saw this:

Manchester United 50th Jubilee Match: Manchester United XI vs UEFA Select XI (Live & Exclusive)   
04:00 AM – 06:00 AM

and now I think I’ll be mysteriously late for work on Wednesday.. OR! I might reach the office terribly early … either way. =)

Hopefully this won’t become a melancholic reflection on life … I’m really enjoying life these few weeks.. so what if there’s more work, or more stuff to juggle.. Life’s just too awesome for me and nothing’s gonna keep me down!

Today I finally broke the goal drought with, what I thought was a perfectly placed header beyond the goalkeeper’s reach.. haha… I like over-exaggerating. We went on to win 4-2.

Tomorrow begins another hectic week …. I’ve come to enjoy the weekends .. to take it easy, lay back, and catch my breath. Funnily too, I really enjoy the stress at work. I think people just have to take that step to gain a sense of personal ownership to their work, then work will actually become more fulfilling. I’m a bit scared about my future at BMT, especially when I start school in May.. I hope they see me as an employee with potential, yet in the meantime, I have to keep my options open until I receive something concrete from them.

Ah well…

Yesterday was good… Though I was still on MC, I decided to pop by the office because I was feeling much better. I had my first practical driving lesson in 5 years, and the instructor said that I could take the driving test there and then!! What a boost to my confidence that was…. I applied for my final theory test too .. and Candice promises to quiz me every night…what a darling she is! Well, she came down to meet me at Gombak ….. somehow, she really is the driving force in my life. The effort she puts in really warms my heart .. she doesn’t know it, but every single time she calls, I’m rushing to the phone because I know it’s her. That’s never happened before..

=) Anyway, last night I awoke suddenly, and started puking again. I’m not sure what’s wrong, but the doc says it could be a stomach (or was it gastric…what’s the diff man) ulcer forming. Nothing’s gonna get me down though … life’s too great for me.. I know that I’m blessed, simply because I have my angel, personified in the girlfriend. Yeah…she might get on my nerves sometimes … and I do get on hers ….. but those are nothing, compared to the memories we’ve had, and the life that we will share.

These few days have been terrible, to say the least. I woke up Sunday morning (about 5AM) with a very bad stomach cramp.. I thought to myself, “what da hell, it’s probably just another upset stomach” … oh boy was I in for a treat. At about 8AM that morning, the pain was too much to bear, and I called Candice .. I didn’t really expect her to zoom down since she was coming to my place for lunch later on anyway, but that silly girl zipped down to my place in like 45 minutes, and pleaded with me to go to the doctor. We didn’t know what it was, because I was neither puking nor having a diarrhoea. We waited for the longest time ever while we saw people who didn’t need the immediate medical attention that I did go in and out of the doctor’s office.. I mean, clearlyI was dying yet there were people going in and coming out not requiring any medication at all. So finally, it was my turn, and I went in and poured out my complaints to the doc. He suggested it was gastric, and gave me some medicine and antacids for it .. I even got a nice little injection on my butt to stop the pain. All well and good. Not for long. The pain got worse throughout the day, and by that same evening, I was wondering whether I should just kill myself. haha.. but it really was painful beyond description. I figured it wasn’t gastric because gastric simply didn’t feel like that!! Not that I’ve had gastric before, but I know (from what I’ve observed of others going through gastric problems) that gastric pains were not as bad as what I was experiencing. I thought I’d wait for Candice to finish her dinner to go to the doctor again, but soon I just couldn’t take it any longer. I went back to the doctor again, and ‘lo and behold, the clinic was packed to capacity..actually it was beyond capacity because there were people waiting along the staircase! I wondered if everyone was just looking for a long weekend .. I mean, can’t be everyone suddenly sick on a Sunday night right? So there I was, dying, forced to stand against a wall .. all this while being irritated by some pesky stupid kid whom I wished just trip and fall over my outstretched foot. I mean, the pain was more than I could take, and this kid had to keep poking me with god-knows-what and taunting me with stupid kiddish remarks. I swear it’s God’s way of teaching me to be more patient. If I had been in my right mind that night, I would have looked the kid in his eye and scolded both him and his mum. But I wasn’t in my right mind..you wouldn’t be too if you had that stabbing pains in your tummy. So I went to the receptionist to ask how long it would take, and also to ask for a printout of the medicines that the doctor gave me earlier in the day so that I could go to another clinic if the wait became too long. Thankfully, she led me to another room, where within 5 minutes, the doctor came in the diagnose me. It was a different doctor..but doctors being doctors…they trust their own colleagues too much I tell you. He said he’s not sure why my “gastric” pains were so persistent .. so he decided to give me a stronger medicine for gastric. I mean, what the hell right. You don’t know what’s wrong with the patient so you just give medicine for the sake of giving medicine. I did ask him if it were really gastric … and he said he doesn’t know, but he thinks it is. I wonder how many people in the world die from such misguided diagnoses. Well, he did add that if the pain was still present by midnight, I should go to the hospital. Ah well, at least he did cover his big ass. I pleaded with him for another injection, but not before confirming that I won’t have an overdose by having 2 injections in the same day. Anyway, Candice drove over to send me home..and I could tell by the looks on her face that she was really concerned and afraid for me.. I do have the occasional upset stomach, but nothing like this before. Even 6 years ago when I did have a bad stomach spell, I was okay within the night. She kept asking me to go to the A&E immediately after I came back from the clinic, but I’ve been known to display indifference towards my health and well-being, so I had to politely refuse over and over again … hahahaha.. hope she don’t kill me. I made her go home because I felt there was nothing else she could do, especially when her stubborn boyfriend refused to go to the hospital for a better diagnosis.. the moment she reached home, she called me, and refused to hang up, till at about 1AM I checked to see if she was awake, before quietly hanging up the phone. The entire night, I could not sleep. It was the worst night I’ve had in years (maybe even a decade). I tossed and turned and sucked on sweets and drank some water. I just curled up in a corner of my bed hoping the night would pass … honestly, it was a scary night … I was in so much pain, and every hour I’d wake up to puke.. I wanted the pain to go away so badly … I’d never ask for an injection, but the last time I had something remotely close to this, an injection was all it took to get me up and running again (in a matter of hours I must add). I contemplated going to the A&E myself (I’d never ask my parents because if you knew the people they were, you’d know that they couldn’t really be bothered cos they think everything’s a trivial matter. In fact, my mum even told Candice not to come everytime I call her .. and my dad told my mum “A&E is only for those serious cases like people banging their heads etc” when she asked him to send me to the hospital).. Once I graduate, I swear I’m moving out … I don’t see any added value in staying togeher with them, especially when I’m so disgruntled about the way they do things. I spent most of the night kneeling in front of the toilet, partly sleeping, but mostly just waiting for the next volley of cramps to cause me to throw up again.

Well, my stomach’s much better now, though there’s still that lingering feeling of stomach-churning nausea. In spite of all that’s happened, something good came out of it. Something pure, beautiful and warm. I’ve realised just how much Candice cares for me.. that frantic look on her face, though not at all pleasing, serves as a reminder to me, to let me know that through it all, no matter what happens, she’d be there when I most needed her …. even if I cannot depend on my parents, I know I can look to her for support. I love her for all the things, good or bad. Perhaps this incident was to remind me of just how lucky I am to have her.. and perhaps it was to show me how different life is and will be, now that she’s in it.

To Candice: Thank you for all the stuff you’ve done. I used to say “thank you for all the silly little things you do”. But the fact is, everything you do is neither silly, nor little. I know many times I can be a big handful .. I even piss you off sometimes, but I promise you that you’ll never a live a day without me thinking of you and loving you for all that you are. I love you.

It started as a hot, sunny day in Singapore. In fact, just a couple of hours ago I was sweating it out during lunch (outdoors) with some colleagues. Being in Singapore, the weather is truly unpredictable, because all of a sudden, the sky started to darken, with huge chunks of opaque cloud covering the entire sky.

And when it finally started to pour, it was a bewildering sight…

Well, better get back to work… if not I can’t meet Candice later!

I explained it to Candice already … it’s like just a month and a bit ago we were wishing each other “Happy New Year” and other well-intentioned wishes. Back to the present, we all have to pretend it’s a new year again and say the same stuff… haha…it’s kinda funny, so I refrain from wishing people ”Happy New Year” during the Chinese New Year visitations, unless absolutely necessary, like if the person is old school and would therefore feel offended without that sudden outburst … as though his/her new year would be any worse off if I didn’t bless it with my words. =)

This year, however, it’s been a pretty good one! I had waited for this day to come with much anticipation, and when it finally did come, I kinda chickened out a little… here’s what was supposed to happen: I was supposed to visit Candice’s parents at her house … and it’s the first time they’ve ever seen any of her boyfriends, so it’s all the more important that I don’t disappoint.. Amazingly, I didn’t choke on the tidbits, nor spurt orange drink out of my nose .. I did not even snort when I laughed…. so I’d say it went really well!! Her mum was really friendly and kept talking to me, and her dad gave me a big big ang bao coupled with an abundance of well-wishes.. really touched me.

Hmm… Besides that, I bought a desktop for my work yesterday … It was from a cosy little shop called PC Themes from Sim Lim Square. I decided to buy my computer from there because the people there were really polite and nice. It’s an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 16x DVD Writer, and………….. and and and…… in the words of my good friend from China, A-N-D AND, a 22-inch wide screen LCD monitor!!!! Woohooo!! Means now I get to do more work in a shorter time…. hmm… wait a minute…………. more work…….shorter time….. mm….less time…..more work…. ummm….. shit. Means I’ll be doing more work. Damn damn damn….ARRRGGGHHH!!!! SHIIIIITT!!!! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, tomorrow is a good day.