Youth is wasted on me... - Zul's Blog

School Projects & Exams (May 2009)

4:53 am, 30th June 2009

I should've blogged about this when it was fresh in my mind, and when I was fuming, but I just didn't get around to it. Topic for this entry : The exams that had just passed about a month ago! (Crap, I keep blogging things so late.)

For the semester that had just passed, I had 2 examinable and 2 project-based modules. For the exam-based modules, I had been worried about one of them from the get-go, which was Software Engineering (SE), since I had thought it would be a lot more programming-based than it really was. The other module was Human-Computer Interface (HCI), which I had initially thought it wouldn't be that difficult since it was theory-based and that's (usually) my forte.

Of course as it turned out, HCI was much more difficult compared to SE.

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April's KL Trip

7:57 pm, 3rd June 2009

As promised in my previous entry/entries, I'm (finally) posting about my trip to KL... Which happened in the beginning of April! Hahahha. This post is 2 months late. Well, better late than whatever, right? I went there with my mom, an auntie and a small cousin. I wasn't really expecting to have fun in this trip, but my mom had asked me to help her out with the logistics of the trip, so I went. Usually, I wouldn't bother. Especially since the main purpose of the trip was to attend a wedding of a distant cousin whom I don't have any memory of. Hahaha.

After the trip, I was bogged down with a bunch of school assignments, and that was appended with school projects and, finally studying for exams. And of course, actually sitting for those exams. Oh, and then, there were 2 presentations to deal with. Went well, I think, those 2 presentations. The exams... Umm... Let's not talk about it. Or maybe in a different entry. Anyway, those are the reasons why I haven't blogged about this until now. Haha.

This entry will be rather lengthy. Feel free to skim. =P

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School + Stats

11:23 pm, 20th April 2009

It's been quite the couple of weeks... Even though I'm a part-timer, I've been busy doing school work! It's weird. How did I even do this full-time previously with more subjects? Gah.

Been researching and doing my assignments, and then after submitting those, I continued on working for my End-of-Course Assessments (ECAs) for Multimedia Systems and Advanced Multimedia Systems. I don't think I will be doing well for those assignments, though... For the first time, I was really unhappy with the quality of work I put out in school. Meh. For the ECAs, I've partenered with Kyle, which has been a blast so far. But I do worry that we would both OCD our asses off. Hahah. The things we've done and still plan to do, I don't think any of the other students would even bother to do 'cause they're not exactly required to be done.

Plus exams are in a month... So we still have to set aside time to study and revise. It's gonna be quite crazy, I think. This time around, the subjects being examined are quite annoying to study for. So many things to memorise and so little time.

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Si Ling Primary School Classmates Reunion 2009

1:25 am, 7th April 2009

I'm back from my weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur, and shall blog about the trip after this entry. I haven't blogged about my primary school class reunion yet!

I lived at Block 206, Marsiling Drive before moving to Woodlands when I was around 15 or so. Attended Si Ling Primary School back when it was over here, just about 15 minutes leisure walk away from home. Like most people, I think, I have few random memories of my time there. What I do remember though, was that I had fun in primary school. :D

Primary school ended in 1995, and I started secondary 1 at Woodlands Secondary School in 1996. So, the last time I saw most of my primary school classmates was 14 years ago! Recently one of them posted a very old class photo on Facebook and that started the ball rolling to get together for old times' sake. I, for one, was really looking forward to see how much we've changed and to catch up with people with whom I used to spend such a lot of time. Another ex-classmate took charge with the organising and planning, and soon, we had set a date, time and place! Yay!

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A Week In An Entry

1:56 am, 29th March 2009

Had a gym session with Syaiful last Monday and by the end of the day, I was feeling quite tired, and my feet were sore. I chalked the latter to the facts that my shoes were crap and that the walking around in Causeway Point for a bit, after the workout was not a good idea without much rest. Near the end of the night though, my left foot caused me more pain and I figured that I had sprained it, pulled a muscle, or something, during the gym session. I have the tendency of not warming up properly 'cause I just find it boring. :x

Tuesday saw me limping quite painfully to class and back, and Wednesday saw me taking my driving lesson (yes! Driving lesson! Pressing the clutch pedal wasn't that painful, so it was alright) and then limping some more to Holland Avenue to attend my secondary school classmate Nizah's solemnization reception. I don't think anybody noticed me limping though. Anyway, here are some pictures from the few minutes that I was there.

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Why Haven't I Been Blogging?

1:36 am, 23rd March 2009

So why haven't I been blogging much? I mean, I know I haven't been the most regular blogger ever, but I usually blog more often than the amount I've been blogging lately, I think. And yes, this is one of those stupid blog entries about why a blogger hasn't been blogging. Run.

I can say I've been busy with real life (as opposed to the virtual one), like many people who note down this kind of entries do. It might not be entirely true, but it's not false either. Some things have happened lately that are blog-worthy, but may not be substantial enough to warrant me to write a whole entry about them. Another more plausible reason is that I feel like I've lost my outlet to vent/rant. More on that in a later entry at a date I haven't decided upon yet.

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Exhibition & Photographs

10:37 pm, 11th March 2009

As mentioned in the previous entry, I went to The Photographers' Stories Redux exhibition on 7th March 2009, at the National Library, mostly just to show my support to Miss Koh Wei Ling. :D

I was supposed to meet up with my cousin Syira at 3 pm, but I was running late, and I ended up reaching our meeting point at Admiralty MRT station at 3:30 pm. Princess Syira hadn't reached yet, and wasn't answering her phone, which led me to think she was still asleep... Wouldn't be the first time that had happened too. Hahaha.

She was apparently showering at 3:30 pm, and finally arrived at 4 pm. Awesome. The official opening was supposed to be at 4 pm, if you recall. Haha. I guess I'm at fault also for being half an hour late, but I think even if I weren't, and had reached at 3 pm, I'd still have to wait till 4 pm for Syira. She's worse than me at punctualitiy! *Gasp!* =P

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The Photographers' Stories Redux

2:49 am, 4th March 2009

Here's a special blog entry just for our darling Miss Koh! You might remember her from a few entries from my archives, but if you don't, let's recap! (Yes, Wei wei, I shall be posting your favourite self-portrait soon.) :D

I've mentioned Miss Koh Wei Ling several times in several of my previous entries. One of which was when I was photographing my cousin Sarinah's wedding back in July 2008! She was my Guest-Assistant Photographer (GAP) for one of the days, and here's a very glam shot of her from that event. ^^

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First Civilian Driving Lesson

7:49 am, 2nd March 2009

So, I had my first civilian driving lesson last Monday. I'm taking private lessons since I've already had some driving experience, and the driving instructor is from the same driving school my dad went to about 20 odd years ago. Haha. The prices are good, and my dad highly recommended it, so both my younger brother and I registered with them. What do I think of the driving instructor I got? Hmm, a bit too early to say. Shall reserve my judgement for now.

Pick-up point is at one of the taxi stands of Woodlands MRT station, and my first lesson was at 2 pm. The first thing the instructor asked me was if I had any driving experience. I told him that I did, and that I had a military driving license, but it had been about 4 years since I really drove, and I felt like I had forgotten a lot of things. The instructor said, "Ok. Get in and drive." I was like, "Whaaaaat?" He replied, "Can lah! You got army driving license already. Can one." -.-"

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Ice-Skating At Leisure Park Kallang

7:53 am, 25th February 2009

As mentioned in my previous entry, I finally went ice-skating, after years and years of planning with, and cancelling by, various friends. The last time I went was when I was in my early teens, with my family and relatives, at the old ice skating rink near Tekka. It used to be the old Rex Theatre, according to my mom, over at Mackenzie Road. I wonder what's going on in that building now.

So yes, I finally went ice-skating last Friday, on 20th February 2009, with my ex-colleague, Shian. Yay! She had wanted to learn to ice-skate, and so I taught her. She did a great job, and is the (I think) 5th person I've taught to skate. First person taught on ice, while the others were on land, using inline skates. Haha.

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Adeline's 23rd Birthday

5:36 am, 22nd February 2009

Let's see what's new to update this blog with!

It was my classmate Adeline's birthday on 17th February, and we got her a cake! Well, Kyle went to buy it after work, but all the 4 of us who usually hang together chipped in. Even Cindy, who didn't even get to taste it. Haha.

Adeline's birthday fell on a school day (just as mine and Kyle's did too -.-), and Kyle had SMS-ed me the day before regarding a cake for her. After some back and forth, he decided he'd get it before class. And erm, I'd get forks, plates and serviettes. =P

We had a mini-celebration outside of class during the 10 minutes break the lecturer gave us... Which we, of course, went over. Due to the time-consuming cam-whoring session we had before actually eating the cake. Heh. My fault, actually. Didn't set my camera settings properly, so had a few bad starting photographs. Meh!

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BTT, Lunch & RT

12:21 am, 16th February 2009

Remedial Training, gym, school, helping people out with their school stuff, chatting with friends online, surfing around, eat, sleep, etc etc. Nothing particularly interesting to blog about, really. When I don't have a full-time job, the days always seem to just merge together after a while. Not that I'm complaining! I know I have it quite good! :D

I've got a couple of things worth mentioning, though, I think. I re-took my Basic Theory Test on 11th Feb 2009 (after failing it in December 2008) and I passed it! Yay! I didn't study as much as I had wanted to before the test, and I was so worried when I was taking it. My palms were literally covered with sweat, as I noticed a number of people leaving the room, having just failed. I know they failed by the conversation they had with the instructor in the room. "Fail? Then must go book another test." Or, "Fail already? Then can leave the room."

"Can leave the room already... Can leave the room." -_-

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Cry On My Shoulder - Gary Barlow

12:09 am, 2nd February 2009

Only the first month of 2009 has passed and yet so many crappy things have been happening to some of the people I know. So much for keeping our hopes down, but our spirits up. :(

There's a song that I like from my favourite singer, and I think it would be nice to put it up here for them. I'm thinking of you guys. I'm certain all of you know who you are if I'm referring to you. :)

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Random Factoids

4:38 am, 1st February 2009

I've always wanted to list down some random things about myself, but I just never seem to get more than a couple down, and I always end up thinking that they're not substantial enough for a blog entry. I just can't post an image, a sentence and call it an entry. I don't know why, but I can't!

I finally managed to gather 10 random factoids about myself though, and here they are.

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Happy Chinese New Year 2009!

5:05 am, 27th January 2009

First things first. Happy Lunar New Year to those who celebrate it! :)

While I do have several things I want to blog about, this entry isn't really one of them. This one is just a status update on my life. Haha. Lately, in fact, for the last month, my life has been mostly about 5 things.

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Remedial Training

4:01 pm, 9th January 2009

Had my first Remedial Training (RT) last Saturday at Maju Camp. For the uninitiated, RT is for those of us NS-men who failed our Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT). Having failed mine not too long ago, I had to book my RT, and I'll be attending the sessions every Wednesday and Saturday for a month, and then for the 2nd month, 3 days a week, which I'm not sure yet which days they will be on.

The first RT wasn't anything strenuous... In-processing, a lot of talks, and a bit of warm-up, and a 1 KM orientation jog. Which, for me, was a 200 metre jog, and 800 metre walk. Zzz. Doesn't help that the area near the starting point was uphill! Hahaha. Anyway, I tried jogging for a bit, but I started feeling sharp pains in my chest, so I had to slow down to a walk. It was terrible. I felt like crap. At least there was someone there I knew though, so I didn't have to go at this RT thing alone.

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Happy New Year!

8:30 am, 1st January 2009

Happy 2009, everybody! Hope 2008 has been good to you, and let's look forward to a better 2009, yeah? :D For me, 2008 has been a rather uneventful year, on the bigger scale of things. I'm thinking 2009 should be a better year, but I have no idea at all if it will be. It'd be okay for me if 2009 turns out like 2008 'cause if I'm honest, all in all, 2008 was quite alright. :)

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Wisdom Teeth Extraction

5:59 am, 25th December 2008

As mentioned in my previous post, I went to pay the school fees at UniSIM on Tuesday, before going to Jurong Medical Centre (JMC) to get one (or more) of my wisdom teeth extracted. I had blogged about getting the extraction in erm... October 08, and also way before that in oh-what-the-hell, February 2004! But I never actually managed to get around to doing it for one reason or the other. Possibly just procrastination for the most part, I think. :D

2 of my 3 existing wisdom teeth were giving me problems every now and then... The lower left wisdom tooth was half submerged in my gum, and had sometimes caused the gum area to swell over the tooth. Apparently this was due to food particles getting stuck around the wisdom tooth area since brushing just can't reach and get the food particles out. The right upper wisdom tooth kept hitting the gum area below it, since I've removed my right lower wisdom tooth in 2004. I found out that it has overgrown so much! Here's the x-ray which I had requested the dentist to print out for me. I found out that they give out a smaller sized print-out at the end of the whole thing, but the dentist printed an A4-sized copy for me. :D

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Last Days Of Second Reservist

4:25 am, 23rd December 2008

Last day of reservist ended on Friday, at Upper Jurong Road. This time around, the In Camp Training (ICT) was quite relaxed. No jungle, no 100+ drivers, no vehicle trouble... And the last day was a visit to the Army Museum of Singapore. Unit excursion! Haha!

The bulk of the ICT, I spent in meetings with the MTO and running around chasing drivers. Not much time for pool and foosball as I had imagined. I think the other specs and I had more time for R&R during the last reservist, than we had this time. The last time round, almost everybody went in the jungle and left us in the camp area with pretty much nothing to do, which gave us time to do whatever the hell we wanted. Muahaha. Didn't have the luxury this time around though.

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1st Day Of 2nd Reservist

3:30 am, 14th December 2008

It was a mixed bag of feelings being back in Seletar Camp. I was not happy with being back in the (now-very-tight) uniform, and very uncomfortable boots, for one thing. Those have never been fun and have always had crappy memories attached. But, I saw some of the guys I was in charge of back when I was running the Transport Group (almost) solo. I laughed out (very) loud when I saw Taufik, one of my assistants. The first thing I said to him was, "It feels like I've never left, man, seeing you again!"

That felt quite good. I was very happy to see him and the other 2 guys with whom I had spent a reasonably large amount of time. I had wanted to chat some more and catch up, but they were actually from another reservist unit and they had started their stuff first, so they had to leave.

I was also very happy to see the other transport specialists, Nick Fernandez (the lawyer guy) and Adrian again! Adrian was promoted to 1SG after our last reservist, and Nick said he was promoted to 2SG too, but I think he was trying to pull one over me since he's still listed as 3SG in the nominal roll. =p Oh, the meet up with the Motor Transport Officer (MTO) was a hoot too! He basically told me that he had to surrender his handphone to the Guard House (because it's a cameraphone - but the thing is, he already had the camera physically taken out!) and he won't be contactable at all, then he handed to me his MTO In Camp Training (ICT) folder and asked me to join him for the Officers meeting later during the day. =.="

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Exam Results (December 2008)

12:35 am, 12th December 2008

Why does it feel like people think I'm bragging when I tell them my exam results? I'm just trying to share my joy, people! :(

Anyway, yes, exam results were released yesterday. Supposedly, the release was staggered so that the UniSIM servers don't get overloaded, and students of School of Science & Technology (SST) were supposed to get their results after 5 pm. Apparently, SST results were out way before 5 pm. Doesn't matter though, 'cause I was still fast asleep at that time. =p

I had stayed up the night/morning before to edit some pictures (yes, I'm not done yet with those pictures. Shhhhhhhh!), and ended up not sleeping until about 2 pm. Woke up at 5:30 pm and went straight to my computer to check my results. Funny thing was, this time around, I wasn't really expecting bad results, even though I felt really crappy after the exams were over and I had thought I didn't do well. Clicking on my results file, I just had a feeling I'd get okay grades, despite all those feelings.

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Shah Nor's Noir Party

2:35 am, 11th December 2008

As I had mentioned in my previous entry, I wasn't planning on going to Shah Nor's Noir Party last Sunday. But by early Sunday morning, I was feeling kinda sucky and thought I'd distract myself by attending. The theme, Noir, of course meant black and white (or rather, it's French for just black), and hey, what do you know, I don't even have to look hard for clothes that are of either colour! My wardrobe is full of those, which obviously now means I really should rechoose my colour palette.

The party was held on Sunday, 7th December 2008, at Royal Peacock Hotel around the (very seedy) Chinatown area. Opposite Pearl's Centre. Yangtze cinema. Yes. Let's pretend Shah Nor didn't have a clue what the significance of this area was, yeah? =P

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Meeting Up With Shah Nor

1:00 am, 6th December 2008

Met up with Shah Nor at about noon at Woodlands Regional Library's Cafe Galilee on 30th November. Shah Nor and me went way back... We were forced to sit beside each other in Malay class during Primary 6, and we didn't actually get along quite well. Haha. Apparently she thought I was very unfriendly to her, and I thought the same of her.

We ended up in the same secondary school, sharing the same Malay class as well, but we never actually talked to each other. Jump to secondary 4, we started hanging out together because of a common friend. We argued all the time though 'cause we always had very different points of views, amongst many other reasons.

She moved to New Zealand almost 6 years ago, and this was her first trip back to Singapore. Meet Miss Blondie. Haha.

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Confession

11:41 pm, 5th December 2008

A number of things got me thinking about my feelings over and over for her (you), again this week. It got to the point where I just couldn't stop thinking about it, and it was driving me nuts. Early this morning, slightly after midnight, I almost clicked on her IM nick and typed out a confession. Several times. But I didn't know what to say. And I was really afraid of the response. Yes, you, literally, scare me. Yikes.

At this point, I was beginning to get a headache (probably not from thinking about it too much, but the radiation from my monitor =p), and I told myself no. I couldn't do it. I told myself that I'd sleep on it. If I got some sleep, I'd probably be okay in the morning. Okay-er, anyway.

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Gary Barlow & Mark Owen Coach Eoghan Quigg

3:13 am, 4th December 2008

Alright, so I'm a big fan of Take That, specifically, Gary Barlow. Those who knows me, know that. A couple of weeks ago, Take That performed Greatest Day on X-Factor (not the greatest song they've ever made, but it grows on you), and 2 of the members coached the contestants of the show.

It was Take That night on X-Factor, and all the contestants had to sing Take That songs. My favourite scene in the episode has to be when Gary Barlow and Mark Owen were coaching Eoghan (pronounced 'Owen') Quigg when he was trying to hit the high notes of the song's chorus.

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Sitemeter Surprise

12:45 am, 24th November 2008

Wow, I am surprised by what I have just found in my Sitemeter referral list. o.O

There was one Yahoo! search on "unisim forum" that lead someone to this blog... Coincidentally, my dissatisfactions part 7 entry is listed in the search page at number 7. Haha.

Then there was one that came from a CozyCot sub-forum, post number 547, a poster linked to the first part of my dissatisfactions entry, stating that it "might be food for though(t) for those thinking of joining UniSIM"! Seems like those entries are really getting around, and if potential-students are really reading them, and getting to know all the things that I've blogged about that is wrong with UniSIM, then I guess I've done my part in enlightening some of the masses! Haha.

And the best one that I found was... A Google search on "unisim zul". That was... Weird, to say the least! Yikes!

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