graduation 2008

my dad could not make it in time for the graduation, but he came right after the ceremonial procession ended, so that was alright. proudest parents in the world right now, these two. thanks for coming mama & papa!

The whole ceremony was something new to me, i mean look at the secondary school ceremony; sit in a line in the hall, wait for your name to be called out, walk to the front, take your cert, play soccer downstairs. This one had an invitation card, dresses/gowns/batsuit, a stage, speeches, videos and most importantly, parents.

Click more to see behind the scene photos.

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malaysia truly asia

so, Singapore gets Pedra Branca from Malaysia and how does the Malaysian government respond? By refusing to sell petrol within a 50 km radius of JB to Singaporeans. That is unless they travel all the way up to Kota Tinggi to pump some oil into their cars.

Merajok nampak.

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a technicality. you were, ahead of me.

thank you raisa for the link!

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kelong ‘08 *now with more photos

On Wednesday, I decided to run away from my problems in Singapore. All the hustle and bustle, all the buildings, all the rushing people, all the blocked sceneries and most problematic, all the work. A group of friends and I took a bus trip down to Sibu, Malaysia before taking a 15 minute speedboat ride to one of the many isolated areas on earth, a kelong in the middle of the tranquil waters of Sibu Sea (South China Sea).

For those of you who’ve never heard of the word kelong before, other than during soccer matches, it is a wooden structure erected to form a huge floating kampong in the middle of the ocean. It is used mainly for fishing. So basically you’re in the middle of the ocean, on a wooden house.

It was one of the best experiences of my life thus far. The view was spectacular, and the fresh wind was magnificient and the nights were amazing. The marine life was unbelievable too, you could see them swimming around the kelong in the clear waters, throw a line and try to fish for them. Jellyfish, swordfish, Yellow Tails & even a shark was seen swimming around the area. Fishing wise, I caught more than 8 fish, and personally, it was pretty good considering the only fishing i’ve done was with my dad at east coast. And that was when i was 9 years old.

The total cost of the trip was around S$180, which includes a 3 days 2 nights stay, lodging, 5 meals a day & transport to and fro. To give you a reference point for the food, it would probably cost about $200 at sakura per day, plus the taste is way better than sakura too.

Of course, a wooden house would not be comparable to a 5 star hotel, but the staff certainly made an effort to bring it up a notch. All we did all day was fish, talk, eat & played some card games. Nope, no technology, no handphones & no computers.

I am in love with the concept of being uncontactable. my phone did not work, there was no internet & the only connection to the outside world was a television with astro. Throughout the whole trip, I only made a call and sent an sms just to please the parents, eventhough i would have preferred not to.

I shall let the photos do the rest of the talking. For now I shall return back to my mundane, routine Singaporean life.

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why i have to practice on your heart

And the blog transformation is complete. Took a while, but I am pretty happy with the results. There are a couple of changes if you’ve noticed, which includes link additions, a news feed and a nifty search bar.

There’s a link to all my online pages so i’ve made it easier for stalkers to find out everything about me. not that i have any stalkers to begin with. In addition to that, I’ve also added more blogs in the people section (i hope i got your names right!), so go ahead and blogsurf to your hearts’ content.

Next is the Latest News section. I’ve never noticed the RSS widget option on WordPress before, but then again it might be a new function so I decided to give it a go. The feed that you’re looking at is from CNA, and it gives you the latest news right here on my blog. I thought it was pretty neat, so we’ll see how it goes! Oh yeah Mike, to answer your question I have RSS on my iPod Touch too.

Speaking of iPod Touches and iPhones, Apple has stopped shipping iPhones on their online store. This could be a sign that they are stopping production of 1st generation iPhones, so brace yourselves for iPhone 2.0! Still, I don’t see myself getting one until after National Service. An iPod Touch will suffice for now.

National Service. Got the enlistment letter a couple of weeks back and I, will be enlisting in September into The Singapore Civil Defence Force. How about that.

But before that, I will try to go for as many vacations as possible, starting with Wednesday’s trip to the Kelong in Sibu.

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