Malaysia! Truly Asia!

I just returned from a 4 days 3 nights trip to Malacca with my family. We all had purchased items that were of our liking, thus making this trip a fruitful one.

As usual, we watched a couple of movies at my grandparents' place as my uncle had a high-tech surround system deployed there. We almost tore down the whole house when we were watching Alien VS Predator.

Apart from staring at the television screen, we also stared at food. However, the difference is that we eat the food, and never the television. Food in Malaysia is so dirt cheap, with pun intended. The popiah, the laksa, the oysters etc taste the best when they are sold from roadside stalls.

Bowling is also available in Mahkota Parade, the shopping centre across the road from Mahkota hotel. It is $4.50 on weekends and $3.30 on weekdays per game of 10 frames. I am referring to RM by the way. You must be a student bowler with super subsidies to be able to play at that price in Singapore. The condition of the alley is comparable to those we have in Singapore too, thus eliminating the excuse that the ball rolled into the gutter because the lane is not oiled evenly or the surface is uneven.

We also went swimming in the pools of the Mahkota Hotel, and after that into the sauna room. It is my first time going into the room, and I really enjoyed the effects. My perspiration just kept flowing and flowing and flowing non stop until I left the room. I never knew my heat sink system was that efficient.

And of course we went shopping on the last day and bought what the car could carry and returned to homeland.

Home sweet home.

Go Kart!

I am on leave today, as I went go-karting with my brother and his colleagues. It is there that I knew that my brother was the winner of the race last year, and everyone was eyeing on him to win again this year. We raced in 3 separate groups, with 5 racers in each group. I was in the first group with 2 other 16-year olds who were the nephews of my brother's colleague, and 2 of my brother’s colleagues. We drove around the track with the second engine turned off during the 5 minute practice session, as it was just for us to familiarise the track. All went well during the practice, but during the time-trial session, my car spun out of control at a bend, and one of the cars just collided head on with my car, causing my bumper to fly off. It was a scary crash. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. It is not fully my fault though. The car behind me had ample time to brake and avoid crashing into me, but evidently failed to. As a result, I was not allowed to drive on the track any longer. So, I just sit around and watched the rest of the racers compete against each other, and also witnessed the my brother finish the race first.

Racing with 2 engines was neither so easy nor cheap. Even though the speed potential of the car is increased, the car handling is greatly compromised. Moreover, the price of racing in a dual engine car is $40 for 10 minutes. The cheapest price for racing is still $28 in a single engine car. Nonetheless, we all enjoyed ourselves to the fullest.

Update on my life...

I've been really busy in the office for these few weeks, partly because my unit has not obtained an updated copy of database management software that is compatible with Windows XP to assist me in my daily work. Today I am bombarded once again with task requests, and I feel so helpless and frustrated to not being able to give them what they had asked for. 3 weeks has passed since we sent our requests for the software, thus I really do hope DSTA finishes up with their software testing and grant us the access to the software soon.

After 7 months in my unit, I am certain that I am not wasting and will not waste my time in the army. Many people will hate me for this, but I have to say that life is wonderful in the army. Why do I say that? Because, I get to go home every night, except on those days that I am assigned for guard duty. No, I do not guard with a rifle. I guard in an air-conditioned lobby, while seated on a comfortable sofa and reading my favorite Popular Science magazine. On normal working days, I report for work in relaxing civilian clothing, then changing into the army uniform in the office before 8am. What I do there is classified, but what I can disclose is that it is highly related to computers and programming, which will be what I will be pursuing for my further studies after I have served my liability, and is something that I had always wanted to do. After work at 5:30pm I will change back into civilian clothing and leave for home. How fortunate, some might say. Screw you, others might say. Whatever it is, everyone has a role to play in the army, and I am playing mine to the best.

Currently, I have a few goals to achieve.

1) Go for practical lessons. I have just received a notification from the traffic police that I have passed my Basic Theory Lesson in driving, thus allowing me to apply for a provisional license such that I can drive on the road with the presence of an instructor. The next step is now for me to attend a couple of practical training lessons so that I will get used to handling a car.

2) Purchase a guitar. My brother’s classical guitar that he had bought 7 years ago has officially retired. The 4th string cannot be tuned as the tuning mechanism is damaged, and the 5th and 6th string requires a spanner to tune. Only, the first 3 strings are playable, thus I have only learnt to play Do-Re-Mi on the first 3 strings. Laughable, but at least that’s a starting point. A fully playable guitar will allow me to learn more.

3) Upgrade my C++ skills to C# level. I have learnt C++ in JC before, and since I have some free time on hand, I believe it should be spent on reading up that language.

4) Organise a class outing. It has been ages since I had an outing with my ex-secondary school classmates. Now should be a good time to get together as my former class mentor is back from his overseas further studies.

I shall focus my energy on these goals, unless something urgent crops up which require my immediate attention. Less likely though, as I am single :)

Gathering

I went for a gathering with my ex-primary school classmates last night at Jurong Point's Pizza Hut. By norm, the organiser would be at the gathering. However, last night's event was held without the presence of the organiser. What stunned us more was the fact that she was actually in town shopping for clothes when the event was taking place. What absurdity! Anyway, only a third of the class turned up, but we did have loads of fun.

We went to catch "The Village" screening at 11pm, which was a mistake but there weren't any other shows that any of us had not watched. The show is supposed to be a horror movie, but frustratingly, there were only around 5 scenes that attemped to shock the audience, and all were of the same nature - The camera slowly moves around the character plus the sound slowly increasing in intensity and after the second round the monster suddenly appears. Ahh. How scary. We hoped that this movie would keep us awake as it was already midnight, but ended up some of us almost dozed off during the movie. The existence of the village is mysterious at the beginning of the show, but as the story flows the village is revealed to be no more than a settlement somewhere in a nature reserve, and the monster was actually an evolved monkey who lost his way to the halloween party.

After the horrifyingly boring show, we just walked home from Jurong Point. Most of us lived in the Jurong area, so we just walk home is separate groups. It is only yesterday night or rather, early morning today that I realised that it is just a 20-30 minutes walk to my home from the shopping centre.

Beginning

There's always a beginning of anything. Today is the beginning of my blogging on blogspot.