Category: Life

It’s been a long time I guess huh?

Guess I’ve been busy with things like trying to extend my stay in Singapore and having to spend like 10 hours in total doing something in regards to ICA. If anybody wants to renew / apply for a social visit pass go in the morning, trust me it’s worth it. Despite the queue almost wrapping 3/4 around the building it was a quick visit compared to the other visits I had there. Was in and out in just over an hour instead of the usual wait of 2 / 3 hours waiting in the hall.

Been busy attending convocations as well: 4 in total including mine =p. Also been doing some part time work for the past 2 weeks which is pretty interesting and it has flexible hours and I didn’t have to go down to the office in Jurong East for the past 2 weeks. However I have been to the office today as I am typing this as McDonald’s in IMM (how I love free wireless hotspots =P) and I’ll be back there tomorrow due to some hardware testing.

Went to watch 2 fireworks displays, well.. more like 1 and the other 1 I was there for like 2 minutes but I didnt look at the display as I was trying to get through the crowd to chop (reserve) seats at Max Brenner’s Chocolate Bar at the Esplanade. The day before (Friday) we resorted to going to Haagen Dazs for supper while on that Saturday had chocolate for dinner =p Well I guess I should enjoy this while I’m still here which is like 5 more full days.

Anyway I’ll being going back home this Sunday at 0905, should be picking up the ticket tomorrow at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yes its hard to go but alas there’s a bigger calling to go back home. So for those of you who don’t know the story or the full story here it is…. It all started back before I came to Singapore for my university education. I always thought of studying and working here. So if anybody came to ask me what were my plans after studying I would say I would stay in Singapore. Well that all changed about a year ago. One fine day the thought of going back home after graduation crept into my mind. Sounds a bit strange to get thoughts like that especially since it was a drastic contrast of what I always wanted to do. But I just felt a need to go back and after some processing I feel that God is just telling me to go back for now. I think if I were to stay here I would get too caught up in work and things. That basically happened to me in my final year, in my work that I’m doing. Also I believe that my plans for myself are incomparable with God’s plan for me, whatever that may be. All I know is that I have to go back. Won’t know how long. I could be back in Singapore to work in the future but who knows but God. I shall place my life in His hands as He becomes the light upon my feet guiding me through what lays ahead. Also there seems to be some open doors that I wish to go through that have been opened in the past year of actually letting go of the idea of working in Singapore. Time to leave is soon. Enjoy the time here in Singapore. Enjoy the time with the friends that I’ve made here. Friendships that mean so much. Memories that hopefully never get forgotten. God bless people.

2 Timothy 3:7

Resumed my 1 year schedule to finish the bible today after quite a long break. I admit at times I was too lazy to pick it up again due to the extra length of time it takes to read and digest much more material compared to my QT materials. Anyway hit the verse as follows
2 Timothy 3:7 “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth”.
This verse means quite a lot to me because it seems to be talking about my life in my first 2 years of university. I always wanted to learn something. Something that I could use in life or at least put to good use. There are times in my life where I’ve been running the rat race of obtaining knowledge and learning, but never seeking and finding the truth. I think it doesn’t help being in Singapore with the fast pace of life here that seems to be pushing you here or there. Just need to take a step back and take a breather. I’m not saying it’s wrong to pursue knowledge but as always there is a time and place for everything. God gave each of us talents and we need to nuture and use those talents but we should not let them become something that distracts us and takes our focus away from Jesus. Lesson 1 of the ooo-some YDM L.I.F.E. youth camp about eyes and how to affix them on Jesus. Let not the distractions take a hold of your life and focus on what needs to be done. Focus on the giver not the gifts, i.e. focus on God.
Have a blessed weekend people =)

Digital camera hunt

I’m my current state I almost bought a digital camera yesterday. I guess ever since I got back from my short trip back home I realised that I want to take photos for keepsake purposes so with that I kind of got into a digital camera hunt yesterday…. online =p So I kind of narrowed it down to like the following Canon cameras: Powershot A430 (4 megapixels) , Powershot A530 (5 megapixels). Powershot A540 (6 megapixels). The only real difference is the megapixels and I guess price. So I just went out to look at the prices yesterday. The A430 is going for around ~S$280 and is bundled with a 512MB SD card and a bag. The A530 was around ~S$360 with the same bundle. This being my first real digicam I thought I would just start low and actually S$300 is more or less my price point for gadgets like PDA’s, phones, handheld consoles and digicams. Perhaps I’m a bit stingy with the money but I also feel its not really worth paying so much for a gadget, plus if anything happens it won’t cost that much to replace. Anyway I was a good thing that I decided not to buy it yesterday as my sister says she has an old Nikon camera that I can use. Kind of felt it was too rushed to buy it, guess it was God telling me there is a way to get a camera without paying for it =D. As Dominic shared before how God not only just provides but helps you save money ;-). She says its the Nikon Coolpix 3200 which seems pretty good for a novice like me. So I will wait for my brother to bring the camera over probably this weekend when he comes. Yay! =D Thank you sis!
Need to thank the following websites during my camera hunt hehe
CNET Asia (more for rough Singapore pricing)
CNET
Steve’s Digicams (for great reviews)
PC Magazine

During the search I kind of ran into Creative‘s Star Buy promotion. You can get a Zen Vision for half price!!! First 5 customers get 50% off, the next 20 get 30% off, the next 50 get 20% off while the rest get 10% off. It’s some online offer which is a pretty good deal if you are looking for a portable media player which is better than the iPod in terms of performance, screen size, file formats and extra features. Now I wonder if ladyada will make a media player device as a possible successor to MintyMP3.

Also met up with Denise, Dominic and Ruyi yesterday. Had a great time just chatting and eating. It’s going to be different when I go back, going to miss the fellowship of the trippers. BTW the photos I took when I was bored are up here (need to add me to your contacts first so I can share with you, on request of Mr. Tee =p). Nothing much to see except people sleeping haha. Anyway I need to go school later and after that run some personal errands. A great new week that the Lord has blessed us with: don’t waste it. Take care and God bless! =)

Back in Singapore

After 1 week back home in Brunei to participate in my 1st Church Youth Camp!!!! It was a great experience especially since it was that church that I was kind of forced to go. I was the, and I quote, “guy-that-sat-behind-church-with-computer”. Been a long time since then and still I can’t believe that the 1st church camp I actually went to was one hosted by my church back home. YDM website with a few photos. Thanks guys for the wonderful experience, it will certainly be a treasured memory. Take care guys and hope to keep in contact and see you guys soon enough when I come back ;-)

Anyway tonight is the last night ever in Prince George’s Park NUS. Tomorrow will be moving in to Naved’s and Fahad’s place which is near the Canadian 241 at Pasir Panjang. Helped Naved move some stuff just now and saw the place is pretty cool. Nice big place with facilities like a gym, tennis courts, swimming pool, squash courts and BBQ pit. A pretty secluded place but there’s a Cold Storage close by and some small eateries as well. Tomorrow is the final move of stuff.

Went out in the afternoon to run some errands and then ended up bumping into Isabel at Funan I.T. Mall.. She had a meeting with Kim which I crashed and we ended up eating at Marche at Suntec. Had the mushroom ragou (spelling?) rosti and a crepe topped with mango and chocolate ice cream… mmmmmm. Nice food.

Been thinking to myself about getting a new PDA and/or phone and/or digital camera. Think it started when I started looking at some photos taken back home during my Brunei trip. Was thinking to myself if it would have been better if I had my own digital camera. Then I it got me thinking about a PDA or phone with an inbuilt camera. But I thought that an inbuilt camera wouldn’t be great but since I was on the topic of PDA’s and phones I started looking into them. Man there are just too many choices. Anyway I better not get anything that will hasten and clutter my life. Felt God was telling me to slow down while I was back home: not to get caught up with things in the world.

Well I guess that’s it, the last post in my room from PGP, NUS. Good night and God bless!

1 man, 3 OS’s. 1 man, 10 scoops. 1 man, 1 God. 1 way, Jesus

The story of my life today haha
Started off roughly 24 hours ago when I decided to install Debian along side my Kubuntu Linux distro (i.e. distribution). The aim was that Kubuntu provided a lot of features I want (e.g. laptop battery monitor, bluetooth manager and others) that is not available in my Debian install as I do a minimal Debian install from the netinst ISO. First thing I had to do was to resize my reiserFS partition that Kubuntu was set up on. Had to non destructively repartition it. Found Gnome Partition Editor but I wasn’t sure if it did a non destructive repartition, but I took a chance. Backed up a few configurations of my Kubuntu setup and away I went. I have an annoyance with the partition editor (both Gnome Partition Editor and the 1 that was used in the Kubuntu setup) is that it takes a super long time for it to display the partition table that you have to edit and modify. Speaking of the Kubuntu setup, I dislike the way they do it now.

<rant>
It seems to me that you have to boot into Kubuntu (or Ubuntu) from the CD first before installing the OS. Sounds like a nice idea especially for those people who can’t handle the text based approach, especially the text graphics and need a ‘proper’ GUI. The problem is, it’s a nice idea so long as the computer you use can display the GUI. The Kubuntu version could not display on my laptop with an Ati X700 onboard. Luckily I know how to get the updated driver for the laptop in order to proceed with the proper installation, but I feel it should at least an option to install direct from the CD through a plain DOS-like console which is completely text based. Perhaps there is a way to do it but I couldn’t find it.
</rant>
Anyway back to the reason why I installed Debian along side Kubuntu was that I wanted to build the proper distrubition I want from scratch will minimal help (and automation) so as to learn something and know what I need for my laptop to give me a minimal system install without useless programs and stuff. So a mistake I did was to install the whole KDE desktop environment instead of base install. Also another reason was that in Kubuntu Opera had a weird situation with the Java plugin: it would open the applet in another separate window instead of embedding it into the page, something I’ve never experienced before. An Opera forum thread regarding this is here. Just installed the same version of Opera and Java in my Debian system and it works flawlessly: no separate window. Strange…
So anyway that leaves 3 OS’s on my laptop right now. Well more like 2 OS’s: but 1 OS has 2 different distro. Ahhh doesn’t matter anyway :P There are 6 entries in my boot menu: both Linux distros have a normal and safe mode, a memory test entry and Windows. Thinking I’m easing into the Linux world but there are a few things that are lacking. Couldn’t get NUSCAST to work in Kubuntu, but then again I didn’t try too much to get it work. So I will try to use Debian to see if the same process yeilds different results like my Opera/Java experience. No Shockwave player for Linux so had to resort to wine to emulate Windows and play Shockwave. But thing’s in general are pretty good. Think the day to convert will be soon, in the coming months I believe :D

Went to Swensen’s today at Holland Village. The only place with the $5 student promotion to eat unlimited ice cream. hehehe. Have to savour what I won’t get back home. 10 scoops: sticky chewy chocolate, mocha almond chip, frosted chocolate malt, chocolate, chocolate peanutbutter, cookies & cream, coffee, yam, bubblegum (this was bad: looks like paddlepop rainbow but doesn’t taste anything like it), sticky chewy chocolate. That was my brunch? haha Got up at 1230-ish woken up by my dear calling me :P

Gah… Opera just crashed on my by opening up a page =| Gah… Just *poof* losing a bit of what I typed… :( So I will try to recall what I typed…

Tomorrow is back to the church office to help out with camp stuff.. Ahhh the memories of church office.. good memories :) This week has been dedicated to God for me to draw closer to Him and indeed He is making a difference. Got my first ‘official’ devotional book and so far this week has indeed been an experience. Well kind of started the ‘week’ early. Saturday had a good time with God after service, Sunday was kind of rushed, my bad sorry God. Monday was worse but good. Woke up at around 0530 Monday morning to see my dear off to airport and with just about 2 hours of sleep. Then after that went out with John, Jo, Dom, Mer and Kim. Ended up looking at a guitar shop opposite Peninsular plaza as good ‘ole Dominic wanted to look at guitars. I tell you he’s a rising star in our cell group and we all can’t wait till he starts leading worship haha ;-) All the best in learning man, I’m sure God is proud of you. Then after that spent a bit of the afternoon just chatting with Dom right beside Mer and Jo who were discussing details about church varisty camp. When that was over Dom went looking for shoes/sandals or basically footwear :P He settled for a dark brown and light pink pair after much consultation from Mer and Jo hehe. When they all left I left for Orchard as I was catching ‘Cars‘ which was enjoyable. Saw a title something like ‘production babies’ in the credits followed by single word names, which makes me think that those are the names of the computers they used. So basically that whole day I was tired and sleepy but the Lord strengthened me and enabled me to still read his word while I was in Orchard. Tried to do it at the Library in Ngee Ann City but was almost falling asleep so went downstairs to get a brownie and ended up reading in the car park! hahaha But I thank God that He guided me to the car park for me to read hehe. Today was a busy day but came back and was refreshed by Him yet again. Anyway been a good day and hope to have many more.

Good night people. Good night God.


"One way, Jesus
You're the only one that I could live for"

Busy days

Past week been busy with church stuff. Been helping out at church office making bookmarks for the upcoming church family camp that starts on Sunday. dear dear, David, Dom, Jo and myself were ‘toiling’ away making the bookmarks.

  1. Print bookmarks
  2. Tear perforated paper that bookmarks are printed on
  3. Place several bookmarks on the laminating plastic
  4. Laminate
  5. Cut individual cards from the laminated plastic
  6. Punch holes in each bookmark
  7. Tie a ribbon on each bookmark

The worst was cutting the individual bookmarks. Took us 2 full days of doing that at least if i remember correctly. Tiring but fun and crazy times we had :P Good welfare too as our meals were paid for. Thanks Anne! :D She said she could claim it back and we even had ice cream floats.. mmmmmmm. Chocolate, cookies & cream and toffee ice cream… mmmmmmm :P

On Tuesday night after we caught X-men: The Last Stand,the 3rd X-men movie. I heard that there was an extra scene after the credits and true enough there was one and one that you shouldn’t miss. After watching the movie I kind of regret not following the comic book scene that I was kind of into when I was still in Brunei when I was like 11? :P 12 years ago :| The movie all in all was pretty good. Entertaining but kind of wished there was a bit more; guess they want me to come back for the 4th X-men movie.

Today went to the PC Show 2006 at Suntec City. Pretty crowded for a weekday. The same stuff every year I guess but this year saw more booth babes making me wish that they get rid of them like they did at E3 this year. Then had dinner at Carls Jr. The salsa and salsa sauce are nice :P

Something’s up with my external hard disk enclosure :( Think I need to get a replacement or at least try replacing the IDE cable that is in it because I keep getting an error that is consistent with a faulty IDE cable. Hopefully thats all I need to get else I probably wont get another external hard disk enclosure as I will probably install the hard disk into the computer I have back home. Speaking of home, I’ll be going back for a week from the 21st to 28th June then I’ll probably be staying till the end of July for convocation and holiday comprising mainly of finishing up of making my mp3 player!!!! Busy with church stuff now :P

Anyway back to a bit of spring cleaning and catching up on podcasts.
Good night people. Take care and God bless