Just a man and his will to survive..

The Table

2009-12-07T16:30:00.009Z

On the first look,

It was battered and dirty.

On the second glance,

some elegance noticed.

He wipes the age-old armour,

reminiscing its past glories.

Experienced and sturdy,

yet used, retired.

Now called once again to duty,

He marches through the familiar battlefronts.

** this has brought procrastination to a different level. haha!

End of Term!

2009-12-03T12:05:00.002Z

Wow.. this term has flew by really quickly.

You can never really predict how any term will end up at such a place like Cambridge. You feel like you're in a whirlwind or caught in the tide of fast flowing water. And before you know it, you've been thrown hard on the ground, washed ashore. But at least you know you're alive.

The Magdalene Gown

2009-10-20T17:32:00.005Z

As a number of you would know, the gown is quite often used in Cambridge, especially when you're a fan of formal halls. This picture was taken before i headed off to the Scholars' dinner this year, held last Wednesday.

It dawned upon me that this would be the last time I attend such a dinner, being in my final year already. Then suddenly the piece of black cloth seemed so much more significant now. heh. The pair of cuff links were a gift from meisheng and was aptly at convenience for a prop. =)

The Scholars' dinner this year was slightly different to previous years. Other than the fact that I was served pork this time round (compared to vegetarian substitute), I had a very good chat with a biological dos, a MIT exchange coursemate and my dos. It was very good fun, especially now that my research is on biofuel.

I think magd people would appreciate that the picture captures the 'unique' design of the Magdalene gown. To read more, http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/cuhags/gowns/m.htm

Mercenary

2009-10-06T09:27:00.002Z

Designed the poster for the upcoming talk organised by the buddhist soc. Thought i'd share it here too.

Talk by Ajahn Brahm, organised by the Cambridge University Buddhist Society.

Mid-Autumn Festival

2009-10-04T05:20:00.002Z

As a result of jetlag, i was up at 5am. At about 6am, as I drew the curtains to check if the sun has risen, this sight caught me. So I fumbled over the dark to find my camera and took a few snaps.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

*Long is in Cambridge. and I had mooncake with Long and Ryan last night. =)

Singapore, Sept 2009

2009-09-14T03:35:00.003Z

Took the chance to snap some pictures of the younger cousins during the 100th day ceremony of ahma. I think most of them turned out pretty good. people were generally happier than previous occasions and less serious.

Yo-yo seems to be the in thing with the younger boys.
Jinliang (?) jumped into the mud puddle next to larry and got him wet and messy.

Not sure what was so interesting with that. I think they were pretty amused.
Some mixture of grains that we were meant to throw on the elders command. Thought it was an interesting mix of colours.

Monk/Llama

Ms and yj at jap restaurant for sushi buffet. Yj's hair is soooooo long. omg. hahaha

三年前。。 (Three years ago..)

2009-09-12T01:16:00.004Z

Freshers' Meal @ Escapade, Gadong. September 2006.

Freshers' Meal @ Escapade, Gadong. September 2009

Nostalgia seems to be the in thing lately. Just realised it's still Timberland. heh.

Good things don't come easy

2009-09-08T01:48:00.003Z

Sunset @ Oia, Satorini

A certain someone said, good things don't come easy.

The reason why I like this picture isn't only because it was a pretty dramatic sunset at the tip fo the island, but more so due to the fact that i needed to run all over the hilly roads of Oia to find this scene. But having gotten there, i found two photographers camping there already. Hence to frame the shot, i had to bend over the fence and stretched my body (quite risky now that i think of it haha) with the sun setting fast. hahah! i thought that was quite hilarious, but hey I was a tourist. =D

If anyone who has gotten the collage has not noticed, this picture was use in the background separating the two layers of pictures. ;-)

Sunset at Muara Beach

2009-08-23T15:56:00.002Z

I've always been a fan of sunset pictures. Family decided to make a trip down to Muara beach during the late afternoon - so i brought along the camera. Turned out to be quite a dramatic sunset. I think the sunset in South East Asia is very different to that in Greece. It's probably because the presence of clouds make it more interesting. Well, I'll let you decide when I put up the Santorini sunset pictures - which are long overdue.

Two of my favourite shots.

Greece - Athens

2009-07-30T16:08:00.005Z

Day 1
Lunch

Library of Hadrian

Water fountain - at the Acropolis!

Parthenon Silhouette

Chee Hui Tour Agency

Sunset from the Parthenon

Of Chants and Friends

2009-07-25T23:30:00.004Z

It has been a very interesting visit to Singapore. I must say it was a lot more enjoyable than any other trips I had before.

Though I do find it slightly amusing to call it interesting when i spent the majority of my time chanting in the temple. My education in buddhism has yet to involve chanting and rituals, hence it was pretty foreign. As skeptical I was, I initially did it out of goodwill for my grandma and respect for the efforts the family has put it. A few days into it, I figured that there should be some humility towards our senses and intellect as humans. A few days after it, I think I have slight withdrawals from chanting. Some tunes and snippets from the scriptures continue to play repeatedly in my head.

There's a form of peace (other than times i was nodding off cos i was too sleepy) that i find with that. I've told someone before that one of my ideal holiday would be one where I can be at a resort doing just nothing and leaving the world behind for a while. I think i found this actually quite similar once you get over the initial inertia. I have never chanted so much 'amituofo' in my life haha. I've also never eaten so much vege in a week before. I'm also quite proud of the fact that I didn't touch the bakua.

It's been a very healthy and enjoyable week. On most days i would be at the temple during the day and meeting up with friends in the afternoon or at night. I also got to know more of my singaporean cousins a bit more - hopefully that'll make sg less foreign next time i visit. I think it's really quite a blessing to have such a good state of mind over the last 10 days.

"May ah ma be well and happy"

The gifts

2009-07-02T16:10:00.006Z

I had been thinking of what to get my friends during their graduations for quite a while. Ideas sprung up once in a while, many of them I deemed too creative or too much work. However, time doesn't wait and it didn't. Tripos passed and the design project ended. I went for a very happening trip in Greece and came back to Cambridge. I got my results and was exhilirated. People left and came back from their 'graduation trips'. And still nothing concrete came out.

I thought, perhaps the memories we had were sufficient. Since friendship shouldn't be all presents and gifts. I have been pretty objective over the past 2 graduations, I might as well just get through this one.

Then it struck me. These people were leaving. It was three days before the first graduation ceremony. We were busy packing up our rooms during the day and gathering every night till early morning. We were trying to treasure as much time we had as possible.

It was also a good thing that the body seemed to require less sleep when it doesn't need to study. I was up by 7am every morning despite sleeping pretty late.

I was trying to piece together a photo collage for individuals. But it was way too late. Then it struck me that the whole thing wasn't about individuals in the first place. It's everyone and the fun we had, and the joy we saw people had. All came into place one by one and I was fortunate enough to have zw&my as my packaging team to present the gifts in a more presentable form an evening before graduation started.

I hope they like it.

Although groggy at most times, the exercise of making the collage was a nostalgic ride through the memory lane. Going through my albums photo by photo, i went through the unimaginable kitchen i had in Basing, I saw how happy we all were when we first cooked, I saw how blur we all looked in our first undergraduate year, I saw how proud ms and ryan were when they made that indescribable horse for Mable in his what was then the best room we can think of, I saw the jc the teapot (i must say i was very tempted to include but feared for my life a bit more), I saw the sun, the rain, the snow, the balls, the feasts, the formals, the cookouts, the trips, the adventures, the sunrises, the sunsets... Thank you all. =)

Graduation!

2009-06-25T18:31:00.010Z

I thought i'd make a small compilation of photos of people graduating. Since it lasts over three days, let's see how updated i can get.

St. John's

Queens' College

Christ

Magdalene

Fitz

New Hall

Robinson

Homerton

And then the three days marathon came to an end...

最亲爱的朋友, 祝你们一路顺风..

Magdalene Mayball

2009-06-19T07:48:00.005Z

All nighters seem to be the really 'in' thing for my life now. I've never been a fan of staying awake for more than 24 hours and have never done it before before this year. The Magdalene Mayball was in fact the third time I've pulled an all-nighter this year - the first being the LAN party and the second the design Project.

The Magdalene Mayball was the first mayball i've been to. I wouldn't deny that I, like most other people forking out a huge sum of money to attend it, had my doubs. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the night. It was splendid, awesome and utterly enjoyable. (lol, the last sentence sounds so british hahaha)

Of course most of the fun came from the great company that we had. Adding on to it was the thought that friends made over our undergraduate years will be leaving in their own separate ways in about a week or so.

Magdalene Mayball is the only white-tie ball in Cambridge. It meant that we had to rent our white-tie attire. I spent a significant proportion of the day trying to figure out where each component is meant to go. I'd say it was an experience. Not very fun. And we did the buttons the wrong way around initially until we were in the queue. It's a good the shirt was cleverly designed to allow such changes to be made relatively easily.

We had WeiShu come over before entering the ball to take some pictures with the dslr. I would say things weren't too well organised here among our huge group but we got managed to get some good pictures taken. I didn't bring my dslr in because i thought it didn't quite fit in to all the ultra formal attire. I also din want to spend the whole night taking care of my camera.

The night passed really quickly and I'll try to remember what happened. Since everyone was hungry by about half past nine, the first stop was the thai curry rice. This was followed by hot dogs and burgers. I had a thai curry, two hotdogs and a bacon burger. That was pretty satisfying.

We then moved on to some of the mini games they had on board. These included a two-person swing. There were just enough guys and girls to pair up to get on board which was pretty good. lol. There was also a shooting game and some 'hit the coconut' game which was impossible to score.

We wandered around that reached the master's lodge where we found a comfortable area to talk and rest our legs for a while.

We then proceeded to night punting which was pretty cool. The camb felt so different at night.

After punting, people were feeling cold and we headed over the silent disco. I thought it was pretty cool. We managed to some videos of us fooling about in the 'silent' with the help of the light from the phone. haha

From here on.. it was quite a blur to me. haha I remember drinking a few more glasses of the honey-tasting ginger rum, feeling quite sleepy at times, took a photo by the professional photographer, had a foot massage which was very enjoyable and then it was breakfast time.

Breakfast was a sit-down breakfast with newspaper. And you can see how excited we got. hahaha

We lasted till the very end of the ball and had the survivor photo taken. After that there was a long queue going out of the ball, so we thought we might as well take more photos among ourselves. I think meisheng's new camera was pretty good. and the lighting during the early hours of the morning was very good for taking photos.

We basically kept taking pictures until the security asked us to leave. Meisheng, hong sheng and i decided to over to meisheng's room to compile the pictures since everyone seemed to have very crazy schedule planned ahead fo them. Then came the idea of going to cafe nero for coffee - which we did. But anyway that's going beyond the scope do the mayball.

It would say it was very enjoyable. The food was excellent and the number of people in the college was very comfortable. Now i need to see the survivor photo to see whather it is worth the money.

I'll probably put up a slideshow of the photos soon..

Pride

2009-06-07T09:37:00.005Z

Always fun on hindsight. it feels really similar to climbing the Pinnacles really. =)

Design Project 2009

2009-06-06T09:22:00.008Z

I thought i should jot things down before the memory fades and disappears into nothingness.

The design project is basically a 5-week exercise to design a plant with a team of engineers. Groups were allocated randomly and it happened that i had a 5-membered group compared to the rest with 6-membered. Since groups were random, it was expected that there would be people with a range calibre and personality.

A few highlights of the project:

1.) The first 3 weeks were largely very painful and uncomfortable because my laptop was unrealiable and repeatingly tripping off. Hence i was working in department most of the time or in the computer room in magd. I'm a person who likes working in the comforts of my room so those days weren't the best days. 事倍功半 >.<

2.) The new computer came about two weeks before the project ended. I took it as a blessing as that was really when things started kicking in in terms of report writing.

3.) I think i generally enjoyed coordinating a generally pretty functional team. I also realise that my ability to spam people has been put to good use in this project.

4.) I knew that there might be problems with people working together, however i wouldn't deny that I hugely underestimated the magnitude of the issue. This was increasingly obvious towards the end of the project when people started getting stressed.

5.) The extensive amount of planning i laid out as the coordinator was primarily aimed at eliminating the need to lose sleep towards the end of the project. It was also a fallback option for any hiccups that might happen. What the plan couldn't account for were two major hiccups. and that was exactly what happened within the final two days of the final project.

6.) That meant that my 'functional' team worked in department from 9pm on Wednesday till 4pm on Thursday. without sleep. The only time i left the department was for a subway break which took 15 minutes. Other than that, i was either printing stuff in the computer room or in the tea room, in front of my computer working my ass off. That was 31 hours of solid work.

7.) I realised, once again, that the human body and mind is incredible. I never knew i could work continuously for such a long stretch of time, under such intense time pressure, with such focussed concentration.

8.) I don't think there was another time in my life where I sweared that much before.

9.) I found being politically correct superbly annoying towards the end. and i think I became pretty straightforward after a night without sleep.

10.) I realised that there are selfless people and selfish people in this world. And the way to treat selfish people is to be nice to them and get the stuff you want from them and let them do whatever they want. There is no need to explode on them because it doesn't help. It's pretty ironic.

11.) I realise that I prefer commitment to calibre in terms of 'qualities' of people. To put in the effort to draw up something using a program one had no former experience of, even if it was presented looking less neat than others, is an achievement worth commending.

12.) We won the 2nd best prize for the presentation even though only 2-3 hours was spent preparing it. Our final round of practise ended at 1.25 and the presentation started 1.30pm. I presented my area design as one of the 'unique features' of the plant. Since a large amount of skepticism had arisen regarding the use my recompression of oxygen rich stream, I put in backup slides with 'print screens' of the sources of information I found that deemed the design acceptably safe for use. It happened that the first question asked was on the safety of the oxygen rich stream and i conveniently brought up the back-up slides. The audience enjoyed that and we got a round of applause.

13.) I think i'm pretty proud of what the 'functional' group has achieved. I say 'functioinal' because there was a very obvious split in the group. I'm going to print my Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (PID) out and put it on my wall as decoration!

St John's College, Cambridge

2009-05-03T23:12:00.003Z

Picture taken by Ying.

I'm thinking of sending in my computer to the computing service because the fan is stuck and my computer keeps overheating and tripping. I'm not sure how long they will take to replace the fan but I hope they don't take too long. Anyway, i was backing up my photos and found this picture.

Post Tripos 2009 - Visit To Durham

2009-05-03T00:20:00.009Z

After a revision marathon of about one and a half months, my 3rd year Chemical Engineering Tripos Exams came to an end on thursday. The end of exams are less exciting this year as the 'year' has yet to end, with the design project commencing on Monday.

Anyway, I came over to Durham for the weekend to deliver shan's stuff from home as well as to get away from camb. I took the opportunity to take a few shots of durham.

Calm riverside - very typical scene of durham. These pictures were taken on the first evening when we were on our way to dinner. I actually wanted to take a few 'sunset' shots but the service at Nando's was extremely slow. Furthermore, the sunset was just a very undramatic dimming of light intensity - so nothing dramatic to shoot.

My cousin, Long, came over the next day and we went Durham sightseeing. We headed over to Durham's Cathedral and the Castle College. The 3 black and white pictures feature the cloisters of the Durham Cathedral. If you think it looks familiar, it's featured in the Harry Potter films.

I like the backlighting effect on this one.

Then we saw pretty flowers along the way. Long was vain but I shall not put his picture up. LOL

And finally, we had duck from Goldmine, London for dinner. Isn't it awesome?

It was a good trip - nice, lazy and relaxing. Shan's house was a bit too messy (even for my standards) so i was in her room most of the time. heh =P Other than that, I would be on my computer clicking away, watching series, catching up, gossiping or playing game with Long. I also managed to cook dinner yesterday. It's good to cook when you have proper stoves with actual fire, compared to a lousy single hob back in Camb.

Chuisan came over from Stockton (?) so I had lunch with them before going to the train station. The restaurant, called Fat Buddha, had pretty interesting interiors but i think i'll upload them once i get back to Camb. I'm now on my way back to camb and I've managed to get my laptop out and connected to the wireless internet. ;-)

Muji Delivery!

2009-04-22T17:00:00.002Z

Most of you would have known that I'm a fan of Muji. Since the academic year started in September, I have been searching for a clock of reasonable size to replace the previous green clock that went missing over the course of storage during summer. I don't wear a watch so when in my room, I'd have to go over to the laptop or find my phone to look up the time. However inconvenient it may be, it wasn't until a few days ago that I found this on Muji's website. I've never bought anything through the Muji online system but have frequented Muji stores in Hong Kong, Singapore and London.

Muji products aren't the cheapest thing but I just love their simplistic (and often interesting) design. I guess it gives a similar feel to why people like Macs. The clock costs about £7. I wouldn't complain about its price.

When the email came through on monday night saying that it has been dispatched, it said that it'll come in 5 working days but when it arrived when i checked the plodge today (weds). That was quite a surprise.

Yea, as you can see, i bought a few other stuff. Since there was a delivery charge to it, I thought I'd throw in a few pen and a file. I like the file - it's sleek and looks professional. Though it's expensive for such an item.

And yes, if you've noticed they've spelt calendAr wrong. =p

So....

2009-04-15T11:34:00.003Z

I think photos have become such essential items in my posts that I feel a bit lost without them. That is probably the reason why there hasn't been anything here for a looong while.

Anyways, I was back in Brunei for 4 weeks and as expected, Brunei is still the same old Brunei. I was following the legislative council meetings quite faithfully for the first two weeks. I actually wanted to go to parliament and listen to their debates but i was too 'lazy' to make the effort, especially with the jetlag and helping dad with some of his stuff. It's encouraging to see that there is at least some sort of check-point system going on now. Personally, from what I've read, i think the debates are not agressive enough.

Since I'm on this, another thought hit me while i was in Brunei. This was triggered by the Maktab Duli awards ceremony, celebrating the academic high-achievers of this year. So I happen to know that a number of scholars are Permanent Residents (Red ICs) of Brunei. Apparently, it was very difficult for PRs to get scholarships in Brunei many years ago. However, I think this 'policy' has sort of changed, with some of the most prestigious scholarships going to PRs this year. Now the question is, why is it that citizenship is not awarded, or rather made a requirement, on the acceptance of the scholarship and completion of their tertiary education. Surely these are people worth investing in. If the country is willing to spend 200-300 thousand dollars on a single person, why doesn't the country want him/her as a citizen? If citizenship is not granted, then we are still in effect funding citizens of other countries no?

Anyway, other than revising back home, it was kinda fun to participate in big family events. Qing Ming was two sundays ago and it was good to see familiar faces and noises again. It's a pity i din have my camera with me then as i remember wanted to take photos with a dslr this time last year when i visited granddad's place. Oh well, may be sometime during summer then.

So 4 weeks passed by pretty quickly, however monotonous it might seem. I spent the last 2 weeks indulging in 三国 stuff - comics and games. Probably not the best thing to do. I'm back in Cambridge for 3 days now. 11 days to my Tripos. Hope all goes well.

Flowers

2009-04-18T11:46:00.003Z

I was tired of revision and went around college taking pictures of flowers.. heh

This picture looks vaguely familiar. haha

I think i shall name the last picture - 'tripos'. haha! revision overload. ><

King's College Formal

2009-03-05T01:18:00.002Z

Thanks to ch and andrew, I had the privilege of dining at Kings' college Formal last night.

As you can see, the hall is not dissimilar to King's unique architecture. Food was awesome as well, especially in terms of display. I've been watching master chef lately and I think this is the only formal whose display looks vaguely similar to those I see on the programme.

The picture above was taken with the 450D balanced on two wine cups with a coffee cup for elevation of the lens for the proper angle. It was quite a delicate piece of balancing work which i spent quite a while playing around with. I think it seemed to worked quite well.

Cumsa Ball 2009

2009-03-01T20:37:00.004Z

So it was themed 'vanity fair' and it's the 60th anniversary of the founding of the society ever since LKY founded it (starting off with 12 members as we were reminded during one of the quizes).

Actually, last night seemed like a blur. I remember myself crouching on the floor most of the time, trying to frame a good shot of the performances. Our table was strategically positioned, thanks to ch but my seat was too angled for the shots to be of any use, hence i was literally running all over. BUT, it became even more annoying when they started dimming the lights during performances. I don't get it.. how do people sitting at the back watch the show when it's dark? Even my 50mm f1.8 couldn't see anything!

Generally, I think i enjoyed last year's ball better. I can't place my finger on exactly why. I have a feeling it's the venue. I think the hall is slightly tight this time round. The award ceremony got a bit dreary after a while and the jokes could be improved.

Then again, maybe i enjoyed the ball last year better because i needn't be on the floor half the time shooting! Food for thought..

Table Photo!

I'm wondering how to share all the photos i've processed. there's actually a very low throughput, but still a significant absolute amount. Since they are filled with pictures of people, i think FACEbook would be the way to go then. I dont normally upload my pics on facebook but i suppose it's the easiest way for this purpose..

The One Above, the supreme Director Sir

2009-02-23T20:10:00.011Z

This follows my previous post on the CUMaS Mnight 2009, only with a slightly different focus and it'll be pretty obvious.

The Directors Foreword:

"give me some good pictures of myself ok"

And so I've decided to do him a favour. I've always said editing pictures of guys are difficult, but after the task He set me, I think it has brought my threshold to a completely different level. Lol

The Director Sir sure looked happy..

And there he goes on his roll...

I think it's a pretty rare occasion to catch this dude not posing straight at the camera.. then again, when is he not posing?!

Jokes aside, I'm sure everyone agrees that his piece of work this year with the Malaysian night is, again in his own words, awesome and spectacular. Absolutely.

A CUMaS Production - Malaysian Night 2009

2009-02-22T01:00:00.012Z

Titled 'Stranger Things Have happened Here'. Now that the play has been successfully completed, I'm wondering whether stranger things will ever happen here.

In term of photographs, I have at least 500 shots of the play but no i will not process them until I get more free time on my hands. First, my seat wasn't the best place. I had the director's spiky silhouette 'nicely' framing most of my shots. Secondly, I had a very late night yesterday and a very early start to the day, ending right before the CUMaS Malaysian Night started. I was knackered by the time i reached Christ's Hall. Thirdly, I dont really see the point of processing the whole play worth of pictures - might as well get a video of it. =)

Anyhow.. I've picked a few shots that i particularly found interesting - or rather, strange. If it fits the theme.

The opening dance - i like the wall. Awesome dance, neat abs.
End of the dance.
Nicole's earring - she was sitting in front of me and I thought it was very interesting. Fits the theme too.

Now this I have to credit Jan Shim - a friend and a professional photographer who has claimed the 'leg shots'. Yes, he is good inspiration. Whatever you say, I say it fits the theme.

On a completely different context, he said:
why be a winner when u can be a catastrophic failure? (Jan Shim)
Those who watched the play, I'm sure you'll be able to relate.

It was a great show - intense yes, probably not the best play to watch after a stressful day, but great show nonetheless. The projector hiccup was unfortunate but everything did get through in the end. It's good to know sleep wasn't lost for nothing. =)

This obviously wasn't a failure!