Dear Dreams – Page 120

Self-Centred People

One easy way to judge a friend is to see how he reacts on certain things that you do.

People smile and talk to you does not mean that they like you and appreciate you as a friend.

If I were to know that the payment for everyone would be delayed if I did not go back just to sign a piece of paper, I would certainly give the extra effort.

Good friends would put themselves in my shoes; fakers would simply scream “fuck him la”.

It is my joy to see such bastards harming their own health just because they do not use the tiny brains of theirs to think in the positive side. So much for the thought that everyone owes them a living, they would have reacted the same if Goddess or any god was involved.

Applied for Degree at University of Wollongong

After almost a week’s holiday, going back to the office was quite annoying. Travelling was a waste of time especially when I was already back to the mood of website developing.

It started raining right before lunch and we went to pick Mingli up before proceeding to IKEA. I had a plate of chicken drumstick. The sightseeing at the IKEA restaurant was good when there were sweet girls around, especially a very pretty girl in St. Margaret uniform.

After lunch, we waited for Jingkun to digest his ice-cream before proceeding to SIM. It was the first step to a new beginning of my life, which was a major milestone.

Jingkun had forgotten to tell me that registration would require two passport sized photos. The photo booth benefited my six bucks, and Mingli had her share of joy by making fun of my sleepy looks inside the photos. Anyway, I realised I had wasted my time to get six one-dollar coins as the machine did accept notes.

At the registration counter, I was stunned when I was asked for the course I wanted to apply for and luckily Jingkun was around. I managed to get over my embarrassment while filling in the application form which required all the dates of my educational statuses.

Since I knew clearly that only part-time scheme was offered for my course <a href="
” target=”_blank”>Bachelor of Information Technology (Computing), when the guy asked me if I were going to take up full-time or part-time for it, I was quick enough to “shoot” him back and he mentioned he was just trying to be clear. After paying the registration fee of $53.50 at the payment counter, we left.

I would probably get a reply within a month and the confirmation of the course for next 15 January intake had to be made before 15 November. With the commencing of the course, I would probably regain a broke person again after a year of a normal lifestyle. The final decision would based on whether if I were able to have the two-year advanced standing, such that I would be able to get into the third year directly.

I was not confident of getting good results for the degree course since there were a number of theory-based modules, which I was weak at. So much for the plan to study “full-time” in order to concentrate, the peer pressure to continue working was strong. Working while studying could of course give me the financial stability, however, the focus should be on getting good grades.

At the carpark, we saw a pretty girl who had just parked her car, and we started chatting that that would be the best girlfriend we could ever get, or rather, I was the one who started the joke.

Mingli insisted to go home straight away instead of accompanying us back to office even though Jingkun was getting ready to leave immediately. We were stunned when Jingkun drove to Mingli’s place first, such that he would be making another trip back since he stayed quite near to Mingli.

Beach without My Gang

On Sunday, I made an unusual attempt to travel down to the beach alone. It was supposed to be a much bigger group outing whereby Jenrine would call her friends and I would invite my gang along, but it turned out that I was too “unpopular”.

Weitat was at Hong Kong and thus, I lost my usual more-enthusiastic buddy’s perseverance power. I told Mingfa about it a few days ago and he did not reply my SMS the night before the actual beach outing. I had my MSN nick changed and there was no response except for Jianhao. There was no luck at all and since I was too lazy to get rejected again, I gave up. Jenrine’s gang decided to proceed on with the plan and the initiation of my next move was left tangling.

In the morning, I woke up early after sleeping for less than three hours. I decided to join in the fun since it was agreed earlier and that it had been some time since I last stepped into Sentosa after the lousy Rip Curl beach volleyball competition. However, the dark sky stopped me. I continued watching my Chinese drama until the rain finally ended, just in time for me to catch the episode where the Han emperor initiated the first combat with the Xiong Nu tribe.

I grabbed a bun before boarding the bus. I knew well that it was not going to be a usual play-non-stop volleyball day without the presence of my teammates.

Upon reaching the usual place, I spotted a group of people playing volleyball. One of the girls looked like Jenrine from a distance away and since I did not want to cause any embarrassment on myself, I stood by the same spot and watched them for some time. One of them told the girl that I was looking at them and she surprised me by questioning me.

The only familiar face was Huey Yong and thus, I went over to have a quick chat with him before I saw Shengli. I started playing with him and his friends in my “soft” legs and frozen brain. It was an awkward moment to play with two strangers on the same court, especially when they knew each other well.

Jenrine caught me after the game and I joined her group. Since they were of even number, I was sitting outside the court to rest my numbed brain. At times, we played together outside the court, which slowly got my body recovered.

Towards evening, I joined Yingying and Jenrine against Shaoxian and Raphael on a friendly match at a lousy court. The sagging net falling towards one side of the court made blocking difficult especially with the uneven concrete-like sand. I had a few knocks after diving.

Before ending the day, Yingying, Jenrine and I played against two guys. I was quite embarrassed at first to outnumber them but it seemed that we were too inferior somehow. I played as the setter again but failed to block any of the opponents’ spiking above the low net. It was quite frustrating.

With Yuenyin’s early departure, I managed to squeeze into Shaoxian’s car and we joined up with Shengli at Vivocity. We had dinner at Kim Gary, which was my third time, and we had great jokes over the meal even though we were kind of being divided into two groups.

Watching Drama during Holidays

I spent more than half of my holidays watching the Chinese drama – Han Wu Da Di (汉武大帝) – instead of doing my website. The few days of release from official work were initially planned for only personal work purpose.

I got to understand the biggest difference between watching drama many episodes at one go and a couple of episodes per week – the latter was harder for a clear picture of everything.

Previously when the drama was introduced on channel 8, there were times when I missed out the first few minutes of an episode, or even the entire episode. At times, I almost forgot the flow of the drama since the previous episode and I could not understand many things.

So far, Yaozhong is my only friend who enjoys watching the drama as well. I guess most people would find me a boring person for being so engrossed in such drama shows, but one day, someone would eventually find me unique.

Anyway, even though my initial plan for the holidays has been substituted, I suppose holidays are meant to be enjoyed.

Emptiness

The feeling of disappointment somehow endorsed the day. Nothing would eventually work out without action.

Rot the days and live with the emptiness.

Pot Luck, Volleyball, Settlers' Café, Chinatown Complex

On the first day of the holiday, I woke up feeling weak and the entire body was strengthless.

Volleyball was stated to be at two PM but even the most important person, Mingfa, was late. I had some conversation with an uncle whom arrived shortly after me and he told me about the prospect of IT career, which was quite enlightening.

One of my favourite uncles arrived soon and he took out the “orh tar” for us to chew and soon, Mingfa arrived with my gang. We set up the court immediately before grabbing more bites on the semi “buffet”. More food came in later and the pot luck party was overwhelming.

Unfortunate that the little food I took had made my stomach so bloated that I could not take more and that it affected my performance during the games. I played badly.

During the evening, we went to Holland Village to try out gaming at the Settlers’ Café. Parking was hell difficult for the heavy flow of cars at this popular place. Free flow of drinks was near ten bucks per person. The staff who first attended us was cute and I supposed that was the greatest gain of the trip.

There were Mingfa, Grace, Weitat, Jingkun, Kok Chiang and Mingli, and Ah Teck and Wilson joined us at the end but they did not join in the fun. It was a pretty good experience and it was one of the rare things my gang would ever do. I was caught laughing the most even though I was the only who wanted to opt out at first. My hesitation was caused by my stubborn and poor time management.

At around nine PM, we went to Chinatown Complex for dinner. I was guilty for the rest of them had to travel the long distance probably because I was staying furthest away from them.

I toured around three quarters of the place but most of the stalls were closed and that I had no choice but to order a bowl of noodle. It was not an easy night for me because of my weird stomach condition. After reaching home, everything was fine.

Movie with Jonathan Tan Er Xin

Tuesday’s lunch was at Jurong Point together with Mingli. Mingfa probably did not join us due to his x-ray appointment at NUH. We dined at the stall called “Lai Lai”, which sold mainly duck. It was a pretty expensive meal for duck rice.

We shopped at the supermarket for the next day’s pot luck gathering before sending Mingli home with the food.

It was the last day of work before the long weekends since we were given three days’ off. After Weitat and Jingkun left, I confirmed with Guoxin the time to meet up while I continued with my work.

Guoxin arrived in his dad’s car and we proceeded straight to Vivocity where we got the tickets to the movie “Painted Skin”. Next, we walked around and eventually landed at the Food Republic food court. I tried to bring down the wall between him and my buddies but his mindset was different from others.

The movie “Painted Skin” was not bad, except that both Guoxin and I expected more grand action scenes.

The movie was more of an “excuse” for meeting him up. I missed the days the entire group got together and went for beach and even movie together. Many things could not be pieced back especially with just a tiny single strength.

After the movie, I actually wanted to bring him to either the Henderson Waves or Marina South Pier but he seemed tired. He sent me home straight away, which was the greatest decision with the drizzling.

KTV and Dinner at Cineleisure

On Monday, we had lunch at Bukit Timah hawker centre. This time round, both Daniel and Jennifer joined us. The chicken chop Jingkun and I took were not impressive for they required really sharp knives in order to slice them apart. After that, we went to Sunset Way at the Daily Scope restaurant for ice-cream. It was my first visit to the route even though it was so near Clementi.

After getting back to office, I continued to do my website. Some time later, Jingkun and Weitat joined some other colleagues to play badminton. I did not know they were playing on that day since I did not receive the email and probably due to some communication problem. There was suggestion to bring me home to fetch my stuffs or Weitat could get some clothes from his home but I found it too troublesome.

The stay inside the office proved worthwhile for I managed to debug some stuffs. Needless to say, the progress to my website had risen to another level.

In the evening, we went to Chervons for karaoke. I was actually not keen about it but the fear of spoiling their fun drove me to join in. Basically, singing around three or four songs in two hours was a waste of money and time, especially when I was tired.

Mingfa left a bit earlier to return the car to his sister while the rest of us went to Harbourfront Centre to pick him up before going to Cineleisure for dinner at the Hong Kong cafe. I had a cup of plain milk tea while the rest of the food did not appeal to me. Moreover, my mum had informed me earlier that she had cooked pork rib soup and I did not want to waste the food at home. Mingli shared her big French toast with me.

After we returned to the carpark opposite, Jingkun’s car was covered with bird shit.

The Weekend of Programming

The weekend passed fast with expected work unfinished. My two days were totally burnt out by web design and programming. Database structure stole a big portion of my time, especially when new amendments were made over and over again during programming. At least I knew I had to make changes as early as possible before more work was created and more amendments had to be improvised.

Programming bugs told me my skill to the basic coding was still far from perfection. The punishment was long hours of debugging with lots of time wastage, which almost killed my perseverance. At times, I went to the room to lie down just for a couple of minutes and I believed my younger brother would find me irritating since his work station was inside the room.

My appointment with the hairdresser early at eight AM on Sunday morning proved to be a wrong decision. Initially I was afraid that I might have to go out at other timing, which was on the other hand, a wise move. Since I struggled till five AM in the morning, I almost could not get up and I had to keep chatting with the auntie to keep myself awake. I had my hair trimmed much shorter than usual.

There are still many blogs to update and pictures to upload. I suppose I have to give up on some of the work.

Bad News in the Office

On Friday, the drizzling rain coaxed my laziness to go to work. It was the second or third time of the week that it rained in the morning.

The three of us had lunch at IKEA and the restaurant seemed to be catering their “fish and chips” set specially for me as their promotional set for the day. I felt the hassle in ordering food somehow and I almost forgot to get a cup of drinks for Weitat. In the end, I forgot to return him his three bucks change. Weitat enjoyed the fish and chips but I did not like the thickness of the flour.

We did not have a tour around my favourite furniture departments at level two, but instead, we went straight to level one where Weitat got him a small pillow to hug inside the office.

There were some bad news at the office. My few continuous days of delighted mood was eventually destroyed by the story of a smoker cum liar and also a brainless big shot. Besides this, Jingkun had confirmed about an email which the hints were already quite obvious; to Weitat and me, it did not really matter much, but it could affect Jingkun quite a lot. No matter what, it meant a change of plan for him and his future and I really hoped he could struggle.

It seems that I’m always doing things based on trust but nobody, regardless of moral and honesty, can assure everything. I have a number of friends who have sounded so promising and put dreams into my sleep every night, and yet I’m still struggling at nowhere after all these years. It is a fact that nobody in this world can really go all the way out to save you every time; we have to depend on ourselves.

Meijun gave me a call suddenly and asked if we were free to meet her up since she was alone and had to wait for quite some time for another job interview. Both Jingkun and Weitat already had appointments. I did meet up with her in case it would turn into another teasing session against me even though she had a boyfriend. However, I felt guilty for the rejection and moreover it was quite rare for any friend not within my gang to ask me out.

We left the office quite early in low spirit.