New Mikasa Volleyball, New Four-gigabyte Thumbdrive

On Thursday, we went to Beach Road for lunch together with Mingli and Mingfa. While waiting for the famous chicken rice, we had some chocolate waffles. Since I had not recovered from flu, it was quite a waste that I could not get to enjoy the delicious food fully.

We went to Golden Mile to look at Weitat’s jersey before going to Mustafa where we purchased the new expensive official Mikasa volleyball; the shop attendant seemed to suspect us and made us go to the cashier immediately to pay for it.

I got myself a four-gigabyte SanDisk thumbdrive for $19.90 to replace my deceased two-gigabyte Imation thumbdrive. Actually, there was a five-year warranty for the thumbdrive which I bought around nine months ago but the service centre was at Upper Payar Lebar Road; the original price was around $36 but it had already fallen till around $10, and it did not worth me to make the special trip down just to get it fixed or exchanged.

Since I did not manage to do many things due to the long lunch break, I stayed inside the office until I was “chased” away while the four of them were at the hall. I felt guilty for not joining in the fun but I supposed we had to give up on some entertainments in order to achieve greater things. If my gang and I were enjoying ourselves when one of us was near but not joining in, I would probably feel uncomfortable as well; hopefully they were already used to my dullness.

I tried to play with Mingli’s camera when I got down after six PM but the lighting was so poor that I could never capture a still picture of satisfactory sharpness of them in the game. If I were to join them earlier, I could probably take some good and artistic shots of the gang for the sake of good memories. Besides, we had not taken group picture for quite long already.

The usual sleepy bug haunted me down and I started lying on the exercise map. It was another weird experience that I did not manage to doze off, or at least I thought I had not fallen asleep at all, until I opened my eyes to see the arrival of many people. I sensed it was a long time that I had been lying down there but I should have heard the increased noise and also, the volleyballs should have at least pinched me.

Playing volleyball was more carefree than usual days somehow, probably with the new ball that made us feel so professional like playing in the Olympic. Like the previous week, I did not catch the timing well than before but somehow still managed to wrap the ball well with my palm. My teams seemed to be on the losing end most of the time but there was no hard feeling at all.

Thoughts filled my mind whenever I was not in play; there were doubts like the team’s future, Mingfa’s legs conditions and also other problems.

I made my way to the MRT alone again. Dinner was more than one hour after midnight.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

Second Day of Handling Gallery2

On Wednesday, I continued to struggle on the Gallery2 project with some success but that was almost the limit to my current understanding of the script.

In the afternoon, we set off in Jingkun’s car to West Coast’s temporary market. Since many stalls were not opened for business, the three of us eventually ordered food from the same duck rice stall.

After lunch, we had a little walk around the Sheng Song supermarket; it was my first visit there and I was quite impressed of the interior somehow even though the place seemed old.

Meijun called me and want me to help her to print her resume and thus I could not leave together with Weitat. I was actually quite uncomfortable to bring her into the office but the fact that she was used to be from the school would probably sound it reasonable.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

Project for the Holiday

On Tuesday, I submerged myself fully into the “Gallery2” customisation work totally. The scripting style was alien to me but I managed to accomplish some requirements eventually.

It was well anticipated by me since I first heard about this project. Jingkun and I were not very familiar with PHP yet and this project was heavily involved with templates, which was known to me but I did not get to interact with before. Since every programmer had his own style of programming, it was more difficult to understand and amend the existing codes than to create a new system from scratch.

Many colleagues seemed to be unhappy with the person supposed to in charge of the project. Bosses understood the difficulties as well and the previous person who did most of the job told me he knew nuts about the coding.

Anyway, before I left my house, I created a database for the project in my own web server but I forgot that this new control panel required me to assign specify rights to the database user account after assigning it to the database. After reaching school, I realised my effort lie in vain since the firewall had blocked me from accessing my control panel.

Lunch was a quick one at Dover again. Weitat, Jingkun and I shared half a chicken and soon, we made our way back to office since all of us had works to finish up. I spent the rest of the afternoon stressing on the project but was satisfied to get more items done.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

梦、机会

我梦见你在我生病时温柔地向我问候。你的微笑鼓励着我，而那细细一声就是仙丹。

伴我走，伴我走，一路坚持着信念。

这不是幻觉，而是我痴痴的幻想；这不是梦，因为梦终究有实现的机会。

若我没有这个机会，此生又何意？

离我，弃我，让这生命苟且留住，不如结束吧。

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

Happy Day Falling Sick

On Monday morning, I began my day in good mood; it was my first move to improve my life.

I started working with Gallery2. I was smart enough to download the near 20 MB file at home since the network speed in office was too flattery. Installation was a hassle and eventually I realised more add-ons had to be added to my installed PHP on the harddisk. It was my second attempt to deal with this open source gallery; the previous time was to integrate it with the Simple Machine Forum but this I had to customise the coding.

Lunch was at Dover and Mingli joined us. I had a plate of char siew noodle at Queenstown. After the meal, we moved on to IMM where Weitat got his HP printer.

Since we had to wait for assistance on the Gallery2 on the next day, Jingkun and I ended our day earlier while Weitat stayed behind to work on his project.

My day could be much better if the flu had not caught up with me during the evening. All the junk food had lowered down my immune system again.

I hate to fall sick because I need the strength to work on my websites.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

Swim with Gilbert and Peh

I had a slimming session with Gilbert and Peh on last Saturday morning. Having to wake up early on weekends was certainly a torture.

We met up at Ang Mo Kio to the usual swimming complex. Initially we spent a long time chatting before we started working out. Being the usual bull-headed person, I tried too hard to kick and it agitated my old injury; my right knee cap seemed to be detaching. For more than half of the twenty laps we persisted on, I did not use much of my legs’ strength.

Our lunch was at KFC and it was quite a long walk away from Ang Mo Kio Hub. Gilbert and I shared a buddy meal and we bought some extra finger food and my stomach was bloated badly.

We took a little walk in Ang Mo Kio Hub after that and the lack of sleep and the exhaustion of the swim threatened to concuss me. Gilbert insisted to visit Velocity and both Peh and I had to give it a miss.

After reaching home, I dozed off straight away.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

Department Dinner at Sakura – Clementi Woods

Meijun dropped me a bomb in MSN in the early morning to help her print her resume out. Since my younger brother was asleep, I would ask him to log into his computer to use his printer for the job when he was awaken; or otherwise, I would go to the office early to do it but it would be a black-and-white printout instead.

I woke up at seven AM and lazed on the bed and before eight, I woke up to realise the fact that my younger brother was already gone. I quickly made a call to him and he told me the password to his laptop. Meijun was lucky that my younger brother did not bring his laptop to school and that he did not set the laptop to force thumbprint identification.

Lunch was set on Tiong Bahru market on a last minute decision. We made two extra touring and I got so confused and was so ashamed since I stayed quite near. Luckily, both of them managed to find the way.

Of all food, I chose chicken chop again but this time round it was the hot plate style. It actually came with a soup at the price of five bucks, but the latter was not of a pleasant taste. The chicken was not very cooked at first but it seemed like the long lasting heat of the plate had continued to cook the meat while it was on my table.

Weitat and Jingkun decided to go for a haircut at IMM after that. I took a toilet break while waiting for them and finally, went up to Daiso to fish for cheap goodies. However, it was not long before they called me to tell me that they were ready to set off and I could not get anything.

Both of them decided to go for hair washing near Jingkun’s house. I probably should tell them to drop me back to office to continue with my stuffs first since I did not accomplish much things in the morning.

In the late afternoon, Jingkun left to pick his girlfriend up. I decided to join Weitat at Vivocity since I was totally in no mood to do anything after being drained during idling earlier on. In fact, it seemed very stupid since dinner was already near and we had to get back to Clementi to meet up with the rest soon.

Knowing that it was pointless to stop Weitat from spending money, I kept quiet to avoid irritating him. I had a tough time struggling to keep myself conscious.

I had a short moment of luck and happiness during the trip.

Jingkun met us up later and we continued a short walk around before departing the place. I took Jingkun’s car to join the rest while Weitat went to fetch Mingli. Upon landing at the same expressway the second time, I woke up my half asleep brain to help lookout for the tiny entrance to the Sakura at Clementi Woods.

We met up with Weitat and Mingli at the car park. Most of them arrived soon and without further ado, we proceeded to start the feast while waiting for the rest. I was quite guilty when I heard from Jingkun that the budget set for the department dinner actually did not include temporary staffs and our bosses shared the cost to foot the bill. I had a great time stuffing the food into my stomach, and leaving my stomach empty for two bowls of ice-cream in the end. This opportunity allowed us to interact more with some colleagues.

Since my camera was inside Weitat’s car boot, the effort that I used to charge the batteries the night before had gone into waste.

At the end of the dinner, Jingkun sent me home.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

Visiting Dessy at NTU; the Volleyball and Cab

We met up with Dessy at NTU for lunch on Thursday. We approached the new canteen next to NIE where we started admiring the university lives. It was the experience that really attracted us.

The babes, the hostel, the activities and the fun seemed to be something which we would have given a pass to, as time would never bestow the opportunity to us anymore.

We managed to find seats among the crowd and waited for Dessy. I had chicken chop for the cheap price of $2.80. We took a little walk downstairs while waiting for Jingkun’s girlfriend. There was an event held by “Red Bull” and a cute girl was actually giving away free drinks, inclusive of helping everyone to open up the cans. The lecture theatre was big and beautiful.

Jingkun sent his girlfriend and her classmate off while Dessy and I took Weitat’s car. It was a pity that we gave a miss to visit the hostel before biding her goodbye. Next, we proceeded to pick Mingfa up and finally got back to school.

I wanted to waste no time and eventually stayed inside the office to do my websites instead of joining them at playing badminton. However, I started nodding soon due to lack of sleep and nothing much was accomplished.

Weitat called me at around six PM and I went down to join him, Mingfa and Mingli, and realised I forgot to bring my gears down. I quickly took my wallet along and halfway, I realised I needed the key to the cabinet as well.

After I got changed, I managed to play a bit of badminton before they started setting up the net and my game was terminated. I tried to rest my heavy head but the sweat stopped me.

We started playing with fourteen people and thus two were waiting outside each time. My team was cursed again somehow and we gave the opposite team a head start. When I joined the opposite team in the next set, I was having an odd feeling. It was not a fantasy night somehow.

I got to chat with Mr Peh after that and the conversation was certainly beneficial.

In the end, I hopped onto the cab together with Kachua. The cab driver tried to move the car like a snake and I had to raise my voice while chatting with Kachua in case he really dozed off. Throughout the journey, my heart was beating fast.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com