My New System

Posted on June 12, 2007 by S

[Saturday, 09 June, 2007]

I managed to get to sleep at 3.30am and was waked up by Kenny at 1pm. It seemed long but was never enough sleep for me to repay my sleep debt.

I started working and received a call from a guy by the name of Guoliang, introduced by Ou Xiang. He was looking for house to rent and since I was not dealing with property at the moment, I gave him David’s contact, hoping to help both of them.

I wanted to go to support Mingfa for his inter-constituency volleyball final at Yio Chu Kang at 4pm but nobody from my team was going. Eventually, I stayed at home to work since I knew he had enough supporters going down. He managed to win the game and emerge the champion.

When my elder brother waked up from his nap after soccer, we left for Sim Lim Square at around 5pm. It was pretty packed there and we went straight to the shop named “Fuwell”. We seemed quite passive and one of the salesmen gave us suggestions for other hardware after we told him of the processor speed we wanted.

Everything went smoothly until it was time for payment my ATM failed me once again. There was this “Daily limit exceeded” error even though I did not purchase anything before that. My brother’s bank account had limited money and thus we had to go to the ATM machine which was distance away to withdraw cash. However, my brother suddenly remembered his girlfriend’s ATM card was with him and thus I had to loan from her first.

We took a cab home and started fixing up the system. It was pretty messy and I was totally lost, lucky for my brother was there to help me settle everything. Just then, we realised the casing came in three colours and the man chose the silver colour one for me. I preferred blue colour but it was good enough that he did not give me the red one.

Our Mac delivery came in time just after we fixed up the system. The new burger was quite tasty.

While I was installing the OS (Operating System), I realised I should have spent some extra money on purchasing a new DVD writer or player. The existing one was slow and old, and I always feared it might break down anytime. The installation did not complete as fast as I had expected for the new processor.

My old 40gb harddisk was placed into my brother’s CPU. After that, I dragged the files over through the network to my new harddisk. The transferring seemed to take forever.

Anyway, it was the first time ever in my life that I had spent so much on purchasing something using my own hard earned money; it was also the first time I had to pray so hard for the end of month to arrive soon to top up my bank account. I considered it a good investment for I needed the speed to shorten the time wastage, and that I was able to multitask as well.

I wished so much that I was able to recuperate the time lost in the past few years and also to accomplish the long overdue projects. Alas, I was also able to start using more software without fearing my system would run like a tortoise.

My elder brother made the day for me.

Redhill Close Rental No More

Posted on April 28, 2007 by S

[Friday, 27 April, 2007]

Since my brother was not home, I went to sleep after 4am after work. It took some time to doze off like usual.

I waked up at 2pm and actually thought it was still early. Since I had “ordered” half boiled eggs from my mum before sleeping, I thought she was preparing it in the kitchen. I looked at the clock and realised it was already afternoon.

My mum arrived with her friend when I had just powered up the system. My eyes were still very tired and they passed letters for me to read. I got to have my eggs soon and my mum claimed that she did not want to wake me up in the morning when she had almost done that everyday.

I spent very long time updating the outdated photos for my previous blog entries. In the late evening, I gave a call to the Redhill Close flat owners and the auntie told me she wanted to rent her room out to her neighbour’s China friends; I had wasted so much time all the while.

I went for a late night jog finally after so long. The motivation was from the upcoming Rip Curl beach volleyball championship; it began with the intention of having fun but somehow it turned out to be a struggle for a special attention.

Viewing At Redhill Close Again

Posted on April 27, 2007 by S

[Thursday, 26 April, 2007]

I had a few games of Condition Zero with my elder brother before starting into a little work, sleeping at 6am. I had a weird dream with secret missions and met Karin on the way; she looked so much like a little girl and did not recognise me.

I was waked up by phone as usual and finally got up at 2pm. It was another dull afternoon. Irene called me to change the time of viewing the Redhill flat and I agreed to meet her up at 6.15pm instead of 6.30pm. After leaving the house, she suddenly told me to change back the time.

I reached Redhill MRT right after 6pm. At least I was able to look at girls over there. There was a cute VJC girl who talked quite loudly and sat at the stairs near me. Her friend who arrived to meet her up was pretty. Not to be missed out, there was another babe who was alone. She was later freaked off by an old Indian man who went around shaking everyone’s hands.

Irene reached at around 7pm. I was glad when she passed me her namecard for that showed her politeness for me and not just treating me as any crook agent. I started swearing when the uncle started talking this time and he was asking for $450 when I had already come to a term with the auntie at $400. Irene looked very Singaporean and I was afraid that she would mind the condition of the house a lot. She wanted to leave very early but the old friendly couple continued to talk. On the way to the MRT station, she told me she was fine with the condition of the house but not the area. I waited for her to contact her family and friends before parting from her.

I took bus 145 home instead of train again. Since there were quite a number of passengers, I did not want to “fight” over seats with them and chose to stand. There was a cute girl boarding the same bus as well and soon she alighted at Henderson road. I concluded that Telok Blangah Height housed most of the babes in the south of Singapore. Or perhaps, there was more things to see to.

Dinner – Fried rice with chicken wing for only $2

Work resumed after reaching home. Since my elder brother was at chalet, I could concentrate better when I was home alone.

Bukit Timah with Jianhao

Posted on April 24, 2007 by S

[Monday, 23 April, 2007]

Work had beaten my sleep once again and I even got to have my breakfast. Even though I went to sleep at 1pm, I got up at 3pm somehow. Jianhao had some viewings and wanted to meet me in a few hours’ time and thus I had a busy time.

I finally sent an email to the organiser of the Rip Curl beach volleyball companionship and I was very glad to receive the quick reply within an hour. It began raining just before I left the house. I was disappointed to see that my three formal shirts were not inside my wardrobe.

Main door

Living room

View from balcony

Balcony besides living room

Kitchen with new wall cabinet

“wet” kitchen

View from kitchen (South)

Master bedroom

Attached bathroom

The sink

1st common room

2nd common room with semi attached bathroom (common bathroom)

Common bathroom joined to 2nd common room and living room

It was pouring very heavily at Clementi and I only got to meet Jianhao at the void deck of the nearest flat. He drove me to a petrol station then and bought some drinks. Then, we went to the house at Bukit Timah, which was as huge as over 1700 square feet. We started opening all the windows and cleaning up the place. Afterwards, we started watching television and despite sleeping only for two hours, I was able to keep myself awake.

The first pair of viewers was two Indonesian girls. The girl who was going to rent the place had actually stayed in Singapore since secondary school days. Even though she was not pretty and that she did not have good figure, she possessed a hidden charm. She was interested in the house but later on, her brother who stayed nearby turned it down since it was a quiet place.

The second group of viewers were a family of three. The cute little boy was going to the nearby school and that was the reason why they wanted to rent a house at that area. They seemed very interested for they asked quite a number of questions.

Three viewing was together with an agent who was late. He brought a couple up. He passed me his namecard and thus I had to exchange mine with him; I did not want to do it since I was merely helping Jianhao.

We closed shop at around 9pm and went to Orchard to pick up Jianhao’s girlfriend. We stopped right outside Takashimaya, opposite the taxi stand until one of the security guard walked towards us, we made another round about the place and finally saw his girlfriend.

We went to Tiong Bahru for dinner. We were very amazing with the menu for they only categorized the food as “Chicken”, “Vegetable” and “Dou Fu”. I found duck under “Chicken” section. Ordering three dishes of food with the coconut drinks, it cost nearly thirty bucks and it was a treat from Jianhao.

After that, he sent me to Tiong Bahru MRT and I took train home. I missed part of the show “Four Famous Constables”. I started updating my sites as well.

I Waked Up From My Dream

Posted on April 23, 2007 by S

[Saturday, 21 April, 2007]

I was working halfway when my elder brother suddenly asked if I wanted to have noodle. It was quite rare for he usually cooked for himself without asking. Thus, I continued with my work till a later hour even though I planned to sleep early. It was around 4.30am when I went to bed.

I like this crescent shaped flat; it gives a magnificent feeling.

I waked up at around 9am and got myself ready to take bus 80 to reach Lorong Ah Soo by 11am. I alighted at the right bus-stop but decided to cut through the flats. I was walking parallel to the main road further away but soon, I realised I had to change my direction to the right and again to the right; which seemed ghostly.

At the stone table near the provision shop

Cactus along the corridor

I was early and sat at the usual stone table. I saw two guys dressed neatly and I guessed correctly that they were the contractors cum designers. Mingfa called just as Sally arrived. We went up to the flat but sadly, Milo’s door was closed and thus I could not play with him. I followed Sally and the contractors around the house and realised there were many renovation jobs to be done. After that, I had some chats with Sally along the way slowly until we reached the next block.

New project at Lorong Ah Soo near PLMGSS. If only I’m rich enough..

While walking back to the bus-stop, I was busy messaging my two teams’ members for the upcoming Rip Curl beach volleyball tournament as I had decided how to group them. I took bus 80 home and started dozing off on the bus.

Massage chair – Oto brand

When I reached home, I realised the massage chair had arrived. My younger brother bought it for my mum’s birthday and I thought that was really crazy for it was expensive and my house was already so cramped. Anyway, it was placed at my mattress’ location and I knew I had nowhere to sleep at night again like before they started packing the room.

I started a new site to create another “bronze goose” to lay money for me, which did not even start off for I was already having problems with the previous one. Before I could do much, Kaven called me and asked me to meet him out for dinner.

Jianhao finally called me back and told me the Redhill close owners did not mind my Vietnamese tenant to stay in their house. With all the efforts to confirm the timing and sudden message from princess that she had confirmed with another team to participle in the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition, I was in a mess once again. When I got down, Kaven was already waiting there for me.

At Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. Love the effect but of course my original picture is clearer.

Still awaiting for Kaven

I was feeling very low but tried hard to appear normal. Kaven drove me to Bukit Timah Shopping Centre where he went to withdraw money and we went to the opposite chain of food stalls to take our dinner. We ordered chicken, dou fu and a plate of prawn with vegetable. It was his treat once again, which was near forty bucks.

Struck at petrol station

Next destination was the petrol station further down. After refilling the tank, I was stunned to witness a driver trying to park his car in front. He had to do a parallel parking and that he went in straight from the front and I thought he was very good with parking. Nevertheless, he made a turn out immediately and went in from the back of his car. The petrol station’s staff was trying to guide the way but it seemed hopeless and the car even hit the hose which was hanging in the air. I saw there was no “P” plate and that driver should be experienced enough but Kaven guessed he did not even have a license, which was quite true.

Soon, we realised a big problem, which was the car was parked too far away from the kiosk, blocking our way. Kaven reversed the car and tried to take another lane to leave but it was blocked by cars parking by the side. In the end, the staff told us to take the entrance out. It was so pathetic and luckily we managed to leave before a car tried to turn into the petrol station.

We went to his rented house and I waited at the parking lot as usual. Afterwards, he sent me to Redhill MRT and I realised I was more than half an hour earlier for the appointment to meet up with Khoa to view the flat. Since I had just taken dinner and that I took chilli, I went to the 7-11 store to buy a packet of sweet to keep my mouth refreshed. I went to the stone “beach” when a female smoker left. A quite pretty girl came over and sat besides me.

At 8pm, Khoa called and told me he had reached the flat at block 14. Since I had told him to meet at the MRT station, I was caught off guarded and had to rush over. He was a young guy, schooling in a new university nearby. The owners seemed to be very pleased with him even though they were unable to communicate due to language problem. I had to do all the translation and the owners were very chatty that they did not answer to my questions most of the time. Thus, we stayed quite long up there and since I had heard most of the stories during the previous visit, I had some cold sweat. We were able to come to a deal in the end but Khoa wanted to consider over it even though he had promised me earlier that he would give an answer immediately.

I took bus 145 home and started working. The falling of stock price was pulling my mood down furthermore; I could not help it if AdSense pay me only $0.01 for each click.

The delay of the rental deal and the falling of the “shares price” were kerosene added to my earlier fire, burning down my entire city of hopes. Perhaps, my dreams were shattered since before leaving the house.

The Sun Rose at Night

Posted on April 21, 2007 by S

[Friday, 20 April, 2007]

It was an unexpected day that I dozed off around midnight.

I waked up at around 9am and realised I did not shut down my computer. I began packing my stuffs and separating the documents.

Jianhao called me regarding two Cameroon students who wanted to rent a room. I left for the office to check out about the student hostel and met Francis over there. He taught me how to go about doing the rental. I got to chat with this guy called David Tan and we even went down to the hawker to have a cup of drinks.

After that, I went to the bus interchange to take bus 198. I dozed off soon for I knew it would take quite long time to reach the destination. Upon opening my eyes at AYE, I saw a sweet girl sitting on the right, facing the left; whereas I was sitting on the left and facing the front. She turned to my side a few times and I did not mind having free sighting on the long journey. Suddenly I gave a longer stare at her and when she turned to me again, she quickly turned to the face again. I laughed but was about to control myself that nobody really noticed me. She alighted near Wilson’s house.

Boonlay Drive Hostel office

I like the colour a lot, but too bad the original condition of the flats are so different; simply plain.

I got to Boonlay Drive finally and saw the nicely designed place. Cheryl was there to entertain me and even brought me up to the unit. She was quite pretty, helpful, enthusiastic and smart. I hanged around there to wait for the rain to stop before walking to Boonlay Shopping Centre and realised that was where Mingfa and I went to years ago.

Suddenly, Jianhao told me that his two clients wanted to meet me and thus I tried to contact them but reception was bad. They replied my SMS very slow as well but we got to arrange to meet up at Lakeside MRT. Since Jianhao told me they were on their way already, I did not set a time.

I went to get a bun and draw some money from the ATM in case I needed to bring them over in a cab. Just then, my mum called me, followed by Jianhao. I was holding my bun and phone and was worried that I might drag the queue when it was my turn, and I was in a mess. It was drizzling and I got to the wrong bus-stop. Somehow, I thought it was single way traffic and went around asking people where to take the bus to Lakeside MRT.

I sat down and waited very long near the control station. There were many girls walking past and I took notice of a huge group of teenagers because some of them were suggesting to take cabs to Taman Jurong instead of taking the bus; they would need at least five cabs and they probably would take longer time to gather in their destination if they were to take cabs.

It was more than an hour later, I gave the two Cameroon guys some calls but they did not pick it up. I sent them a message and they did not reply. I finally gave a call to Jianhao and told him I was going home since I was a bit drenched and that I was not sure the security guard on duty after 8pm would open the door for the show flat a not. Before leaving, I even sent a polite message to them but they did not get back to Jianhao or me at all.

Just as I thought it was a ridiculous day, bringing tiredness and disappointments in the journey home, the sun suddenly rose again. I was preparing to get rejected again when I sent a message to ask if princess wanted to take part in the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition. This time, unlike usually, she replied me and even with a positive answer. I forgot the entire day’s crap instantly and started confirming with everyone.

My brothers were playing Condition Zero at home. My younger brother gave me back my computer soon and I started working. I managed to catch “Zou Xiang Gone He”.

Room for Rent at Jurong East

Posted on April 20, 2007 by S

[Wednesday, 18 April, 2007]

It was another relaxing night again. I had some games of Condition Zero with my elder brother and then caught the soccer match between Manchester United and Sheffield Wednesday United, which the champion scored two goals against nil. I went to bed at 5am.

I was waked up by phone calls again and when I finally got up, I was very disappointed to see the shares price dropping badly. I was not sure how much longer I could hold anymore.

I gave a call to Grace, Kaven’s banker, but she sounded like I should not be calling her in place of Kaven to get the address of the law firm. I knew my responsible as an agent but she seemed so unprofessional. In the end, she told me she would get the lawyer to call Kaven instead and I was glad to put down the phone. I was quite furious of her attitude but later on when I told Kaven about it, he said the lawyer had called him the day before but he did not tell me.

Afterwards, Grace from ERA called me regarding the Lorong Ah Soo flat. She said Kelly had agreed to meet her client at 11am on Saturday but Kelly was not free to go and I would go instead. Since Grace told me that was just a friendly reminder, I was expecting Kelly to call me about it but she did not. I began to feel disappointed.

Joshua called me in regards of rental of flats for his friend but when I asked Jianhao about a Choa Chu Kang one, he told me the owners had rented it out, which made me feel so insecure about the entire listing; it would reflect so badly on me if some tenants were to want to view a room but ended up it was already rented out. However, he told me there was a new listing at Jurong East, next to Wilson’s house.

Feeling so disappointed with my project and the rental thing, I had a few games of Condition Zero to relax myself. At night was all boring works.

Resume Never Completed

Posted on April 14, 2007 by S

[Friday, 13 April, 2007]

Kelly was calling me to inform me of a new property related site but she was only then trying to figure it out and thus we held on to the phone for quite long. I went to sleep at 5am after working.

In the afternoon, I continued with my work after waking up and Zijun’s personal assistant by the name of Elaine or Eileen called me again. I did not want to reject Zijun to make an appointment with him on accord of our Friendster even though there seemed like no chance we could ever collaborate.

Jingkun called me a few times regarding finding of job. There were few friends who would behave like him, taking my welfare in consideration most of the time. I started working on my resume as Ou Xiang chatted with me. She guided me along but at the same time, my blog was half typed and Terry suddenly messaged me about rental. Before I could do anything much, I had to stop my resume to focus on the other issues.

Afterwards, I had a chat with Mike and I told him of my website’s crisis.

It Was Not My Fault That I Could Not Doze Off

Posted on April 12, 2007 by S

[Wednesday, 11 April, 2007]

It was such a rare day that I went to bed at 2am but unfortunately failed to doze off. It could be due to factors like my mum was packing her wardrobe at such weird hour, causing series noises, and that I had to sleep on the bed where the air conditioner attacked me directly. My stomach was giving me some uncomfortable feeling as well and that even after exercising, I could not sleep. My eyes were very tired but even closing them my brain could not stop working.

I finally got up after 5am. My brother returned home soon and reported the news of Man Utd thrashing Roma 7-1. I went to bed after 7am. I was waked up by my mum at around 10am to eat the half boiled eggs that I had ordered. Subsequently, calls waked me up.

I had a weird call from Zijun’s personal assistant (PA). The day before, he told me that we could collaborate on some work and he would ask his PA to contact me later in the day, which she did not. This morning, she told me she was going to arrange an appointment for Zijun with me, just simply for half an hour. I thought she was supposed to tell me what was the plan but she sounded I was going to “invest” in that financial company. Since Zijun was involved in MLM and other stuffs but my only interest (in fact I detest MLM) was based on web development, I was not very interested about meeting him up for such business other than to catch up. I told her we would arrange on some other time but she did not seem to want to put down the phone and thus I told her to call me some other time. I was in fact too tired to figure out what was happening and was intending to wait for Zijun to online to clarify things with him. Luckily, she did not call me back again.

Jianhao gave me a good piece of news that there was response from the flyers we pasted at Redhill and there was viewing at night. Later on, Kelly called and told me someone wanted to view Mr Khin’s flat at almost the same time as well and I had to tell her I was not free. She could not contact Mingfa and sounded a bit frustrated.

I went to Redhill in the evening, reaching almost right at time, which was 6.45pm. I called Jianhao but he was only at Clementi. When he arrived with two ladies to view the room, he told me he was meeting the landlord at 7pm and I realised I should have slow down my pace so much instead of rushing over from the bus-stop. When I thought everything was going smooth, the girl who was going to rent the room told us that her boyfriend was paying for the rental as well and the owners had claimed earlier that they only want a female tenant because they did not want anything to happen. Jianhao’s friend should have explained it earlier such that we would not waste the trip down since it was impossible.

Jianhao and I had our dinner at the Redhill market. I had chicken wing rice for $2.50 from the western food stall. Sugarcane drinks was nice with the lemon, but the small cup which cost $1.20 reminded me of the older days before the renovation, which I could get a very big cup with $1.

I followed Jianhao to Choa Chu Kang in the hope to learn some rental skill from him. There were supposed to be two viewings, which I thought was quite worthy of my time. The Indian tenants were late for half an hour and then we realised they had another viewing at Clementi afterwards. The other viewing was cancelled.

Jianhao sent me to the MRT station and I continued with my work with frustration of the slow computer.

An End to the Rental’s suffering

Posted on March 7, 2007 by S

[Wednesday, 07 March, 2007]

I was too carried over by my work again and such that I could only get to sleep at 3am. Kelly waked me up in the late morning and I continued to laze about until noon time.

I tried to get my ass cracking to help Cui Wei look for the condominium she was talking about and I got to surf some websites which inspired me. I continued with my property site design after that.

Justus came over right after school, refusing to take his bath first. I was sure he was able to do the comprehension homework by himself but it seemed difficult to kick his bad habit off. After finishing the work, I was stunned when he told me he had to do research. Suddenly, I started to analysis by myself that surfing the net was quite difficult from the past days with the emerging of so many blog sites all over the world, which might not provide the exact information. I tried to offer some help but was not very sure what he was trying to do and in the end, he gave up.

I continued the day with web design and the progress was impressive with the “approval” from Yaozhong and Gilbert. In fact, Yaozhong had helped me so much with the initial banner, which I had modified and come out with the current design. Even though he was colour-blind but the colours he had chosen was beautiful.

News of the call-off rental for Sam’s apartment did not really put me down. Things would definitely go smoothly if Lulu were to settle the repairing of the house as promised and not drag until the tenants decided to give up. I was very happy that it had finally come to an end, though of a negative one. At least there would not be any more craps from Lulu. Although I had spent so much time and energy, and even got drenched a few times over it, I would simply take the climbing of the stairs, sniffing of the smelly air and sighing for Uncle Sam as a comparison for appreciating of future cases. My main concern was facing Uncle Sam in future.

My mum brought dinner home only at 8pm and I was starving so much. Luckily for she did not stay for long and thus the television did not distract me from my work.

Dear Dreams

Skai Chan

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