Thank You!

Papa said we have a lot to thank God for. Before I forget to thank Him for the blessings, here is a big



Alam na ni God yun, hehe.

As for me, I want to thank Him for being with me during my Transportation Engineering exam (it was open-book, 4 problem-solving type questions, 2.5 hours) yesterday. Thank you for being by my side, giving me a peace of mind while answering the questions, making me remember things, and helping me keep my cool as I attempted a question about a topic I didn't really study for, because I didn't think it was that important. It was only during the exam itself when I first tried solving that kind of problem, and I even skipped it at first because I knew I didn't prepare for it. But as I was halfway through the next problem, it seemed like someone was directing my brain to find the relevant information in my notes for that problem I skipped, and I was able to solve it. I think. Haha. I'm optimistic on the outcome of that particular exam.

I am not expecting an A+, DUH. But at least now that I'm in my third year in my civil engineering course, I raised my standards already. After exams, if ever anxiety would creep in, it's not anymore about me worrying whether I have passed AT ALL, now it's about how many notches up the mean grade I think I would get. Hehe. For that I am grateful.

Four more exams to go.

God, partners pa rin tayo ha?=)

Pareng George

Extra:

Me: Ey Bush is coming to NUS!

Anonymous Friend: Oh yeah, and he's coming with his wife, Hilary Duff...

Ok, first of all, Bush's wife is Laura, not Hilary. And second of all, the Hilary first lady is Hillary Clinton, not the teenybopper singer-slash-actress Hilary Duff.

My friend gave me a good laugh, though=).

So, yeah Bush did come to NUS. In fact, Sundeep and I just finished watching him give a speech about world economics, power supply and whatnot...and of course extremism, weapons of mass destruction, and war and terrorism.

I wanted to heed my father's advice about taking a photo with him, but alas, that is not to be.

Security is too tight lor!!! They also don't just anyhow invite people. Must be a bigwig (like if you're an ambassador or diplomat or what)..and for the case of students, must be from USP (University Scholars Programme) or Faculty of Law....AND MUST BE IN THE DEAN'S LIST SOMEMORE!!!

Anyhoo, I dragged Sundeep along as I spied UCC (University Cultural Centre, where the event was held) from afar. Coz you see, they diverted the bus routes and placed big police armor vehicles as roadblocks, such that no vehicles can pass through anywhere near UCC. While we were pretending to "pass by", Sundeep commented that that is probably the closest he could get near Bush, ever. So we were like, 50 m from UCC? Sorry I'm lousy in gauging distances...but that is the closest we could get because if I walk further I would be stepping on the policeman's foot. (kidding).

Oh yeah, and I've never seen so many policemen at one place in Singapore. I mean, it is a rare occurence seeing more than 2 policemen together just loitering around in public. Supermarkets and malls don't even have security guards at the doors, except maybe at very high end malls like Takashimaya where I cannot afford to buy any single item. It's like, you know, policemen cannot be seen, but ironically you know that security in Singapore is very tight and I somehow feel safer walking in the streets here even at 3 am (and ALONE at that) than back home at 7 pm.

And one more thing, my groupmates the "Amazing Twins" not surprisingly GOT invited to see George W Bush. Yup, they are of that calibre...man they are like the ideal groupmates. Haha...coz I'm really very confident about our Marketing Plan project. Woohoo.

Okay I'm going back to the library soon. I left my stuff there on purpose so you know, I would need to go back. HEE.

In God We Trust.

Bushy Mammoth

The President of the United States is coming over this Thursday. But apparently, they are making it a hush-hush sort of event.


I only knew of it because Kuya Pheng from church said so, and we NUS students were caught unaware of the news. I mean, it's supposed to be a big thing right? How come the school's not broadcasting it to everyone through email blasts? And no blatant banners around campus welcoming him also. Last time, when another high profile world leader came here, there were emails and invitations to students, and I'm glad I was part of it hee=) Yup, that was the conferrment of the Sultan of Brunei (His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah - WHEW!) thingy.

Hrmm, I guess it's very different from George W. Bush giving a speech. Based on my observation, a lot of people apparently loathe the guy, and they're keeping the visit low-profile so as not to prevent protests and stuff (yeah right, protests and demonstrations in Singapore? hahahaha! big joke.)

For the record, I don't hate George W. Bush. Erm, he doesn't affect my life so much as to cause me to harbor any strong feelings of hatred or affection or whatnot towards him.

It's kinda exciting though. I wonder what's gonna happen this Thursday.

PS

My ex-boyfriend is single again?! That is if his Friendster profile accurately depicts his current status. Aww...whatever happened to him and babycooch?

I am happy though, that my lecture notes are making sense to me now. Woohoo! Salamat po Lord.

Signs

Extra:
Some people are almost losing it. You hold on dude.

I was taking a break from studying when I checked my NUS mail. Lo and behold...


Who is this guy anyway? And what the heck is EE2007?

I opened the mail...


Poor guy. He let his frustration be known to everyone in the cohort.

But what is EE2007 anyway? Is this a real module, even? So I searched.


Wokies. I checked the forum and it turns out my dear friend Ivy is also taking this class. Hee! I sure hope she's faring better than this guy.

Jiayou everyone. We can do it!!! Konti na lang!!!=)

PS Lord salamat sa lahat. Wag mo kaming pababayaan ha?!=)

Visa,TR2201,Engin, and life in general

Extra:
Okay, since I haven't been keeping my word about not blogging until after my exams, then just ignore what I said. At times when I'm happy and I feel like sharing some good news, I am hindered by the fact that I said "I will not blog blah-blah". But when something bad crops up and I feel like cussing, I do blog anyway. (Oh yeah, but I deleted that post already). But it's better to blog about good stuff ayt? So here goes.

I am happy for many reasons:

1.) Mama's visa got approved and she's flying off to the States on the 13th. Yay! I know she's very excited to go. Her plans almost didn't push through because of ME, and I am very happy that she's finally going for sure.

2.) My group for my entrepreneurial marketing class is the best group in class. Really. Haha.=) We just had our final presentation for this semester, and we delivered a very grandiose presentation. All the other groups paled in comparison. And all of this can be attributed to the Amazing Twins. I learned A LOT from them. They are very particular about the minutest of details. They always overdeliver. Okay, sometimes I think they are slavedrivers because we always have to stay up so late for this and that. However, I don't have any right to complain actually, because they've put in way, way more effort in our project than I did. They have the initiative to do all sorts of things to set our group apart from others.

We are team number 1, so we get to present ahead of everyone. And we ALWAYS set the benchmark for the whole class in all of the activities. I think today, we set the benchmark too high. When Prof Cheng entered the class and saw all our props and paraphernalia, she kept on exclaiming "WOW". Our classmates were also amazed. Even I was impressed with our own presentation.

So basically our business idea is a fruit-themed pastry cafe, and we call it FruitConnex. Here is the final logo I designed:



And here is the screenshot of the mock website I made:


I hosted our mock website in my personal hosting account. I used a subdomain of kgeventures.com, and that's why my business blog is down again because it is hosted in a server different from the one where our project is hosted. I only have one domain name and I borrowed it for a while for this project.

You can visit it at kgeventures.com/fruitconnex, but it won't be there for long because I'm transferring the domain back to the other server soon. Anyway, there's also nothing much to see, and I feel bad about it actually...because I think I fell short of my groupmates' expectations. I volunteered for this job, and I was excited at first. But as time progressed, I didn't think the mock website is really essential because it's just one of the accessories for our 25-min presentation. So erm, I just made a rush-rush kind of job when I could have made it a lot better.

So anyway, for our marketing plan presentation, our outstanding "extras" included a 3D model of our pastry shop, and of course our mock website. I mean, other groups said they're also going to have a website for their products/services but they didn't show any. Our props also included a smorgasbord of yummy cakes and pastries for food sampling (which the twins and their mother baked), a colorful menu, membership cards, a banner, fruits for decoration...yep the visual presentation of our products is very nice. And it made the room smell good too. One classmate even commented that we were very smart to serve the pastry samples during QnA session, which I think distracted them and kept them from asking tough questions haha.

I think my Entrepreneurial Marketing module is my favorite for this sem=)

Anyway, the final marketing plan is due next Wednesday (yeah quite weird, the presentation came first before the plan submission)...and the twins said our final plan must be as impressive as our presentation. The draft that we submitted today is very good already, but okay...must not be too complacent. It's not totally over yet.

3.) Okay, with regards to my core engineering modules...well what the heck. Last week, I submitted a lab report for Transportation Engineering with my quality control gone haywire. Submitting a box of cow dung instead to the lab assistant wouldn't have made any difference. Next week I have a test for Water and Wastewater Engineering (they placed the test too late already, but never mind. I'll take it as revising for the exams). Actually, I refuse to think that I am in deep trouble already, because worrying about stuff will only make matters worse. But sometimes it's quite dangerous because I'm very apathetic already towards my engineering subjects. I, uh, need to give myself some (or A LOT OF) push to study for my major subjects.

Oh yeah, I was with Sundeep a while ago, and I saw his group's project for Reinforced Concrete Design. They were tasked to design a bridge...and well, everything is just pages and pages and a lot more pages of equations and calculations that they solved themselves. Actually, I am the only one in our group of friends who didn't take this subject, because I promised myself I'll never, ever take any more Structural Engineering subjects. When I saw their project, it was a confirmation that I'm really not going into Civil Engineering. Really.

However, as of the moment, I know I have to deal with my engineering modules even if I hate don't like them. I'm just grateful to God that when I sat down a while ago and tried my best to keep awake and use my brain cells to really understand what's going on in my lecture notes, my efforts were not futile. I mean, I realized that I am not that bad after all. I mean, I have the ability to do this stuff, it's just that it requires a lot of effort for my part and external help (which is readily available thanks to Sundeep hehehe).

My mother forwarded me something in the email and I found it inspiring. The gist of the message is that there's no better time to be happy than now. Sometimes people think that after I finish school, or after I get married, or after (insert any phase of your life), I'll be happy. But actually, happiness is not a destination...it is the voyage itself.

So yeah, despite all crappy things, there's no better time to be happy than now.

Cheerios.