A gift for Long Ma

Oh ya. i forgot to update on this earlier..

Gekling and the girls came up with this for Celine.. Good job..
Hope she will like it and recover soon.

Rain rain go away...

I celebrated Grandma's birthday last week.. it was good this year.. her sisters and brothers turned up for the mini - buffet dinner my uncle arranged for her in her home in Sengkang.. haha.. when i arrived, i found most of the granduncles and aunties gambling.. the '4 sticks' and mahjong.. lol. my auntie also arranged a msn video conf for my grandma and my cousin who's studying in Australia... its her first time doing such a thing.. so it was quite funny to see her trying to talk thru a microphone and lookin at the screen at my cousin as she showed my grandma her room over in Australia...

At the scene of the crime...

The Oldies. Grandma and her siblings.

The Family. My parents and my uncles, aunties.

The Kids. Me and my sis and cousins.

My grandma using msn for the first time.

Before that.... I went over to Clarke Quay to collect my Nike Human Race race pack.. lol. boy it was packed man.. coupled with the crappy weather.. the queue snaked around the whole Clarke Quay fountain square and all the way to MOS and back... randomly asking a stranger.. who happened to be quite way ahead in the queue.. he mentioned that he had queued up for 3 hours already and still he's 1 hour away from collecting his race pack.. wah. major cock up by the nike ppl sia. zzz. I wonder if the actual race would be a cock up.. seeing how they manage the race pack collection.

The good thing that day was that the few of us in the team who are running happened to bum into one or two friends who are way ahead in the queue so managed to cut some time queuing up. Thanks also to Wilfred who got his PESS friend to help me get my race pack by the 'backdoor'.. else i don't think i can make it to my grandma's party on time.

The bad thing that happened throughout the weekend was that it was always raining in the afternoons... it totally messed up our training time.. which isn't good cos its only 2 more weeks to the first race of this work-year... I also heard that the thunderstorm on saturday had an elderly couple struck by lightning off Punggol Pier.. zzz. The guy didnt do so well and he passed on.. heard he mentioned to his wife minutes ago that lightning won't hit them... so well. damn. my condolenences.

and worst thing that happened for this week. I pulled my hamstring again. darn. how come sprinting once a week has become so damaging all of a sudden...

Random rantings...

en-Light-enment

Thanks to my helpful and smart lab group mates.. i finally see the light for my lab project and know how to proceed with my report writing.. i just need to organise my time.... Once again.. i'm stuck on a thermo-DIE-namics topic.. this time.. on the Brayton cycles... urgh....

Since year 2, i dread thermodynamics.. i didn't ta-bao the subject... but i didn't do well in it either... so i'm good as 'ta baoing' in some sense... I've always been an average student.. actually a below - average student..i get Bs like how people get their As... and Cs and Ds are common for me...

Actually, studying isn't that bad.. its quite fun actually and you feel a sense of satisfaction being able to comprehend what's being tested. It's just that i need a longer than usual time to understand and appreciate the subjects compared to others and i don't have the luxury of time considering i'm inside the school's dragonboat team and i train 4 times a week with the team...so i kinda look up to those of my teammates who can juggle their studies, training and still able to put aside some extra time for their special someones...

Sometimes, it gets really stressful...having so much work to do..yet i have push myself extra harder on my free days so i can catch up on my fitness to match up the general crowd of my team.. I hardly have the time to go out and enjoy myself. Many times, the thought of ponning training or even quitting the team has crossed my mind.. the thought of being a 'simple soldier' and just do my tutorials, study and just nua at home.. go out with my friends every other day and watch movies.. some time for me not to do anything at all...

but i know if i really do give up.. school won't be as fun.. becoz i will be doing nothing all the time. After 2 years of sweat and pain, losing and winning..., dragonboat has become somewhat like a religion to me ... something that i can't do without.. I am also not alone in my struggle for a balanced life.. all my other teammates are also doing their very best to juggle their studies and personal life..knowing that the other will be there for us in times of need..

I just hope God gives me more strength this year to do what i set out to do... I need more strength to push on for my studies, perservance to train harder and get fitter, faith and trust that things will go well.. as well as courage to pursue the future of my life...

Lets just hope it would continue to be a good year ahead.

My name is Dave Ming Chang

Damn.. i need a copy of this dvd.. couldn't find it at the citylink HMV the other day.. i think i need to go to the one at Heeren to purchase it. I've always liked Bollywood films.. the action films, especially the low budget ones... some of the fight scenes look cock and are damn funny.. while the dances and sing - along parts are damn classic.. the dances are always well choregraphed and the music is always upbeat and heart lifting....

Lagaan.. is in a class of its own.. Though i didnt manage to finish watchin the movie last thursday during last week's From Hollywood to Bollywood lesson.. i believe it's gonna stay in my mind for a very long time.

Anyway, weekly update.. Last friday, i just had my annual Insinyur movie and supper hop. It seems to get better each year as this year we covered more food places and watched a nice movie as well.. we watched Eddie Murphy's Meet Dave.. its damn hilarious.. from the time we sat down in the movie, we started laughing non stop... especially one part where he searched for the most popular name in the world and ended up with a chinese name "ming chang" when he's obviously a black. haha.

This year before the movie, we had a bbq instead of going to Glutton's bay at Esplanade.. i think its not a bad idea though we can't really finish most of the food we bbqed..

After the movie.. we went off to Geylang for tou jiang and you tiao.. Nice sia.. after which we went to Bukit Timah's Al Aleem.. (typo .. lol) its the malay prata shop opposite Bukit Timah Shopping Centre.. Last stop.. we headed for Tiong Bahru's Food Centre.. By the last stop, most of other OGs are already half asleep.. mine instead was a crazy bunch of fellas who woke up all the auntie and uncles who were busy setting up store at the food centre.. haha.. we spent half of the time playing 'Dinosaur' or another version of heart attack we adopted from Mind's cafe.. lol..

Ms Xue Shuang and Yu Juan enjoyin their you tiaos and soya bean...

its 6am in the morning and Minds cafe's already open for business?

To keep myself awake, i had a little something at every pit stop.. lol.. felt kinda bloated at the end of the whole supper hop as i head back home from Ang Mo Kio at the end of it for a quick shower before going for my team's annual dragonboat experience row.

participants and seniors

as usual.. me in the canoe, photographer

(this year with Alex helping me & thanks JX for helping with the other camera and pictures)

This year's experience wasn't as good last year'.. the turnout itself wasn't very good already.. alot of people came just for the experience itself and not because they wanted to join the team. Perhaps it was due to the fact that we didn't get a good spot at the CCA fair conducted last week... we were 'relegated' this year to the rear of the whole fair.. behind all the shops and other ccas like the religious societies.. urgh. I heard we were initially allocated a small square table's worth of space.. wah lau. how to set up booth man like dat. Thankfully we played punk and used the study benches and shift out of our lot.. otherwise i dun think anybody could find us at the fair. (we were behind 'Pretty Tuff''s booth this year again.. and if we didnt shift out, you won't see our set up behind the long queue of girls signing up for the Pretty Tuff programmes).

However, i guess this year we managed to draw more potential girls to join the team. That's a good thing as we need more dedicated and stronger girls to help boost the team's strength. We also managed to reach out to more foreigners this time. Interesting.

Hope for our subsequent land trainings, more willing students will turn up.

To end off, here's something funny that Derrick sent us today online during a major talk cock session on msn...

Urgh..mayday MAYYYDAYYyyyy...

Crap, i've been feeling sick since last wednesday.. i kinda chui-ed after gym. I guess it's about time i fall ill since i've been pushing together with my teammies for PM Cup last sem. Thankfully i'm sick at the start of the new sem where we are restarting our training regime... hope i can recover faster so i can push harder... i have to work harder for the team cos we no longer have Zhili, Yibei and Soon Cai...

Even though it's just the second week of school.. tutorials are already begining to pile up.. =/ arugh. I haven't been able to do much work cos i've been dozing at the table at night and sleeping at the lectures.. the medicine my doctor prescribed for me are too strong for me to handle... wah.. it was really what my doctor said.. "i'm going to put you to sleep for the next few days..." damn..

On another note... the db website is almost done.. haha. left Derick's profile and an updated page wif Colin , Soon Cai and Huiqi's write - ups.. some of the guys told me that its nice.. i'm happy though i know maybe more could be done if i was given more time. Hope more freshies and those interested will check it out..

080808, 090808 - Beijing Games, NDP 2008

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Its finally here... I watched the opening yesterday.. fell asleep while watching the 'walk past' segment ... (so many countries .. 200++.. zzz). Kinda funny that when the China team walked past.. i felt kinda happy. lol. Didnt manage to catch the Singapore team's walk past though.. sad.

Anyway.. its also once again the nation's bdae... Happy NDP 2008!

Pata Pata Pata Pon, The 6th Club Crew World Championships 08, Monsoon Wedding

... you have to be standing up in order to be able to fall. I mean, if you keep sitting on your ass, nothing's gonna happen. "Only brave warriors fall off their horses in battle. How can kneeling cowards know what a fall is?" ... the main thing is, you have to fight the battle.

mmm... been a while since i last updated..haha.. too many events happening.. too much fotos to organise and not enuff time! school has jus re-opened and it spells the end of my summer hols. =/ didnt get to enjoy much of it. sigh...

Today was quite a good day. well.. this week is the first week.. so not much lessons.. but i think i better start on my revision and researching... i'm having problems in all the classes.. and i kenna another thermo project yet again. sian. wait. 2 thermo projects this sem. ARUGH! TML! TML I WILL START STUDYING!

Had my first From Bollywood to Hollywood lesson today.. i think its the course for me 'cos its all about film appreciation. The movie which i watched today was Monsoon Wedding. I highly recommend it to everybody man.. Its like another rendition of Love Actually... this time Bollywood style but with a distinct western flavour in its themes and direction style. I gotta get the dvd for it man.

Backtrack a lil...

For the last week of the summer hols, my team left for Penang to participate in the 6th Club Crew World Championships 08. It's likened to be the world cup in the dragonboat arena. Teams coming from Russia, Iran, Czech, Australia, USA, Germany, India, New Zealand, Canada as well as our asean neighbours Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia, Thailand attended the event. China , Macau, Japan, Taiwan and HongKong teams also participated in this event.

We ran on a tight schedule in Penang. As soon as we arrived on that wednesday morning, we rested for a while and went immediately after lunch to the training site in order to condition ourselves to the water there. This competition was held at the Teluk Bahang Dam at Penang and the scenery there reminded me of the movie "Red Cliff".

The Dam.

Many of our western competitors were bigass huge.. The City Dragons from Australia was one such example. The tallest in their pack was this towering 2m tall ang moh who have back muscles so huge, he looked like he was carrying a backpack on his shoulders. However it wasn't the biggest that dominated the competition nor was it our beloved 'sewing machine' teams from the Philippines or Indonesia.. but the average sized Czechs. They were the smallest and the leanest of all the foreigners but they are damn fast. (kinda like NJC canoeists, btw.. kudos to them for being the WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPS)... The other legendary team would be the so called 'China Aunties' ... the Chinese Ladies team... they all look like they are in their 40s and 50s yet they can still paddle as fast as anyone else... (they are all carrying trivum paddles too btw.. wah. pro sia.)

Us and the Czechs

Durian eating China Aunties

Us and City Dragons.

Overall this trip was rewarding, we learned quite a bit. Though we didnt win, but we learned more of our shortcomings and what we need to improve in order to do better next time. Had quite a fun time too cos we helped bond the junior guys and gals closer together... =) We managed to 'matchmake' one couple together too... haha.. *coughjoel&kaiyincough*

Dream come true for Joel.

More photos..