Discovered someone was very interested in my life last Saturday afternoon. If you see this message, thanks for being interested (I really mean it...)! I guess I am kind of exhibitionist to a certain extent too.
Following the links back to my old posts, I found this paragraph:
However there is one good thing about this: my expenditure has decreased significantly for the past week. When I opened my accounts book almost all the entries were 'Lunch' or food related, and it amounts to only around 5 bucks a day except grocery day.
It is posted 26 September 2006, which now I consider one of the saddest (or rather, the most 可憐) moments of my life.
Now? Errrr. 5 bucks a day?! I think I ought to reflect a little on how much money I spend these days. Need to be more alert on the free food search...
Right. When I go back to Singapore, I will be earning 1.5x more money and things will be 1.5x cheaper. But will have to give money to parents and pay my own bills still... I think I should just cut down on the amount of food I eat :P
Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'
Matthew 7:1-2 'Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you used, it will be measured to you.'
Matthew 22:21 Then he said to them, 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.'
In an amazing way all was settled and sealed within 36 hours. I don't have to worry about it anymore - I don't have to go and find a dealer or a junkyard myself. Everything is done.
Yesterday morning was action-packed. At ~7am the car died in the middle of Martin Luther King and created a small jam when yc was sending his friend to the airport. He called me immediately and I rushed down to MLK with a cab, which his friend took to the airport. I called AAA, paid ~$65 and got a tow-truck to come. I got it towed to the mechanic that I usually go to. He looked at it and said, if I were to fix it, it will cost around $1500.
Wow. Of course I am not going to - and he offered to junk it for me. I gave him my papers. There is some crazy administrative glitch on the car (maybe the glitch was around when GCS had the car already, I would never have known): the VIN on the title and the VIN on the car don't match (the car information that GCS gave me was completely wrong anyway: the car was a 1993 Mitsubishi (not 1990) - that is a side issue). I tried to ask him for some money but the glitch put me in a very weak position. So anyway, he still offered to junk it for me, but I didn't get back anything. That is actually still awesome - if he refuses to take the car, I wouldn't know what to do really.
Today I went to the MVA (completely by MTA okay - I didn't know that is even doable until today) to return the tags and called to cancel my insurance. Progressive is going to return me ~$93 because my insurance is pro-rated. That is awesome.
So now I am back to a life without a car - and I really must thank God for forcing me to solve this problem now and making everything so smooth for me. When I still have the car, I have always been pondering when should I go to the MVA to solve the admin problem (because in order to transfer the title - especially to a dealership or anyone that I do not know - they will want perfect documentation) and to where should I bring the car to - and I really do not have time to do all these. I have already made it clear to my friends that I will not sell it to them - only 1 person has said that he might want it actually but I have told him that anyway - because it is really going to become a liability pretty soon. In addition, the car couldn't pass emissions inspection - and the amount of money needed to fix that is at the $300 - $400 range - and that needs to be addressed before registration expires in September. I absolutely do not want to do that, and I have not attempted to.
Haha so mum/dad, sorry hor. No more car already. Take train and bus with me :D
There was once I was telling people how I do not prefer girls who wear (too much) make-up -
I was saying, using make-up for professional / courtesy / fun reasons are acceptable, but depending on make-up to define how one looks is not, and as far as I am concerned, I can somehow pick up hints of materialism and / or insecurity from that.
And I found a comrade who expressed this way better than I do!
He approached this from a different angle, but his message is similar to mine, albeit a lot more PC and way watered-down:
SEXY的確是很多女生追求的終極目標... 但是我敢保證男生真正喜歡的是PURE SEXY! [I do not understand this phrase.] 男生真正喜歡的也不是beautiful而已，而是natural beauty！ 當然不是叫女生不要化妝，化妝絕對是一種禮貌，甚至是一種變美的藝術。 懂得化妝和打扮很好！有時候能讓自己的際遇和心情都變的更好.... 但是我想說的是不要太過依賴外在附加的東西來提升自己的魅力，卻在不知不覺中，忘記了妳本來就有的魅力。 千萬不要覺得自己沒化妝或沒提名牌包就見不得人...
我相信每個女孩都是上天滴下的寶石！ 每個女孩都有自己最原始的魅力！ 講坦白一點...
妝總有要卸的一天。
假如妳對自己沒有自信，那就算是化了妝、穿了名牌，妳還是只能用面具掩蓋妳自己真正的魅力。
(That which touches guys the most is not all those extras that are external - those things are accessories at most. That which touches guys the most is definitely just the purest innocence. ... If you are not confident about yourself, even if you have worn make-up or branded stuff, you are still just using a mask to hide your real charm.)
He claims that 90% of guys will agree to this.
And I am a staunch supporter - just as I am a proponent for the campaign against bottled water...
I just submitted a paper, went for a small test and a big test today.
And I had a total of 60 hours to prepare for everything, and it is not like I could have used every minute of that 60 hours. At most, I would think, I used 50% of that 60 hours only.
Consequences = no time to prepare anything well. I spent the most time on the paper, working till around 6am Sunday morning, and then studied through Sunday night for the two tests.
Cannot la. I don't know why they love asking for so much detail about dendritic cells - it wasn't anywhere in my notes. I saw that coming, and yet I don't have time or energy to go figure it out. There are also stuff that I stupidly omitted like not putting 'CD80/86 receptor' as the function of CD28 while merely saying it is a T-cell second signal receptor.
Okay, consolation is - even if I get an average B+ for this semester (i.e. ALL my graded classes B+ or getting a B- for immunobiology or something), my GPA will still be above 3.85. NOT SCARED. ___________________________________________________ ein Gedicht von Martin Niemöller.
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich nicht protestiert; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
Makansutra came to Baltimore on Thursday and Friday.
Joseph, Grace and me went to meet Kf Seetoh. We went to Obryski’s – he was amazed by the crab cake (but he didn’t like the soup). The next day Joseph brought him to Faidleys – he loved that one even more.
After dinner on Thursday Joseph sent Seetoh back to his hotel, and before he left, he told us: ‘Lead a good life.’
After he left, Joseph commented: ‘I am pretty sure we all will.’
Then I said, ‘Yeah I hope I will – in Singapore…’
After that the conversation took a nosedive into crap.
Anyway, crap is not the point of my comment.
By going down the path I am intending to go now, I am literally pledging my life to Singapore in addition to my bonds.
I am not unhappy – but I still feel uncertain. It is not that I do not know what I am going to do in the next 5 years. This uncertainty is general. I feel like, by setting my heart on this, I am getting onto a boat with certainty yet sailing into unpredictable territory.
It is like Columbus – when he first sailed from Spain, he knew for sure he wanted to sail that way. However, as the boat left port, he would not have known whether he would return rich, broke or dead.
Other than the relatively obscure future of my industry in Singapore, Singapore is also at the crossroads where it has to somehow change.
How can a country so dependent on its people and talents continue to run with a culture of self-censorship, a media that is losing credibility, high-level officials without a sense of public accountability, an achievement-obsessed environment, and the hypocrisy in ‘national identity’ when people are taught the essence of kiasuism (or more harshly, opportunism) by society and the establishment day after day?
Do we even have a set of core values? Although we do criticise the American dream as hypocrisy, but Americans still do have some groundwork in their country’s core values.
Is there anything we can be proud of regarding our system of government? Our education, our media? Our culture? Probably food, yes.
We doubt our election system, we don’t fully trust our courts of law, we think that our media is government-controlled, we don’t get serious answers for issues we care about, people who advocate the learning of dialects are being called ‘foolish’, and in order to retain talents, the government needs to ‘bond’ them…
Do you think this can continue for another 50 years? Does a country like that sound stable to you in the long run?
I read in today’s newspapers that Taiwan is also looking into developing medical tourism, with their target being the mainland Chinese. They have a significant advantage – a cultural advantage that we do not have because our government has successfully diminished it (ask the hospital doctors to explain things to you in proper Chinese).
We are always facing tough competition, but we are always told that we have advantages over others. It is time to think – what are these advantages actually? If we do not even trust that we have these advantages anymore, we have to do something about it before it is too late.
Honestly, I do not have a lot of faith in Singapore. But I trust God...
Nachdem Sushi in der Bibliothek gelernt hatte, ging sie ins Zimmer ihres Freunds. After Sushi had studied in the library, she went to her boyfriend's room.
Rules: 1)Nachdem = preprosition that demands the tense Plusquamperfekt - past perfect. 2)Nachdem = preprosotion that requires verb order reversal - the direct verb has to be the last word in the sentence. In this case it is 'hatte' - 'had'. 3)Past participle is always at the back - 'gelernt'.
Thus normally, wihout 'nachdem', the sentence reads
Sushi hat in der Bibliothek gelernt. Sushi has studied in the library.
4)Ging = past tense of 'gehen' - 'to go'. 5)In der Bibliothek - because Sushi stays in the libary to study, the noun takes on the dative case after the preprosition 'in': der Bibliothek = the library in dative. The normal form (nominative) = die Bibliothek (gender = female). 6)Ins Zimmer: because Sushi has to move to her boyfriend's room, the noun takes on the accusative case after the preprosition 'in': ins Zimmer = in das Zimmer. Normal form = das Zimmer (gender = neuter). 7)Ihres Freunds: because the room belongs to the boyfriend, the second noun has to take on the genitive case: ihres Freunds (her boyfriend's). Normal form = ihr Freund (her boyfriend: gender = male).
German has 3 genders: Male (der), Female (die), Neuter (das) + Plural (die)
I am supposed to meet a friend at 12pm today to pass her something - and I only remembered that appointment when I was showering just now at 12am.
What on earth is wrong with me? Before I left for class I actually set aside those stuff that I was supposed to give her especially so that I can retrieve it easily from my folders. And after immunobiology I just completely forgot about it and headed home and then headed to lab without even realising that I forgot to do something until half an hour ago.
I should start keeping a pocket calender. This is a warning sign - I should seriously start organising my time properly. When more and more things are going on, it is only a matter of time when I will forget to go for an appointment that will completely screw me up if I miss it.
Hmms and I am hoping that I will be able to get the awards I have applied for. Now it seems that most probably I am not going to get them - but well, I kind of need some form of funding for the month of June when I am still hanging around here. Hopkins stopped allowing lab groups to pay students who are hanging around in Summer and obviously A*STAR is not paying and that doesn't mean Wyman Towers and T-mobile are not going to ask me for money...
Initially I actually thought I don't really need extra funding, but now as I start calculating, it seems that I do need that extra funding. Yes I can get by without that extra cash, but really only barely...
This week is just not that great - it just doesn't feel great at all :( Oh well. Hopefully the cherry blossoms tomorrow will be great...
