so PA's over.. and school's already in e 1st week.. been bumping around during e 2 weeks break after e internship.. haha.. tt was before i caught on to facebook.. finally.. -.- anyway like i said earlier, such social networks really are eye openers for me at times.. to see how my fellow friends have changed over the years.. hopefully for e better.. lol..

many of e their looks have changed quite some bit.. esp e girls.. good to know that all of them are still doing well.. esp for those whom i have no prior contact via msn or friendster..

e interns had organised a karoke session during e last week of e internship and it was actually a much better experience than i thought.. well at least they were not shy abt singing in front of 10 other ppl.. and their singing were quite good too.. and erm quite unexpectedly, someone said my singing of 你怎麼捨得我難過 together with benjamin (yeah e one from my marketing class) was actually quite nice.. lolol.. tt's a first for me.. anyway i think i sing better w/o e karoke.. maybe it's cos i dun stick to e pace of e songs v well.. haha..

have been listening to a couple of youtube vids lately.. in particular those by 鄧麗君.. realised tt she can actually sing in quite a number of different languages such as jap, chinese, english and bahasa melayu.. and she sings them well too.. her english songs are so-so if u were to compare her with e original singers.. but i found tt her cover of I've Never Been to Me to be quite good..

anyway, i've been trying to learn to sing 3 of her more popular jap songs like 空港, つぐない / 偿还 and 愛人.. e latter is particularly e easiest to sing amongst e 3 and yup, trying to sing without looking at e romanji.. haha.. and tt's even though like i've yet to really master Only Human - K and Konayuki - Remioromen ..

and oh ya.. had actually forgotten abt e vid in e post below.. lol.. a really nice song too.. great vocals by a young kid.. there's actually quite a few good children singers out there.. or talents.. such as Yoo Ye-eun who paired up with Connie Talbot (of e Britain's Got Talent fame) for e song You Raise Me Up..

hmmm.. so it's almost 2 months since i last blogged.. v long absence indeed.. which den probably suggest tt this post is gonna be v v long..

busy with internship lately.. quite some couple of OT along the way.. or maybe tt's kind of an understatement.. i last counted it to be around 1,100 minutes of OT.. and unclaimable at tt too.. not to say tt there weren't e slack moments.. was pretty much a boring last 2 weeks for me.. nothing much to do quite often.. guess i have some stuff which i would like to blog about at this time, but of which it is not wise to.. so i'll leave it till some other time.. if ever tt is.. haha..

been going out with e uni gang every fri during this PA.. and we played pool almost every week.. of course wat came out of it had only been increased expenses.. which isn't really something good, considering tt i've yet to treat bra for a birthday treat and my family for getting my 1st pay check..

i guess not a lot of ppl actually keep detailed accounts of their spending patterns, so maybe e following info might be interesting to know.. i've been keeping accounts since sec school (there were breaks in between when i didn't though) and having just analysed my last 12 months of expenditure, e breakdown of my expenses over e period is: 44.57% on all food costs, 34.60% on transportation, 5.87% on entertainment and ahah! 13.47% on academic costs (mainly textbooks).. spend on average $168.33/month, although recent months have seen e figure to be around $200-$250.. and tt's considering tt i dun pay my own phone bills ($15+) and tt i have meals at home quite quite often..

it's lucky tt i press e publish post button often enough, cos blogger screwed up just now when i pressed e button again.. only had to retype a few lines of stuff.. costs have been soaring these past year and in particular this few months, with oil prices hitting $146/barrel.. totally crazy.. we are just too dependent on oil.. and if i weren't wrong, blair suggested tt e world should build many many more nuclear plants (forgot e number tt he mentioned) so as to meet e energy demand.. now tt as i grow older and become more sensitive to stuff like politics, i wonder if some leaders and ministers actually think through their stuff before they speak..

as it is, e world today doesn't seem to be in a pretty good shape and i seriously won't be surprised if e next world war breaks out over soaring inflation/oil prices/worsening climate conditions during our generation.. something not v pleasant to think abt..

most probably u would have already heard abt e jarring security lapses tt happened here in e past half year.. starting with e mas selamat escape from e detention centre, followed by e sub court escape and finally e passport blunder.. admittedly i dun follow e news tt zealously, but if i'm not wrong i dun think any ppl high up in e office concerned got axed off for e events.. which if true, and in my opinion, is quite wtf, considering tt all e security lapses are quite serious breaches..

coming to more not-so-serious stuff.. have been playing dota and maple lately.. well as usual.. like duh.. managed to lvl up to 82 just a few days ago.. now somewhat getting bored with maple, cos all my characters are at stages where it's either hard to train or lazy to train.. still trying to save up for my little riding pig.. and oh ya.. pangya is shutting down.. not exactly unexpected, given tt it's business model wasn't really viable to begin with.. sad to see it go though, having played it since day 2 of its launch..

just remembered that w3 patch 1.22 was out recently.. patching w3 has always been a mini "nerve-wrecking" experience because i dread e feeling tt e patch would go all wrong and i have to reinstall e whole game.. anyway i successfully managed to patch it after all..

watched kungfu panda and don't mess with the zohan.. e former was ok.. although e fun parts of e movie have been pretty much shown in e trailers and making-of TV show.. as such there's really not much incentive for one to actually watch e real full length thing.. e latter movie is a very lame, sexually dumb show (senseless sex jokes, many boobs and wat not.. well u get e idea..).. my personal opinion is tt both movies are not worth e time watching..

i visit e stomp site once every now and den and from wat i can see, e mrt is really not a safe place to be in.. u nv know who is snapping u.. for all u know u could land up at e website for PDA or more commonly seen, not giving up your seat to needy people..

and talking about mrt, there's a "go green and take public transport" campaign lately.. quite dumb actually, if u ask me.. dunnoe which smart alek came up with this.. e person most prob nv tried taking e peak hour train or bus before.. totally gay.. e crowd tt u see on e trains.. i think it won't be too long before we match up to japan's sandwichness.. just e other day, i went to my client's place at raffles city and e morning crowd was like wtf.. looks like a whole pack of sheep being gathered up by sheep wolves.. just tt there isn't any in this case.. and i thought e situation at tanjong pagar was quite bad..

erm ok.. so my point actually is tt it would make much more sense if e infrastructure is there (ie. e circle line is completed and running (at e very least)) before embarking on such a campaign.. wat u have now is a less-than-desirable infrastructure and u're asking more ppl to come make it worse.. -.-

so today (7 july) i was reading e chinese paper and e headline splashed across e front page was proclaiming tt e above-mentioned campaign was a success.. yah yah.. give me a reason to believe tt it won't be so.. even without the campaign, rising oil prices, increased number of ERP sentries, charges and operation hours, together with rising cab fees and talk of even further hikes to e fee through a fuel surcharge, did anyone with a brain seriously think tt e number of ppl taking public transport would remain as it is? duh..

not sure y it is e case but it might very well be a spurious relationship.. as mentioned some posts ago.. i was talking to meiwen on msn.. she mentioned tt she was planning to attend a talk organised for interested teachers-to-be and was considering to be a teacher somewhere in e future.. (on a sidenote: she's going to KPMG to work.. hmmmm..) as a coincidence, another accountancy intern mate of mine expressed e same thoughts.. and including me, it's 3 accountancy students who have given serious thoughts about becoming teachers in e future..

heard a nice old song on 93.3 some days back.. it's 我想有个家 by 潘美辰.. subsequently commented to my friend tt i was putting it in replay mode and he said tt it gets a bit boring after listening to it for a few times.. i guess i like to look at a song from its different aspects.. having composed my own lyrics i think i have had a greater interest in how e songs are actually packaged.. from e way e lyrics are written, their literal, hidden, historical, cultural and societal meanings, e melody, y certain instruments were chosen, e arrangement of e music, how e mv is shot, y certain scenes are chosen for e mv, e singer's emotions and of course his voice.. there are probably some other things which i left out, but replaying e song really allows to understand and appreciate e song better.. in this case, i thought tt e lyrics were particularly well written and tt e following sentences from e song were quite meaningful and food for thought: 虽然你有家 什么也不缺
为何看不见你露出笑脸

so yup.. like wat i've said earlier, have been playing much pool lately.. so i went to youtube to look for some tips on masse and jump shots.. found e following cool videos of pro shots.. Fast Larry's Two Table Pool Trick Shot and trick shot worldrecord jump shot challange.. subsequently went to try out e masse shot and short distance jump shot.. the players in e videos seriously make e shots look easier than they seem.. could manage to curve my ball a little though.. but should have tried doing it along e length of e table instead, so tt e effect can be more visible..

and yes.. to my favourite portion of e post.. on dream control.. haha.. i think i've mentioned about attempting to do e flash jump in a previous post.. or those kind of jumps tt u see in e movie jumper.. managed to do a few of those in succession.. nothing really special i think.. i still prefer simple plain old teleportation.. nevertheless, i got another 1st in dream control some time this week or last when i ran through a wall.. haha.. and e experience was rather interesting..

my 1st attempt was not well prepared.. had a short run up to e wall, only to put on my brakes when i approached it.. wasn't ready to do e stunt.. and so on e 2nd attempt, i had myself a longer run up to e wall and gain e momentum needed to pass through e wall.. in most of my stunts, e "before and after" effects are usually very distinct and only milliseconds apart, with no apparent transitions.. but during this time's particular stunt, i was passing through e wall, with my right leg already on e other side of e wall, when i looked at my surroundings.. it was actually loading! as in u know wat happens when yr laggy com loads a different picture from e current one tt u are viewing? e old picture would stay there while e new picture, bit by bit, takes over e space of e old picture.. tt was wat exactly happened in my dreams! rather bewildering stuff..

and e stunt of passing through a wall is rather exciting too.. perhaps comparable to e stunt of jumping off a building ledge.. think i might just try running through a wall again sometime soon..

with this i end e longest post in this bloggie at 1,838 words.. hopefully my PA report can be of this length also.. haiz.. dun have e slightest idea how i can even squeeze out 1,000 words for it..

so i guess i finally have time to settle down and blog about my recent trip to hokkaido.. had actually written down a few short 'real time' posts in my little notebook which i had wanted to transfer here.. but dun think i'll be doing it.. will be blogging based on my memory and e notes tt i've jotted down instead.. most prob will be using one post to cover each day of e trip.. will be taking me quite a while to finish blogging about e whole trip and e posts would be constantly updated as i remember any stuff along e way..

for a sidetrack, was quite pleasantly surprised to see meiwen initiate a conversation in msn yesterday.. haven talked to her in a long time.. i feel such small acts can really sometimes show someone tt u really care abt him/her.. girls our age are now preparing to step out into e corporate world.. and just not too long ago we were laughing away, pretty much leading a care free school life together.. time passes fast..

just tommorrow i'll be starting on my own mini corporate adventure with my PA.. dunnoe y but somehow i have this feeling of dread..

in this post and e next few, it would be e 1st time u see me using 3 different languages within a single post..

so to start things proper, my account of e trip can actually be quite technical at certain parts.. but hey! there's gonna be pictures.. some background info: this particular trip was done with SA tours, with George as our tour guide.. and hmmm.. he's a freelance tour guide specialising in japan and also a part time cabby in sg.. now tt's prob 2 of e most conversational occupations u can have.. and rolled into 1 person.. geez.. haven used e jap language bar for a long time.. now i cant find a feature tt i need.. will continue with this post another day.. in e meanwhile i'll play around with e language bar..

ok nvm.. guess i'll just stick with wat i have for e moment.. e currency rate was at 100円:SG$1.35..