Wednesday, August 29, 2007

"year 1 studio project" season finale

my, how time really flies aye.

in the blink of an eye, its almost september...how vivid can i still remember my first day in nanyang poly. the shy and nerdy guy i was...who didn't took the initiative to talk to the many people around me. how i regret it now, who still hasn't built the bond between my very own classmates whom i see every single day. :(

well, time does flies indeed. tmrw is the day i am gonna present my end-of-sem project to my "clients", who are, of course, our very own teachers. finally after 3 weeks of hard work, our game is done! after tmrw, i would not be disturbed anymore by annoying teachers or endless assignments. for a month or so, at the very least...

yesterday when we met our supervisor, i realised how little work i've done. not that i am not putting in enough effort, but the amount of work available to me was so much less than the workload of my other team-mates. maybe it was because of the little knowledge i have about programming...maybe it was because of the capabilities of my more inclined team-mates...

saw some of the other teams' games at the computer lab yesterday. what could i say? i'm indeed impressed. compared to our game, theirs are far more complicated. indeed we have put in alot of effort into this particular assignment, probably some of us, even our heart and soul...but the entertainment industry doesn't look at our efforts, instead they look at our talents.

i would dare to say perhaps i'm pretty creative, although ideas do tend to run out. maybe that's the talent God has placed in me. but having creativity alone and lacking the hard work would not result in much achievement as well. how many assignments have i owed my teachers? how many times have i not fulfilled their datelines?

most probably i would retake my first sem again next year. although i know that failing every single module is not a possibility, i believe my passion demands more of my effort. i want to get my fundamentals straight and i hope history would not yet again repeat itself.

i've been wanting to organise an outing with my class but yet i have no faith. looking at the situation right now, most probably they'd turn me down. i really hope that we can not just get along well with each other, but have a strong sense of team spirit between us. well it does take 2 hands to clap...

how challenging it is to be in this industry...not the carefree and easy life i once thought. yes, indeed we all know that the nice computer graphics we see in the action packed movies we see or even the powerful game engine in our all time favourite computer games come from months or even years of hard work...but to actually experience doing it yourself, it is a different story.

it demands more than just large amounts of time. it is the passion within the makers that keeps them going for years to accomplish what they had imagined, something visually created in their minds into visually captivating and breathtaking scenes for all to see. that's what inspired me, to share your ideas in the most creative way man has ever known...

Sunday, August 26, 2007

spiritual concentration

i'm really happy today. yesterday was a great day, and today is gonna be better. :D

as you can see, i woke up with almost half my day gone...i just seem to cannot wake up once i get connected with my wonderful bed. ahhh...

anyway, sorry guys for not blogging the past 2 days. i was really tired when i got home and i did turned on the computer, intending to post, but i fell asleep while the laptop was still loading. :X

actually once, my internet connection failed me. kinda understandable since my dear router is in the study room, which is next to my room. hmm...frankly speaking, i experience some problems with my school's wireless connection as well. how many times have it happened when i wanted to surf the net but i couldn't have internet access... =.=

ok so just to share what happened the past 2 days:

on friday, i was at home all day "stoning". with nothing to do, i almost slept through the day. originally, i was to have bible study with cedric but unfortunately, he forgot to bring his bs book...

i went down to meet cedric in the evening at orchard. we walked around the mall before finally settling at yoshinoya.(takashimaya) ced didn't order anything while i ate the new? spicy beef thingy. he kept asking me whether i wanna buy a bracelet, said it was really nice...found out later that actually he wanted one for himself because there's an offer 2 for $28. =.=

we met up with michelle, jon, isabel and huizhen before going to eat fish & chips at taka. i wanted to try the beer battered fish & chips so i ate again. =.= haiz...i must start spending less and saving more! anyway, james joined us some time later. after dinner we went over to starbucks(paragon) to discuss about the cellgroup appreciation. eleanore and cheekiong joined us. then i realised that i was the only person who is not a helper... they were discussing about cellgroup stuff and i had nothing to do. zZz well, i did try to help by brianstorming for ideas for the chalet/bbq and games, but i guess i wasn't really resourceful enuff huh?

so anyway to keep the long story short, i left early with my parents since they were around orchard too.

sat was really fun. in the morning i went over to cckss for the carnival. intended to meet jinnyang and weikai at 8.30am but i woke up late...ahh i forgot to set alarm!(see i fell asleep while i was waiting for my laptop to start up the previous night...) so i went to school alone. met up with weikai and his classmates at macdonalds and we went to cckss together. i felt as if i'm part of 4/9. =.= didn't wanna be extra so i stayed at the basketball court area to watch the people play basketball while they went to walk around the stalls. my classmates only arrived like one and a half hour later...so when they finally came, we went to check out the stalls at the carnival. i didn't buy any coupons :X but i kope some cocktails from the others. :D

rushed over to jurong west to support isabel's, olivia's and candice's water baptism at 1.30pm. originally i was thinking it would be sooo sian to leave so early because i wanted to stay longer at the carnival...in the end i realised it was pretty a great idea anyway since the carnival was kinda boring anyway. so at jurong west church, we waited in the hot sun for the candidates to get baptised. unable to stand the heat, joshua and i went to vend some drinks before going down to the stairs to enjoy the air-con indoors. when we went back up...they already got baptised and we missed it. =.=

anyway, we took one of the church's shuttle buses to expo for service after they bathed and got changed. we had to pay $1 for the shuttle bus. man why do we have to spend for everything?! guess it's because of the church building fund, they gotta start saving up if they want a nice hall eh?

service was great, which leads to my title of this post. pst Kong continued on the sermon of the mount series and talked about spiritual concentration. the service was really long so just to share what impacted me most, pst Kong talked about a question of ambition.

we should not worry all the time. just like what matthew 6:25-34 says, God feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the fields, what more are we, who are of more significance to Him? who of you by worrying can add a single hour his life?(matt 6:27) therefore do not worry about tommorow, for tommorow will worry for itself. each day has enough trouble of its own.(matt 6:34)

i remembered that pst Prince once shared that stress is the number 1 killer in singapore. stress leads to many sicknesses, such as heart diseases, depression etc. and worrying only adds to our stress! thus we should not worry, worrying does not change the situation or make things any better. it is unproductive, it is unreasonable, and it is unnecessary.

after a really lonnnnggg service, we went over to changi airport to eat at popeye. the mash potato, choeslaw and fries are like sooo nice lah! but the chicken is okay only lah. xD hey but i ain't complaining aye? great fellowship that night. had bible study with cedric after dinner and both my legs became numb after sitting on the chair so long!

haha, we had a really enjoyable day and the ride back home was just as fun as well. on the mrt, an angmoh was looking at the mrt stations map, then jessica asked me to compare whether i was taller than him anot, so i stood up and pretended to look at the advertisments...then the rest all laughed so loud. =.= then the angmoh turned and look at me sia...like we making fun of him...sian lo, give people bad impression of singaporeans le lah...

hey guys i tried to post some pictures...but it is not in the right place where i want it so yah...sorry lah i'm not very good with computer stuff. i will ask around and post more pictures the next time. PROMISE!

cheers :D

Thursday, August 23, 2007

fruitful :D

practically spent the whole day at sean's house doing my end-of-sem project. sean actually switched off his router so that we would not get distracted.(no internet access :[ ) our team have been spending alot of time this whole week working on our project. i'm so proud of myself, i wouldn't have done any better myself studying at home. :X

we finally managed to compile our programs. yes, there were about 100+ errors. lol. but we slowly debugged them.(took the whole afternoon...) in the evening around 9pm, our game was almost working perfectly and the others were actually playing the very game we made! wow, really cool huh?! haha don't think too highly of us, it's just a simple game with nothing visually appealing. xD

just wanted to show my appreciation to sean and weihao. they really put in alot of effort into this project. everytime i couldn't debug my program, i would turn to sean. they really made our team more lively, without them, we wouldn't be achieving so much progress and probably done everything last minute. thanks for all the free meals as well...your moms can sure cook. :D

i understand that many other people are mugging for their exams, so here are some tips which i thought might be helpful (:

"The Top 10 Steps to DeStress"

1. Heal yourself.
2. Get organized.
3. Set boundaries.
4. Take time for yourself.
5. Be positive.
6. Work in a career you love.
7. Surround yourself with a supportive community.
8. Learn to say, "No."
9. Zap tolerations.
10. Get your needs met.

check out this website for more details! :

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Top-10-Steps-to-DeStress&id=6506

PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES...cuz i don't want you guys to spread your sicknesses to me...haha just joking, but still , don't stress yourselves out yah? actually i'm also kinda sick. went to see the doctor last week, but until now i haven't touched the medicine yet...argh and i lost my thumb-drive...sian.

umm...actually there's an 11th good way to de-stress: reading my blog. xD

cheers :D

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

we can choose to see the problems in our lives or the visions of God

ok i'm so tired i can fall asleep anytime now...

just came back from prayer meeting...pst Kong emphaised this verse: not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD Almighty.(zechariah 4:6) in case its not idiot-proof, it simply meant that we cannot depend on our own strength, but with Him, all things are possible.

the korean delicates were fantasitc, the singer(sorry i can't really rmb the korean names) was marvellous, thankfully there weren't any windows at expo,(praise the Lord) or it would have been raining glass. her pitch was like sooo high lah and her voice was probably about 10000000Hz. weapon of mass destruction. =.=

dr joshua preached a really good word, although half the time i was trying to understand his "korean english" on one part and resisting the humor and at how he pronunces some words on the other. i really respect him, as with the many other pastors that came with him from Yoido Full Gospel Church. we're like so honoured to have leaders from the world's largest church with us.

before prayer meeting, i was at weihao's place to do our end-of-sem project, along with the other group members. was there since 11am and left around 6.30pm for prayer meeting. never had i spent so much time programming before. but hey, i realised that it's kinda enjoyable if you do it together as a team...although we still get all kinds of errors, we have each other to help ourselves out. :D the feeling of your program eventually working(after all that hard work coding it and debugging it...) really gives you a kind of satisfaction.

alright its late now, i think i should be more merciful to my body...it can collapse any moment now...

tata :D

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

chee kiong's birthday

today was a really busy day.

i met my team-members for my end-of-sem project in school at 10 am. we were supposed to compile our work and show it to our supervisor. unfortunately, we encountered many problems. so we went over to blk Q computer labs to debug our errors. several other teams were there as well, apparently they had arranged appointments with their respective supervisors as well. i have no idea how, but one moment everyone was doing their projects, the next, all the guys were playing dota, screaming at each other across the room. =.= i couldn't believe how they could run warcraft on the school workstations! man they sure are computer geeks...made me felt so zibei you know. zzz

so we only managed to present our work to mr fritz lim at 3pm. spent another hour or so in his office trying to solve more problems...tobie's team like came in to meet their supervisor after us, and was gone way before we were even almost done. half the time i had no idea what are they talking about... so yeah i just nodded and smiled at them... xD

i guess the rest gave up in the end, and so we went down to the canteen to eat.(mmm...programming makes me hungry!) i was planning to save up for some stuff but i guess i just couldn't resist all that food! realised that my team-members found a new play thing: the rubik's cube. allen's kinda pretty good at it. he can solve it in 11 secs! ok i was just joking...he wouldn't be in nyp if he could do that... so anyway, the rest went home after their meals and i went over to the library to pass time cuz i still had cca later on in the evening.

i went to cafe hotshot with a stack of tintin comics. i was reading "king ottokar’s sceptre" when i fell asleep. the next moment i was awake, a librarian was standing next to the sofa i was lying on and said, "you cannot sleep here!" to me. i was like so malu lah...so many people were walking in and out of the cafe. =.=

cca was great. the other polo guys were kinda nice and friendly actually. they even helped me with my thread water. i think i'm kinda getting it. was looking at the mirror in the changing room after training...was soo disappointed lah...no 6 pacs...no chest...no nothing... just look at darren's body...so sexy lo, when can i get a bod like his man.

anyway, rushed over to katong to celebrate cheekiong's birthday after training. i can't believe how troublesome the journey could get: had to take a train to alljunid, then had to take a susposingly 20min bus ride to the venue. i waited like ages for the bus to arrive lah...worst still, i alighted on the wrong stop! =.= couldn't believe it...i was rushing for time, stuck in the middle of nowhere, exhausted after a really long day and filled with chlorine all over my body. what more could i ask for?! grr...

thanks to joshua, i managed to walk all the way to katong mall. but unfortunately, by then, they had finished the celebration so i went over to hong kong cafe to join them for dinner.

we really enjoyed each others' presence, just fellowshipping over dinner. the cake was soooo niceee!!! one day, i'm gonna buy one and just lock myself the whole day at home indulging it. finally, after a veeeerrrryyy long time, our food came, and boy i got instant noodles and pork chop. i can't believe they actually put "instant noodles with pork chop" in the menu. =.= like what the... i didn't even notice it before ordering. haha, and cheekiong ordered a lemon coke, which is actually coke(can) with a few slices of lemon in a glass of ice. =.=

cabbed home after that with jessica, elizabeth and jace...i hate cabs...so expensive, always. zZz

k don't worry guys, i will work hard on the 'muscles' part, for now, its time for bed. nitez. :D

Monday, August 20, 2007

live life to the fullest

this week services are by dr joyce meyer, and is she good or what?!

yep, we should live life to the fullest. like what dr meyer said, we should not waste TODAY, regretting about the things we done YESTERDAY(past) or worrying about TOMMOROW.(future) how true is that? God gave us 1 life to live, shouldn't we live it to the fullest? regretting the things we've done won't change the past, so doesn't worrying about the future helps make anything better. ahh i remembered pst prince said smth really true, God told us not to worry because everything has been taken care of, but He didn't said don't PLAN for the future!

i was late for saturday service and boy i sure had a nice talk with cedric. :X well michelle said something during cellgroup: doing something consistently forms a habit, and habits form our lifestyle. so i'm consistently making people wait for me when i arrange an appointment with them, hence it becomes a habit, particularly, a bad one. since it's a bad habit, it would be really hard to change. now i wouldn't want to be wasting peoples' time, which in turn waste their lives just waiting for me, but i guess i've done it so many times. so today i'm gonna make a conviction that i would form a good habit of being puntual and so next time, because it's so habitual, i find it sooo hard for me to be late. :D

after service went to eat with my dad since i had no more money left after paying cedric the money i owe him and for the NYP camp/bbq. my dad asked me on the car: "so if you had cash, you wouldn't be joining me lah..." i was like ok...*speechless.* so anyway, we ate at a japanese resturant, and since my dad was paying i was free to order anything!(ANYTHING!) xD

sunday service was great too! dr meyer is such a living testimony, her life already reflects on how God is working in people. i mean how could someone not feel sorry for herself after being sexually abused by her own father for 15 years! for those who missed such a good word, dr meyer said this morning about how we should love ourselves. she gave her own example by how she doesn't feel sorry for herself after what she has been through. if we despise ourselves, which we see everyday, every minute, every second, how can we start to love others? dr meyer also demostrated how she loved her "enemies" by not only forgiving her father but even took good care of him. on saturday, she mentioned that there are bound to be people to hate us(around 10%), it is statistically proven! but instead of focusing on the 10%(and feel miserable for ourselves all day), why not look on the other 90%? nobody is perfect in this world, and we should just be ourselves and stop trying so hard to be someone else. now if everyone was the same, wouldn't our world be sooo boring?

well i guess this message really spoke to me in a way. in case any of you don't know, i'm actually a really paranoid person. i'm always worried about whether people will laugh at my jokes, whether i will look awkward in any situation, whether will people like me, whether will i be rejected etc. the list goes on...i guess i should stop worrying all the time and just be myself haha, kinda makes life easier huh?

i have no idea why but instead of actually posting on happening things in my life(actually i do!), i really like posting about my thoughts and feelings. i want to express how i feel and i guess the blog's just the thing! so i hope i don't really bore anyone to death cuz i kinda enjoy doing it. (:

so just to share the things that happened today: i rushed to raffles place for the complimentry hip hop dance lesson at studio wu after service. man it was really fun although i still feel i look werid dancing.(you know, long and really bony hands...eeeew) the instructor is sooo pretty! hmm wonder why i start feeling all kinds of girls look pretty in some way. xD

after the dance thingy, went over to takashimaya to eat KFC and meet my dad. he "lunched" as well before we went up to kinokuniya. after that i fell asleep in the car while he drove around to various apartments to...er i have no idea what real estate agents do all the time so yah whatever stuff he do all the time. argh i still haven't bought the psp yet...zZz c'mon my mrt journeys are sooo boring...i need a psp!

yup tmrw have to go to school 9.30 am again...weihao called me today and said i had to the spring thingy for our game. =.= great i'm like so screwed...

Saturday, August 18, 2007

for transformation, one must learn to love and act(action speaks louder than words)

i just came back from cell group. it was really fun today. we played a really lame game which i don't even know what is it called. =.= we went down to the basketball court area to play captain ball after cell group. our team kinda got trashed...but nevermind we had a great time together. (:

i was surfing the internet, and yes, i was wondering whether dinosaurs were mentioned in the bibe. it seemed that some atheists think that dinosaurs are not mentioned in the bible and because we have tons of dinosaur fossils as evidence, the bible is so screwed.

well, for any atheists reading this, i'm really sorry to disappoint you. in fact, the bible did mentioned dinosaurs! tanniyn(dragon), behemoth and leviathan are mentioned in the bible several times representing dinosaur, brachiosaurus and kronosaurus respectively. now why didn't they use their scientific names?

well because the word dinosaur was invented in the 1800s. we would not expect to find the word dinosaur in bibles like the authorized version (1611), as it was translated well before the word dinosaur was ever used. like duhh...

this website would help explain the existence of dinosaurs using the bible.(this book never fails us!)

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/2.asp

just to give a summary of what the website is about:

basically evolutionist will always be able to concoct an ‘answer’ because evolution is a belief. it is not science—it is not fact!

let us take the extinction of dinosaurs for example. when reading evolutionist literature, you will be astonished at the range of ideas concerning their supposed extinction. the following is just a small list of theories:

dinosaurs starved to death; they died from overeating; they were poisoned; they became blind from cataracts and could not reproduce; mammals ate their eggs. other causes include-volcanic dust, poisonous gases, comets, sunspots, meteorites, mass suicide, constipation, parasites, shrinking brain (and greater stupidity), slipped discs, changes in the composition of air, etc.

it is obvious that evolutionists don’t know what happened and are grasping at straws. in a recent evolutionary book on dinosaurs, ‘A New Look At the Dinosaurs,’ the author made the statement:

‘now comes the important question. what caused all these extinctions at one particular point in time, approximately 65 million years ago? dozens of reasons have been suggested, some serious and sensible, others quite crazy, and yet others merely as a joke. every year people come up with new theories on this thorny problem. the trouble is that if we are to find just one reason to account for them all, it would have to explain the death, all at the same time, of animals living on land and of animals living in the sea; but, in both cases, of only some of those animals, for many of the land dwellers and many of the sea-dwellers went on living quite happily into the following period. alas, no such one explanation exists’ (Alan Charig, p. 150).

but, one such explanation does exist. if you remove the evolutionary framework, get rid of the millions of years, and then take the bible seriously, you will find an explanation that fits the facts and makes perfect sense:

at the time of the Flood, many of the sea creatures died, but some survived. in addition, all of the land creatures outside the Ark died, but the representatives of all the kinds that survived on the Ark lived in the new world after the Flood. those land animals (including dinosaurs) found the new world to be much different than the one before the Flood. due to (1) competition for food that was no longer in abundance, (2) other catastrophes, (3) man killing for food (and perhaps for fun), and (4) the destruction of habitats, etc., many species of animals eventually died out. the group of animals we now call dinosaurs just happened to die out too. in fact, quite a number of animals become extinct each year. extinction seems to be the rule in Earth history (not the formation of new types of animals as you would expect from evolution).

my my...man's insatiable hunger for knowledge just amazes me. the bible has proven many wrong over and over again. now perhaps the only reason left for atheists to actually exist is not because of any lack of evidence but just a stubborn attitude that somehow mircales just don't happen and angels don't exist.

atheist: duhh you mean you actually believe in angels?! i haven't seen any mircales yet hello?!

"hmm...i haven't seen snow, i guess snow don't exist." (: