Here's My Story

The monthly actuarial magazine I receive from the institute has a section on a survey conducted a month ago, Any member can ask for a survey to be done. It gives members "an opportunity to express their opinions on a mixture of serious and not-so-serious issues". While I usually enjoy reading the results and opinion, it is more enjoyable to read the comments by the participants that are published. Examples: Question: Imagine you are waiting to be served in a bank. Suddenly, an armed robber enters the bank, fires a shot and the bullet hits you in the arm. How would you describe this event? Choice of response: Lucky Unlucky An unfortunate random occurrence that has nothing to do with luck Comments: "Typical bank - not enough tellers. If they were properly staffed, I would have been out of there before the robber arrived." "I'd describe it as 'chk chk boom - ouch' to the press of course." "Any time I have to be served at a ba...

Such a cool dude!

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I watched Avatar recent. It is a good movie but truth be told, I expected it to be great, not merely good. I wasn't exactly wowed by it. Maybe I was caught up in the hype and so had high expectation? *shrug* I watched the 3-D version. Again, nothing to shout about. It didn't seem to do much difference to me. In retrospect, I wouldn't have paid S$5 to watch it in 3-D and wearing uncomfortable 3-D glasses in front of my own glasses. The first encounter between the two main characters reminded me too much of Pocahontas, especially with the theme on respecting nature, give thanks to the animal killed for food etc. I wouldn't have blinked my eyes if Neytiri burst out singing "Colours of the Wind", especially callimg Jake Sully a "baby" when it comes to understanding the forest and stuff. It would have fitted the scene perfectly, with her running up tree trunks and jumping around while pointing to the lovely flora and fauna around. Yah, I'm just ...

That was how long I slept on Friday and Saturday night. It is rather shocking to me because I usually need about 7.5 hours only. Even if I tried sleeping beyond that, at about the 8th hour mark, I would start getting headache which is a sign for me to wake up. But not these nights. There was no headache. I could have slept on longer if not because it was lunch time. Perhaps on Friday night, I was compensating the lack of sleep during the weekdays, especially Wednesday night (if I recall the day correctly) when I couldn't sleep till past 2am. Whereas on Saturday night, maybe I was tired out doing house chores: mopped and sweep the house, cleaned bathrooms and kitchen sink, spring cleaning half of my room (the other half was done earlier) and ironing 8 pairs of clothings. I normally don't do all these within a day. Still, I did it in a relaxing manner i.e. did a bit, watched tv a bit, did a bit, surfed net a bit, did a bit etc. Strange. Even weirder is the dream I had l...

I've yet to successfully buy the right office pants. The first time I tried, I managed to get hold of pants with the right waist size. I tried them on and it felt just right. However, to my dismay, after having bought them and actually wearing them to office, I find them to be tight. I figured the difference are the items I put in my pockets. So the second time I went shopping for a pair of pants, I purposely tried them on with belt and items in my pocket. Although the size is one size larger than I asked for, it seems fine at that time. But now I regret. It seems a bit large for me. Haiz. Maybe I should get them tailored. But it apparently costs at least 50% more. Hmmm.

Eating out is expensive in Australia. Almost every meal was cooked at home. It is simply way cheaper. Here are some pictures of the yummy food I had during the 15 days trip to Canberra: Japanese meal! :) It was held in celebration of my sister's birthday. Only thing missing from this picture is the delicious teriyaki (unconventionally cooked I must say) by my bro-in-law. It was DIY for anyone wants sushi rolls, except that I made a few for the birthday girl of course. It was definitely a great success.

Please refer to the failed exam . I failed again :( Since I failed twice, I now "qualify" to receive detailed feedback for each attempt for a charge of US$150. Gah.

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  Although it already existed when I was studying in Canberra, it was only during my recent trip that I visited Cockington Green. Its main attraction is its miniature buildings of which most of them are modeled on actual buildings. I almost never visit any place on my own. Rather spend time with loved ones, wherever they are. This time, however, my dad was keen to visit Cockington Green as it is highly recommended by a Chinese newspapers in Malaysia. So my sister drove her toddler sons, my dad and youngest sister there while I took a short bus ride there. We brought some food in case we were hungry, of which we were 100% certain the boys would be hehe. Here are some photos of buildings taken from places with names starting with B and C:

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Singapore as well as Malaysia. Ban took the opportunity to come down to Singapore :) Thursday After collecting supplement, buying movie tickets, soya milk and pears, I went to the Budget Terminal to meet Ban. Since I had some time, I took the train route i.e. MRT train to Tanah Merah, transfered to the train to Changi Airport and then finally tranferred to the free shuttle bus to the Budget Terminal. Luckily his flight was not late. In fact, it was a little early.

Crossing the Cavanagh , originally uploaded by williamnyk . Earlier this morning, I woke up feeling better than the past 2 days. At least the fever was gone. Sorethroat subsided. The only irritating thing was my blocked nose and I was running out of spare medication. So I decided to drop by the clinic of my regular doctor before going to work but as the time passed by, I felt worse. The sickly tiredness came back (apparently my feet would feel very tired when I'm sick) and I was getting headache from the blocked nose. After seeing the doctor (who said I was infected by yet another viral flu) and collecting medicine and MC, my mind was still debating whether I should at go to work or not for the remaining hours of the morning. I was standing in the middle of the pedestrian overhead bridge with my mind debating whether to cross over to take bus to work or turn back to take bus back home. JJ work: Should go to work lah. At least clear e-mails and discuss with colleagues on wha...

I was hoping to bring my dad and my sis to visit Floriade when we were in Canberra earlier this month. It is, theoretically, just before mid-spring. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, Floriade was already over in October. That's early. Hence, I managed to take only photos of flowers I saw around the suburb: I love spring!

Been busy since I came back from Australia. First 3 days, I retook the exam I failed and the questions were the same! I just hope that the additional stuff I put in will help. Then it was 2 days of catching up with work after 2.5 weeks away from office. It made me realise how bad things really are and I was thinking of quitting. Weekend was spent mainly with Ban, who is ever so caring and sweet :) And naughty too. Haha. Met up with some friends for lunch on Saturday, bought an office belt (after having rather heated discussion with William about it hehe) and then Ban and I attended Ban's friend's wedding dinner in Melaka. We were back in KL after 1am. We were supposed to meet NotHamsap for lunch but it was postponed to New Year. So we had lunch nearby. Satisfy my craving for char kuay teow, which was yummy. Finished the Heroes 5 game (we may start new one later hehe), dinner at airport and off I flew back to Singapore, reaching home before 11pm. Cheryl and Apollo were a...

As a result of this , I am now preparing for a backup plan that is quite risky and hence all the more important to get a hand of certain figures as much as possible. I would like to find out the monthly/yearly budget for the following items in Malaysia (can just assume KL): (1) Food (2) Mobile phone (3) Car maintenance (4) Car petrol (5) Motor insurance (6) Broadband Anything else I should be thinking off? There's no need to consider paying car loan, house loan, house rent or tax. I would appreciate any valuable input here. Thanks! 19 Nov 09 9.38pm update: Added broadband

I was in Canberra for 14 days and 14 nights. It was only on the 14th night I needed to take antacid (due to particularly spicy curry vegetables and ice cream that night). Otherwise, I neither ingested antacid nor omeprazole. This is despite having a slice of toasted bread with 100% natural peanute butter every night for 12 of those nights, with half glass of full cream milk, about 1-2 hours before sleep. This is in direct contradiction of the specialist's advice. Yet, I felt so much better than I had been in recent months. No sorethroat from acid reflux either. What does this tell me? I could only think of 2 things: either it was due to lack of stress from work (a very likely reason) or due to generally healthier main meals in Canberra (my sis is trying to inculcate healthy eating habits for her sons) or both. This really got me thinking about alternatives to current job and I thought a lot about while waiting to board my plane back home. I may need help from you all to tell ...

Be careful of raining man? Errr into the sea? 40m-long taxi can be found on the right side.

My sis has some plants in her garden but not due to her own doing - they were planted by her in-laws. Apparently my sister (in her own words) is "hopeless" in looking after a garden (Me: Huh? But she planted vegetables!). Hence, they planted hardy plants and only asked her to occassionally water them. The result is pretty good. Perhaps I should get some and see whether it can grow in the tough environment of my condo hehe.

Love in Nature , originally uploaded by williamnyk . There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. - Anonymous (please let me know if you know who said this)

Apart from the bad stuff , there were some good ones although the spoilt zip tips the balance towards bad stuff and especially since some of the good ones turned out to be bad in the end. Oh well. Anyway, some of the good things that happened are: (1) I managed to leave office at about 4.15pm, collected my bags at home, checked in at Changi Airport and have time to eat Subway's Vege Delite (which I bought earlier near my office) and to have a short foot massage using OSIM's U-Squeeze (not as good as I thought but it was good enough). (2) As usual I asked for aisle seat on the Singapore-KL flight at the check-in counter and was pleasantly surprised that they could also get me aisle seat on the KL-Melbourne flight (but turned out to be the seat beside the aisle seat, as blogged previously). (3) The back of the seat on the MAS plane was a little puffed up and so provided better support to my back (but unfortunately still had sore tail-bone). (4) The beef stew with potato...

I was on a 15-hour journey, including transit time, on the route Singapore-KL-Melbourne-Canberra. I was on MAS for the route Singapore-KL-Melbourne and on Qantas on the route Melbourne-Canberra. With 2 transit, a few things could go wrong. They did and they were: (1) Although I asked and was supposedly given the aisle seat on the KL-Melbourne flight, it turned out to be the seat next to the aisle seat. I couldn't get up as often as I like to stretch which I usually do. (2) My tail-bone was sore throughout the KL-Melbourne route and I couldn't get much relief due to (1) above. My sister attributed this to us being small people. Discriminatory seats. Bah. (3) I slept a total of 2 hours during this entire 15-hour journey, mainly due to (2) above. (4) The queue at the Melbourne airport immigration checkpoint was very long. I believed it took at least half an hour just to clear that. (5) Although I indicated on the form I have nothing to declare, I was asked to join the ...

...where we started playing Heroes 5! Hahaha. We both love the game very much and Ban is really good at it. Hence it's hardly surprising that we stopped playing only at 4am and that too after first deciding to stop at 3am ("Oh can we play one more turn so I can get that gold mine?") :P This paragraph is for Heroes 5 fans: remember the experiment I was doing earlier? It was Ban's concern that Avenger's ability may not be useful due to the availability of alternate upgrade. Prior to the alternate upgrade, if, say, you want to target both Vampire and Vampire Lord, you would need to use 2 slots to target them. His concern was that with the alternatve upgrade, which is Vampire Prince in this case, you would need to use 3 slots if, say, you are fairly certain you'll be fighting lots of vampires but not sure which one would turn up. Fortunately, research on the internet and the experiment confirmed that you just need to select 1 to target all 3! This is enabled eve...

Last weekend was the first weekend Ban and I spent together as a couple. As posted previously , I flew with Japan Airline. As usual, I'm pleased with their service and seats. Their price to for SG-KL-SG is as competitive as those budget airlines for the same dates and around the same time. I used the KLIA Express to go to KL Sentral. Fast and cheap. As it was Ban's first time picking anyone up at KL Sentral, it took him a while to figure out where I was. I was a little cranky because, while we were trying to figure out where we both were relative to each other, he asked me to walk to an "end" (which end??) but possibly not knowing I was handcarrying a rather heavy bag and backpacking another (and I was tired from the trip and yoga from lunch time). However, he quickly soothed me and asked me to stay where I was after seeing some of the door signs I told him I saw earlier. Hehe. Thanks honey :) Saturday was designated as study day! Well, that was after we lunched o...

Slightly more than a month ago, I attempted the FAP Final Assessment . And now... Nooooooooo! :(

This is currently my exercise routine: Monday - Pilates 6.30pm - 7.30pm. Sometimes I may instead go for Hotflow Yoga 6.30pm - 7.30pm Tuesday - Hatha Yoga 7.35pm - 8.35pm Wednesday - Restorative Yoga (very relaxing; don't sweat at all) 1pm - 1.50pm. If I went for Hotflow on Monday, then instead of this, I'll go for pilates 12.10pm - 1pm. Thursday - Vinyasa Flow 6.40pm - 8.10pm (toughest of all classes I attend) Friday - Ananda Yoga 1pm - 1.50pm Saturday - Tennis either 9am - 11am or 10am - 12 noon. If there's no tennis, I'll likely go for Hotflow Yoga 11.30am - 12.30pm.

Andrade always said that the future isn't carved in stone - and even if it were, stone can be broken. - Sioned to Rohan in the book Stronghold, Book 1 of the Dragon Star series by Melanie Rawn

This was the scene at the Raffles Place MRT station during the last week of September 2009. In fact, shortly after this was taken, the queue in subsequent days was even longer: it went right up on to the staircase. What were these people queuing for? Perhaps there was freebie given at the ticket office? Or maybe the ticket office was lacking manpower (but for an entire week??)? Well, a bit of background: as early as January this year, it was announced that the stored-value card ("EZ-link card") that was used for the buses and MRT trains would be replaced with a new kind. Grace period was given until end of September to change it (and subsequently it was extended by another week, which is not a surprise to me given this last-minute rush). That is a 9-month period. Evidently this was still not sufficent time for these people to get their cards changed. How long would they need? A year perhaps? 2 years? From my observation of other similar phenomenon, it wouldn't m...

A couple of weeks ago, I experienced stomach upset (gastric juice in overdrive) a few hours after my initial breakfast at home. This continued throughout that day and affected my sleep that night. This is my attempt at guessing the culprit: (1) My first guess of the culprit was the white bread I bought from Malaysia as that was the only thing different. So I bought my usual Gardenia white bread. Nope, it still happened. (2) Then I thought maybe the kaya (the breadspread) has gone bad, despite its expiry date being next year. So I bought another kaya, a different brand too. Nope, didn't work. Gave the loaf of bread to my housemate hehe. (3) Next I changed from white bread to raisin bread (it's not white, although I don't really know what it is). Wheat bread here or Malaysia doesn't work for me, unlike Australia's wheat bread. Weird, isn't it? The raisin bread worked pretty well actually. The gastric juice rarely occurred then. However, my palate couldn...

Not sure why but last weekend I had trouble waking up. When I woke up on time (i.e. around the time I wished to wake up), my eyes were so heavy that I promptly closed them again and fell asleep. My head was a bit heavy (no, I didn't drink). I had strange, rather clear, dreams. The sort that I believed my sister had (not sure whether she is still experiencing it or not) regularly - so much so that her colleagues in her ex-company eagerly await her storytelling of her dreams. The parts I remember was dreaming about me waking up late on a Sunday (ironic, isn't it?). Late for what? Late for taking a coach down to meet Ban in Melaka. Apparently I am in Seremban. Panic set in. I want to call him to let him know that I have missed the bus and to discuss what to do (as the return ticket is scheduled on Sunday evening) but my handphone is almost out of battery. So I decide to use my computer (desktop, instead of laptop which is what I'm using now in reality) to call him on Sky...

After Ban confirmed which weekends in October he will be busy, I then went ahead to look for cheap air fare for night flight to and from KL. It was close to 10 pm then. The left lense of my spectacles was smeared with ointment I used on my left eye. My eye was swollen and a little painful. Probably due to seeing stuff I shouldn't see :P Then I saw an air fare of only SGD114 by Jetstar Asia. Wow! It's awesome. I paid for it and gleefully told my honey and also my housemate about it. The next day, I printed out the e-mail confirmation at office. To my horror, the flight is morning flight! Both ways! The time was stated in 24-hour format but somehow my mind inserted the pm in there i.e. 0720 was interpreted by my mind as 7.20pm! To change the flight to night flight would cause me SGD150! Goodness! In the end, after thinking of a variety of options, I purchased a new ticket from Japan Airlines for SGD144. I tried desperately to give away the Jetstar ticket for free (n...

My first entry in this blog was on 3 Oct 2008 but I actually started blogging in late May 2008 in a shared blog called Queer Qloset. That shared blog is pretty much dead now. Gradually over the months it seems that only a few of us are actively blogging in it. Reason why I started on a shared blog was that I wasn't confident enough to blog and that I was also concerned that it may be just a passing phase. However, later I discovered that I do enjoy blogging. I like just blogging whatever I feel is interestng or merely jotting down my thoughts on certain issues. Not counting those I tested out for a few hours only, the current template is my third template. The first one was one of those in-built templates, where I inserted my own picture as the banner, which is cropped from this photo: Cute, right? I thought it fitted quite well with the theme I was trying to portray. Unfortunately, that template wasn't wide enough to fit medium size Flikr photos, which is the size I...

There's something about a baby that makes you want to protect him, make sure he doesn't cry, have enough to eat, enough to sleept etc. Basically, you just want to take care of him. What do you get in return? Smile, laughter and utter cuteness! Some people just seem to retain such quality even to adulthood. No, they are not vulnerable bunch of people. In fact, most of them are capable of taking care of themselves and don't ask to be taken care of. Yet, others are falling over themselves trying to offer to take care of them. I know a few people like that but I can't figure out why they have such baby-ish qualities. Care to share?

Ban was here from Thursday night till Sunday evening. He was here attending a seminar on Friday and Saturday. In between, we spent time with some friends here, played Citadel and getting to know each other better. He is good at playing Citadel hehe. Beat me 2 out of 3 games and the last game he lost by merely 1 point. I tried a few times to get a few friends to join in but the timing wasn't too good. Oh well, next time. We spent quite a good deal talking about our lives and sharing our thoughts, which is great. So far, so good :) See you soon honey!

Yay! Some good news! I have cut my POSB credit card because of this woman after she became president of AWARE for a few weeks. Since she is now no longer heading the DBS cards department, DBS/POSB credit cards are now under my consideration. Some background reading on the AWARE saga: http://www.theasiamag.com/categories/lives/people-of-asia/singaporeans-rise-to-the-occasion-in-aware-saga http://singaporeenquirer.sg/?p=3473 http://singaporeenquirer.sg/?p=3603

I honestly thought Ban was just pulling my leg but there is such deity...albeit for a parody religion. It's quite amazing. It's a result of someone who strongly protested against a move by Kansas School Board. For more details, read these: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

This is a key date in my life. A very happy occassion. About four months ago, I added and started corresponded with a guy, who turns out to be super nice, caring and considerate (among other lovable qualities). He is Ban and he's now my man :)

Ever woke up and wondered where you are? I had that moment more than a week ago. Except that I did that in a dream :)

HealthFairMap , originally uploaded by williamnyk . Just woke up...involuntarily. My feet felt cold. My throat itches. Slightly thick phlegm in mouth. Gah. Quickly boil water. Warm water is always good in dissolving those phlegm and ease the itchy throat. Ate a slice of bread so that I can...let's see...oh luckily there's one more but it's actually for morning. I'm desperate. So I ate a tablet of cetrizine (for runny nose), 500mg Vitamin C time-release capsule and 10ml of cough syrup (the brown one). I better see doctor tomorrow morning to stock up on medication to bring along on my trip back to Malaysia. Hope this is defeated quickly.

Two accountancy students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second accountant replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The first accountant nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't fit." Hahaha.

I started this about 15 minutes ago. I hope I'll pass.

Few days ago, I posted a tip for sleeping well from a news article. I used to use aircond every night when I sleep. After last night, I now remember why I resolved to switch to fan. No, it wasn't the regular nagging I received from my housemate. It was because of my blocked nasal passage. I never had that problem before until early this year. For some strange reasons, I started having the blockage each time I sleep and it has gotten so bad that the next day, I had headache too. Besides medical treatment, doctor strongly advised me to make do without aircond, which I did and the problem didn't come again until few nights ago and last night. In any case, as I've responded to comments left in a previous entry, I doubt the temperature is the cause of my sleeping problem (mind you, it's not that regular though) because when I was using aircond, this problem did crop up every now and then, whereas using fan, I could sleep soundly on most nights. *Shrug*. Oh well. P...

I'm not into cars but I always remember that Proton cars are not....how shall I put it....safe in a car crash. Years ago, I pressed my palm on a proton saga and shocked to notice that how much less resistance it had against my palm, unlike other cars. Now, maybe things have improved since then but this seems to vindicate the decades old perception: (I am not responsible over the veracity of this video clip. Believe it at your own risk.)

I hope the housemate is reading this.

Awhile ago, I said that the issue of save function not working resolved by itself . Well, it happened again. I wanted to insert a code and so open up a html/javascript gadget and to my dismay it looked like this: It definitely didn't look right and in fact, it looked exactly as it was a few days ago. Noticed how the "Save", "Cancel" and "Back" buttons are on the top right? The latter two were working just fine but the "Save" button was not. I've scoured the internet and did find some people with similar issues but unfortunately with no effective solutions. Use different browser - checked. Clear cache, cookies, temp files etc - checked. Shut down and restart - checked. Hmph! PS: Thanks Ban for "lending" me your laptop to do amend my blog :)

It was actually kind of incidental only. I had problem with the blog. After editing the page element, the save function didn't work. So I thought maybe it was the template's fault and hence I carefully selected one of those in-built ones. I'm pleasant surprised to find 2 blog templates that meet my minimum requirement i.e. able to allow me to insert medium sized Flikr's photos. So I chose this. Unfortunately, it didn't solve the problem. I even try editing directly the blog's html. Although at least there was a message saying it was saved, the edit wasn't actually saved. Bummer. Tried googling about this issue. There are a few people having the same issue but so far there's no effective solution. I also tried using IE8 and Google Chrome (my default browser is Firefox ). Oh I also obtained the latest Java version. None worked. In the end, it just simply resolved itself...after struggling with it for 14 hours! So what do you think of this new template? B...

A man is only as good as his word and his action. - Did anyone say this before? If not, I'm claiming it hehe.

UW II , originally uploaded by williamnyk . This one's for you, Mr Skanky :P Extract of a news article in TODAY papers, Tuesday 23 September 2009: "One quick way to know when the recession will end is to look into the American man's underwear drawer. If men are putting off buying new pairs and sticking to wearing threadbare underpants, the downturn is probably not over. But if there are new pairs in the drawer, that could signal better days ahead, reported The Washington Post ". Ooooh.

I've been thinking hard how to provide 'feedback' about the unease (a gross understatement) my colleagues we feel about our big boss a.k.a. the empress, especially what happened here and here . In fact, I'm not even sure there's anyone higher than her who can intervene as technically she is considered equal to other big bosses. Then a glimmer of hope appears...and please let it eventually brightens the future. Ok, a little background: our department here in Singapore have both internal and external clients. Internal clients are our fellow colleagues in other departments, who need our expertise in certain areas. One area is to provide our opinion on the reasonableness of work performed by their own external clients. This matters because our colleagues are signing off certain forms/certificates that include, among other things, work done by their external clients. Over the years, there were discussions, at times squabbles, about how this should be done but I ca...

On Sunday, Derek, Nick, Lloyd and I made our maiden journey to a fish spa, specifically at Kenko Marina Square. Lloyd and I had vouchers that were just enough to get each of us 30 mins of fish spa. Unlike normal massage, one cannot book in advance and so we just turned up. Fortunately, there was plenty of space. At the entrance, we were asked to wash our legs after spraying some disinfectant on them and then to use their slippers. Our bags were kept in lockers. Inside, there was a rectangle pool in the middle and a drain-like kind of pool against the wall facing outside. We just automatically gravitated towars the middle pool, which later we learned has the smaller fish (but not much smaller actually). The feeling is truly unexpected. We couldn't stop giggling for the first 5 minutes or so. It was very ticklish! In fact, Derek kept wriggling about (so guys, we know how to "handle" Derek next time, ok? ;) ) for a while. Later, after getting used to it, it felt like t...

A friend is considering taking up insurance, which is great as I strongly encouraged him to do so when he's young. It should be used as protection. He wouldn't want all his savings go to, say, hospitalisation, right? He did ask me a few things about insurance e.g. what he should get first, which company etc. Among many things I've advised him not to take up investment-linked policies because of a few reasons: investment risk is transferred from insurer to policyholders; better to separate investment and protection as it's cheaper doing it that way. He seems to understand. Today I met up with him for dinner Him: Oh yah, I decided to get policies from XXX company. Me: What you're getting? Him: The basic one and the hospitalisation plan. Me: What basic one? Him: The whole life one lah. Me: But XXX only have investment-linked plan leh for that. Him: Yah, that's the one. Me: But didn't I tell you about how bad investment-linked plan is? Him: Yah I k...

On Saturday, before watching Up (an animated movie), my friends and I were having dinner at Plaza Singapura's Kopitiam foodcourt. One of the main topics we discussed was insurance. A friend commented that it is such a morbid topic and that insurance agent always talks about death and living. Well, that's the nature of insurance. To protect oneself from unfortunate events (e.g. on dying prematurely or living beyond expectation) that one cannot guarantee will not happen. We watched Up at Cathay after dinner. It is much better than expected, even though I went in with much expectation in the first place due to good review all around. It's basically about a man who shares his adventurous wife's dream to live in Paradise Fall in South America. They set about saving money to achieve their dream but alas, they have to use their savings to pay for a few things, of which among them are hospitalisation bill and cost of repairing their house after a tree collapse on it due to wi...

In My Hand , originally uploaded by williamnyk . It is precisely because life is not fair that we shouldn't make it any more unfair. - Me

I've been having this persistent sorethroat since last week of May. Though it's not painful when I swallow, it is still sore and dry. Problem with me is that this could be caused by your typical bacteria acid reflux post-nasal drip I have been given medicine to treat all 3 but it's still there. Hence, I was referred to a ENT specialist. The GP suspects it's caused by post-nasal drip and said all the specialist can do is to confirm it i.e. there is nothing else to do but to live with it. My eyes nearly bulged out. If that's true, I'll seek a second opinion, especially from the doctor near where I live, who is very competent but unfortunately his clinic is not in the panel clinic list. Anyway, I saw the specialist last week and he did a scope through the nose. Confirmed there's nothing there causing post-nasal drip. Confirmed throat reddish: So conclusion: acid reflux. He suspects it's due to my light supper but I pointed out that it consists on...

For about 8 years or so, I have been investing in unit trust funds. Made some mistakes along the way but due to my prudent nature, they were not fatal but, instead, provided valuable lessons to me. During the last few days of July, I made my first foray into investment in shares. At this point, I'm not looking to trade shares but I'm buying shares as long term investment (naturally with regular review to ascertain my view of the companies have not changed). I'll be splitting my future investment between unit trust funds and shares. As a start, I search for shares that provide consistently good dividends, especially from companies that are dominant in their respective industry. I was fortunate that 2 ex-colleagues pointed me to Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) as they fit into my search criteria. As a result, I now own shares in 8 REITs, Comfort Delgro and SBS Transit. Please help by taking SBS buses, Comfort/Citycab taxis, shop at Plaza Singapura, Bugis Junction, T...

I doubt anyone knows or remembers that I have a diary. No, not this blog but an actual traditional diary. I have stopped actively write in it ever since I started work. There were a few huge gaps, with the longest one being 3.5 years! I started writing in it in November 1991 and was quite active until early 2000 when I started working. Since then, there have been sporadic entries, with the latest one written down on Sunday a few days ago. I took the opportunity to randomly read some past entries. Wow, it made me realise I have forgotten many things. So many happy incidents, so many sad incidents, all blown away from my mind. It's good I wrote these down as there are important markers in my life. So nearly 18 years on, things have changed dramatically. In fact, I can't even point to one thing that hasn't changed. Scary. Yet changes can be for the better. Let's hope there are more of these in future. I should make an effort to write in the diary more often. Precio...

This is just too cute!

(1) Hunger/Gastric (2) Cough (3) Mosquito (4) Dinner past 10pm (5) Wearing only underwear (6) Temperature (hot if use blanket, cold if don't use) (7) Tea in the evening (8) Vivid dreams

Last week, it was "Oh, let's call JJ busybody no matter how reasonable his questions are." This week it is "Let's confirm doing something for JJ and reconfirm much closer to the date but then at the last minute say cannot." Help! I want to get out of this curse!

Ban was down here for the weekend. His brother advised him that trading account in Singapore, for the purpose of trading shares listed in overseas stock exchanges, is better than that in Malaysia for reasons that isn't entirely clear to me...nor to Ban but hey, his brother knows this stuff. Saturday He arrived here on a bright early Saturday morning at about 7.20am. It's the usual time I wake up for work hehe but well, it was ok since I had planned to wake up for tennis even earlier than that. I didn't go for tennis since I decided to get Ban at the airport. Not exactly a good idea to have a bunny hopping too long at the airport ;-) We had breakfast at Parkway Parade and then headed to POEMS to open account. Unfortunately, they needed quite a big sum for deposit and wouldn't accept Ban's suggestion of completing the application and then send the cheque later because it has to be done in person. Bummer. Had lunch at Aston but this time at the branch at East ...

I used to have a rose quartz pendant. Long story short: I lost it. Wasn't really keen to get another one until recently when I was at Parkway Parade. I've been to the shop Times of Feng Shui before and so I decided to go in and enquire. Unfortunately, all the pendants didn't look appealing. Moreover, after having tried having 2 pendants in a chain, I don't think I want that any more. The lady was resourceful enough to recommend a few carry-on rose quartz instead. So in the end I bought this, with a pouch too: There's a note attached to it that's entitled "Romancing Mystic Endless Knot". Here's what it says: The 'Mystic Endless Knot' immortalized in Rose Quartz crystal makes powerful talismans & said to bring all kind of good fortune & networking luck to the owner. Never ending with no beginning it is symbolic of one's life aspirations for perfection, everlasting love, endless wealth, smooth partnership and a union of...

Recently, I visited my regular doctor in the morning to get more supply of omeprazole. I had planned to go in office after that. While in the bus, I realised that my blocked nose was still there from the day before and so I thought I might as well seek his consultation. Me: I have blocked nose Doc: Since when? Me: Since yesterday. Doc: Anything else? Me: Nothing else. Doc: Fever? Sore throat? Me: No fever but got slight sore throat He checked eyes, listened to chest etc and while taking my temperature... Doc: You can work today? Me: *Nodded yes* Doc: You sure? Me: *Nodded a bit more vigorously* Doc: You better rest lah. Me: *Blinked and then shrugged* Doc: Better rest at home and not spread around. Me: *Nodded ok* Doc: Anyway, your office will probably kick you out. Me: *Silently laughed inside* First time in my life a doctor insisted I take MC. Can't blame him in current environment of pandamic H1N1. In fact, there was news about how someone was sent off b...

Been trying to sleep since about 10.20pm. Highly likely cannot work tomorrow. The question is: should I see doctor and attempt to get MC or just take annual leave? The answer is not as easy as it seems as I am keen to keep the number of sick leaves down to the minimum. Gah.

Guess how much is this? Here are some information: (1) It's served in a restaurant. (2) You can mix and match the 2 side dishes. Here, the side dishes are french fries and garden vegetables. (3) It tastes really good. (4) There's perpetually a queue, and long one especially during regular meal times. I am confident that it could easily sell for more than S$10 here in Singapore but actually it costs a mere S$6.50 and that's net: there's no additional charge for GST or service charge. It is no wonder there's queue at Aston. The only issue I have is the time it takes for the food to arrive. It's slow but it noticeably improves over time. Oh and another thing is that you cannot reserve seats in advance but guess that is not a problem with the restaurant. So far, I have eaten its branches at Cathay, East Coast Road and at SingPost. The best is still at Cathay. I've had grilled fish with herbs, chargrill chicken and fried chicken. All great. I def...

Thank You For Coming , originally uploaded by williamnyk . Also thanks for the photo and the apt title of the photo haha :-) As mentioned before , William was here for 5 days. Besides "exercising" with his Derek, he has been ironing and doing laundry (not mine, though sweet of him to offer) at home hehe. Ok, ok, that's not all that he did obviously. Since he'll probably blog about it (conventionally weeks later hehe), here's just a summary of what I know: Monday Have already blogged a bit about it. Tuesday Lunched with Derek's friends. I accompanied him to Orchard Road to attempt to buy a pair of shoes for Cheryl. Took a few photos of ION. Went home for a while before going out again for KTV (yay!) with Derek and his friend. Had plenty of fun singing :-) Wednesday Derek and I were working and so William was left to his own device. If I'm not mistaken, he ironed Derek's clothings. While a bunch of us were watching the play Own Time Own Ta...

It started after it finally rained decently here in Singapore, which was on Sunday evening. That night, I was woken up because persistent mosquito bites. I had to get up and spray fragant environmental-friendly insecticide and had some midnight snack (because of slight gastric) while waiting for the insecticide to diffuse. Monday night it sort of happened again, which is why I'm awake now at 2.30am. There are mosquito bites but seems to be localised at 2 spots only no matter how long I was tossing and turning in bed. Had to get up to drink some milk and eat some bread because of slight gastric. Highly likely to be really tired in office tomorrow. Haiz. On a brighter note, had an excellent gathering at my place last night. William is down here for 5 days. Lloyd cooked curry chicken with unintentionally mashed potatoes (hehe), tomato based lightly fried fish with capsicums and stir-fry green leafy vegetables with prawns. They are delicious! Tasted his cooking before and I was c...

Big boss chatted with me when handing me letter on salary increment and bonus. She outlined where she's planning to steer the Singapore operation to. Agreed with some stuff she said but disagreed on some key points. In fact, quite shocked when she reaffirmed the decision to harmonise the study leaves across regions. When I raised the concern the effect this has on attracting and retaining staff in Singapore (since it is severely below industry practice here), she said that the competition is not within Singapore but with China (or did she say "world"?) and that people will join the company because of how good the company is (rather than the study leaves). This is laughable. She might as well say that salary doesn't matter then. The last straw is that my nice boss is retiring at the end of the year. Hence, I am looking elsewhere and contemplating working freelance. Haven't heard of anyone working freelance in my profession and so have to do my sums and come up...

If I like my job, then it wouldn't be a job. It would be a hobby. - Choo Veh Den

Some bewildering incidents have happened since the official take over by the new big boss last year: (1) Fact: Before she took over, we were already shorthanded by one. Within the next 8 to 10 months, 3 more left. Despite pleas from my boss for replacements (not new hires), there had been none except for the new manager. Thoughts: Is she trying to demoralise us? Close down Singapore office? Shift all business to China? (2) Fact: A new manager was hired early this year and we were told of his exact date of joining. That was great news as we thought he could then help us with some of the excess work we had since the departure of 4 colleagues. However, he was instructed by big boss to go to China instead for a couple of months and the interesting bit is that we were not told! We accidentally found out from HR. Thoughts: That was so rude! The irony is that he ended up doing alot of our excess work, which could have been done more efficiently if he was here in Singapore (3) Fac...

During Mother's Day and Father's Day, appreciation is shown for the patience and care our parents have shown (if they had shown) us in bringing us up throughout the decades. I would like to highlight a large group of people who have never been appreciated before on such days: those who have childish parents (and I don't mean parents with regressive minds). Oh yes, I know that some people may think it's ridiculous to compare decades of bringing us up from babies till young adults with a few years of taking care of childish parents. Well, think about this way: our parents have the advantage as starting of as parents since we were babies. We feared them. We respected them. We looked up to them. We admired them. Therefore it is much harder for us to have our roles reversed i.e. we have to be parents to them when they are childish. We want to scold and punish them and yet have to do it without raised voice, with careful words and, impossible it may sound, with respect. I p...

This is an excellent movie! Go watch it. Sorry, I'm bad at general description. I suspect Derek might write a review about it. Update on Sunday, 21 June 2009: Hehe well, I'll say a few words about this movie. I was so tired last night especially since I played about 2 hours of tennis in the morning. It was about a guy, Peter, who was about to get married but realised that he doesn't have any male best friend to be his best man. Thus he went on a quest to find one. It's hilarious (but not slapstick) especially the inevitable awkward moments (both gay and gayish ones) as he doesn't really know how to make male friends. I've never had best friends, at least not according to my intepretation of "best friend". I had a few close friends. In fact, there was a group fo 6 of us back in lower secondary school. In upper secondary, I had a few close friends and a few very good friends but not all of them hung out together. I remember writing a letter of tha...

He was always there but I barely noticed his presence. It was usually a quick, that was all. However, something changed last week. For some strange reasons, I had this strong urge to see him. I did meet and spend some time with him but I was concerned as he is not one I would wish to engage with for too long. Hence I visited a doctor and was prescribed some medication that hopefully would eliminate the urge. It definitely lessened the intensity but, unfortunately, not its frequency. I still meet him regularly for the past week. At home, at work and sometimes even at the gym. After more than a week of exhaustion and struggle, I visited the doctor again and once again I'm popping pills. Hopefully this urge will go away this time. Please let this diarrhoea go away.

To the lady driver of this BMW: you could have killed a bunch of office workers around 12 noon at Telok Ayer Street, after the junction with Cross Street, by not stopping at the traffic light when it was clearly red on your side and it was clearly green on the pedestrian side.

My poor cousin. His started his first job here in Singapore as a hair stylist less than a year ago. Still unsure about how things work in Singapore. He was recently fined S$500. For what? For taking a sip of drink in the MRT train. It was really unlucky because firstly, MRT officer is seldom seen in the train. Secondly, even if the officer is in the train, what are the odds he bumped into my cousin just when he was sipping? Thirdly, usually people are warned first rather than fined right away. S$500 is no small amount especially for a young man on his first job.

IMG_1502 , originally uploaded by williamnyk . I wanted to sleep forever this weekend.

What fellow blogger, Alex, experienced is one of the reasons why I've decided not to come out to my parents. It would be a very convenient excuse for them to blame on homosexuality for all my perceived undesirable attitude and behaviour in the past and in the future. There would be pressure for me to maintain a standard that is likely to be higher than your average heterosexual person, which would be grossly unfair. Even worse is my fear that they may take this further by excusing their bad behaviour and ignore any admonishment from me and waved it as some gay distorted views. It would be so easy for them to continue to be irresponsible since whatever I say then would fall on deaf ears and maybe even ignore my siblings' advice by assuming that they have been influenced by their gay brother. If this happens, it would be dangerous. It has very real consequences on me and my siblings, at least on the financial side. No, it's not that we dep...

The next day, the Fenix Hotel occupants had breakfast at a nearby Taiwanese restaurant. I had some sort of noodle. It was so-so only to me, and evidently so from the fact that I don't even remember the name of the noodle hehe. Went shopping at Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall (hope I got the name correct). Bought some underwear and a short sleeved shirt (thanks guys!). Caught up with William while Derek and Cheryl had their foot tenderised at at Thai massage shop in the mall. Had chicken rice balls, with chicken of course, for lunch. The rice balls were great but the chicken was kinda normal and in fact more moist than normal. Had delicious chendol after that. We had to queue at both shops. After that, it was tearful parting (hahaha well it could very well had been one) and then back to Singapore. What are the key practical lessons I learn in this trip? (1) Never go during school holidays, especially when it is the case for both countries (2) Satay celup is a must! (3) Th...

After satay, we went to do some touristy stuff. The place that is new to me is the so called Flower Garden but seriously lacking of flowers: The garden in front of the Cultural Museum is much better than this, if it is still as good as it was years ago. Nearby is the open air Transportation Museum: Oh, Melaka has significantly expanded the number of museums. I believed it has around 20 museums at the moment. *Boggled* We next visited A Farmosa, ruins of St Paul's church and another museum in the Stadhuys, which at the time has a small gallery on Admiral Cheng Ho: After that, our group was split. I've followed Lloyd, Nick and Lloyd's two friends to eat satay celup at Capitol Satay, while the rest, as I found out later, went outside town and had Nyonya food. The queue for the satay celup was long and the place was warm with steaming satay gravy but boy it was worth it! The system requires us to proceed to obtain the satay and the cost is counted on a p...