Eric's space

Cousin's wedding, and this is the first time i am dressed that formal. It's not something that i am used to though.  Wedding was held at Shangri-La Hotel. Classy, Elegant, Stylish... with a shiny couple, it's actually a very high class kinda thing. Even the minister of law was there to grace the occasion. What can I say? My cousin is a successful guy, 30 yrs of age and he's already has everything in life. 5Cs and a wife, then kids. and yah, as i mentioned before he's only 30. Well, this serves as a motivation for me to work even harder, i guess. If an intelligent guy like him can make it at the age of 30, I am giving myself till the age of 35 bah, to achieve everything that is needed to achieve. Jiayou bah!!!!

 

Sa-shi-bu-dee...mee-na-san... tadaima.... I'm back! It's been a long time since my last entry, have been busy up having my exams and stuffs like that. Anyway, this holiday is enriching. have been undergoing the school's Design and Innovation Project. The project that I am assigned to is basically something to do with telescopy. Nothing much to say regarding this project, except the technical parts which i also do not feel like writing. However, it's the group dynamic that has become the issue.

 

The majority of the group makes up of Chinese nationals, a couple of indian nationals and a couple of locals. When i say a couple, I mean a couple, i.e. 2. The longer you are in the group, the harder it is to be neutral. In the sense that the PRCs will always have their own clique, and communicate in their own mother tongue, even sometimes during discussion. This is alright for us locals, being chinese and all, but to our indian national friends, i feel that it's a bit unfair towards them. Probably it's a matter of comfort and also the mentality of majority rules i guess. In my opinion, I feel that it's important to realise the significance of having a mutual respect towards each other. Especially when people are interacting and cooperating to complete a task. This mutual respect includes also the language that we use. Sometimes we are so comfortable in our own comfort zone that we neglect that situation and people around us. It's an issue beyond race and nationality. I think that perhaps the PRCs students wasn't born and bred in a multi-racial culture, hence there are stuffs that they may missed out. Even us locals, sometimes when we are in front of our malay friends or indian friends together with our chinese friends, we may also forgot and just communicate in our mother tongue. Thus I feel that it is necessary to practice this kind of mannerism to show respect to friends of different ethnic backgrounds.

 

Another thing is that because they are majority, a lot of times we are unable to immerse ourselves into their clique that easily. Hence, sometimes my friend will have doubts about them, whether our efforts will be overlooked etc. There are times when he will ask why are we working so hard when it seems that they do not recognise the hardwork that we have poured into our projects. Personally, i feel that it's not a matter if people recognise our hardwork or not. We put in efforts for our project is not because we have to but because we want to. It's our responsiblity. As long as we are able to account to ourselves by the end of the day that we have really done our part conscientiously, it doesn't matter if people acknowledge or recognise what we have done or not because i believe that as long as we do our part, people will know, WE ourselves will know. For me, that's good enough.

 

Disclaimer: This entry stresses the importance of respect between different cultures and not to be viewed as prejudice against any particular nationality or whatsoever.

This evening was fun, i get to use the car again thanks to my great parents for their generosity. I went for my guitar lesson in the noon, then waited for them to arrive, not surprisingly everybody was late. Except for Raymond, who is considered to be a special guest for the evening. He hardly joins us for our group's activities, but it is pretty refreshing for him to be there and have dinner with us. After dinner, we decided to go for a game of bowling, Miss Ong, Miss Neo went ahead in Fir's car while I chauffered Sab and Miss Xu. Along their journey, they were chatting non-stop and it's funny to see that girls have the ability to talk so much without feeling thirsty. HAhha...  Mr Tan could not make it though, don't know what happened, think he had a tiff with his gf.

 

We went to the Civil Service Club in Farrer Park only to find that their bowling alley was undergoing a league tournament. Hence, we decided to change our destination back to Hougang. Even though there seem to be lots of people there, we still managed to get a lane within minutes. The first lane that we were assigned has too much technical errors, fortunately, the manager was kind enough to transfer us to another lane. Almost all of us bowled pretty well, except for Sab, but it is because she is still pretty new to the game. I think if we have more of this sort of event, she will definitely get better. Miss Ong was in her top form today, she got strikes and spares effortlessly, and got the top score of the day. Overall, it was highly entertaining and fun and everyone had a great time.

 

After bowling, we went to buy bubble tea at heartland mall and durians as well. It's the first time for me to eat durians with the gang, haha, the durian was so-so, but the fact that all of us were sitting down, eating, drinking and chatting, the feeling was phenomenal. We chatted various stuffs, well basically the gals were mainly doing the chatting, i was enjoying the conversation by looking at the interaction that all of us had. Great! It's getting late and we decided it's time to go, I sent Sab and Miss Xu back, it was drizzling at bedok, and I was in a bit of a rush as i still need to go and pick up my parents. All in all, everybody manage to get back safe and sound.

 

Mr Tan's gf sms me an hour ago, she said that she had been waiting downstairs at his block for almost 2 hrs. I advised her to go home first as it is not safe for a gal to be alone and out after midnight. That guy, don't know what he is thinking. His phone is off cos his phone's battary went dead. He never try to make contact with anybody, his gf was worried. Up till now, he is still unreachable. Don't know where he is? Hopefully he's with some of his army friends drinking. Better make sure to call him tomorrow and check on him again.

 

Till next time....

 

This is truly a depressing week. Depressing news, depressing outcomes, utterly depressing. Just this week I receive an unfortunate news that one of my good friend has lost his mom due to domestic accident. It must be tough to lose someone that you shared such unique and strong bond with. Nothing could ever beat the pain of losing one's beloved one. Went to attend the wake with a couple of friends, seeing him trying to put on a brave front makes everybody feel awkward. We could never understand the turmoil that he is going through and seeing that he still hanging tough makes us respect him even more. His mom will be very proud of him, at least as his friend, i totally respect him from the bottom of my heart.

 

Seeing how he copes with his adversity in life makes me see that actually the problems that we encountered daily are actually nothing. Before i wrote this entry i was still feeling depress over petty things like quiz results and friendship. But as I write about this admirable friend of mine, i began to reflect while writing that the depress that i feel is NOT even worth mentioning. I feel totally ashamed of myself for not being able to see things in this perspective. I guess writing do help one able to reflect upon himself. Even more so for a introvert like me, it certainly helps me a lot. I envy those that have a really good friend that they can talk to, seriously. It just doesn't work for me though, mainly because i don't like to trouble other people with my problems. Except for her, don't know why, everytime i talk to her i tend to expose the true emotions that i feel. That's why i have avoided talking to her as much as possible, even though i see her online everyday, i try real hard to prevent myself from striking a conversation. Don't want to be a nuisance to her, she is an angel and deserves better than to hear my problems.

 

Anyway, I am still hoping to find a good friend, the friends that i have now are great and many i have known them for years, but i always feel that something is missing. Maybe it's just me, maybe i am expecting too much in life and i am overly self-centered. How can I make myself less egotistical? How can I prevent small setbacks from affecting my emotions? I guess that's what I need to find out. Hopefully, I can be as strong and mature as my friend. 22yrs already...It's time to grow up.

What a week, nothing interesting happen. But then again what's new. A kaleidoscope of emotions are felt this week. Firstly, it's happiness. I was walking home from the mrt station one day after school when i came across this malay stall selling this old snack, think it's salted fish stick. A sense of nostalgia swept over me as i remembered when i was in the army, once in a while when we 'book out' we will be able to come to this sort of store to buy different kind of delectable snacks. So i bought a few of this snacks and enjoyed them on my walk home. As i was walking, happily enjoying my snack and listening to my mp3, something hit me and that is the feeling of contentment and bliss. It reminds me of the pure happiness that kids used to have after school, munching on their favorite snack with satisfaction while walking home. This is something that i have never done when i was young. The feeling is a mixture of happiness, blissful, contentment and satisfaction all in one. Maybe some may feel that i am exaggerating but that is how i really felt.

 

Then there was sadness, i took a quiz couple of days back, i made 3 mistakes. Damn! the other guys all made only 1. Sigh... Guess i got to work doubly hard for that module. I am still frustrated over it. 3 mistakes = 6% gone. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!! Sigh...well, what done cannot be undone, gotta work extra hard now to get the grade that i wanted. Then there is still tutorials and revision. They have indeed become my drugs, all i can think of is trying to complete them asap and do my revision whenever i am at home. Trying to stay in focus here, less than 2 months to the E-day.... Hopefully, i will be able to get all my concepts cleared by the end of 3rd week of march. Then it's past year paper practice time all the way till the dreadful date of April 17th.

 

Well, that's life i guess, a mouthful of sweetness, a tinge of bitterness, a little spicy along the way, but if you are able to overcome all these tastes, and grow to be at peace with them. You will be able to enjoy more delicacies and become a more contented person. Ciao...