Saturday, November 29, 2008

Life

I just read in the news this morning that 1 Singaporean was killed in the Mumbai terrorist killings. It really saddened me, although that girl wasn't related to me. She was a lawyer, just married for 1 year, and seemed to have a bright future ahead of her. She was in India for work, and then this happens... You never know when you'll be dead, by the work of terrorists or people who are too stressed.
To me, it's a lesson... Life is too short to have regrets, to complain... I will live life to the fullest, so that even if I die suddenly, I have no regrets. I saw a quote once - "Regret for the things that you did can be healed by time, but regret for things that you didn't do is unforgivable." The moment I saw this quote, I made it my life's mission. I think that's what life is about - to go forward and look back only to smile at the memories, not to regret.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Another surprise

I was at Jurong Point today to have dinner and buy some stationery. The surprise is, I bumped into a friend whom I haven't seen for 6 years. Well actually I first bumped into a friend whom I've seen in more recent years in the toilet, and she told me that the other friend was in the toilet as well. So we had a short chat and update, and it turns out that the friend whom I've met in recent years is going to be a teacher, but she hasn't gone for training yet. She is actually teaching now, but this is also part of training. So, I will see her around in NIE next year. NIE is really a good place for meeting friends, it's funny how many of them want to be teachers... Although I respect my teachers and I think it's a very important job, it's one of the last jobs on my list if I ever go jobless...

Sunday, November 16, 2008

A surprise

I got a surprise from my father this evening.. He bought a 10 megapixel Fujifilm camera and let me use it! So he took my Casio one... It is an upgrade in terms of resolution, but this new one doesn't have a manual mode!! I don't know if it'll be better or worse than my Casio (this new one cost about half of Casio, but i bought that a few years ago). So the only way to find out is to use it!
I guess my SLR will have to wait... haha I have no cash now anyway.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Southern Thailand

I'm back from a very very refreshing trip in Thailand, the land of smiles!!

It was really great to see Dia again, and to meet new friends and learn a new language!! Dia is still the same, with her old habits... I won't mention them here. It was quite a learnin experience to meet Steve Elliot, her supervisor, who is one of the funniest person I've ever met. He is always very sarcarstic about the way things are going with his project in the South, so many obstacles he met with and how different government agencies are inhibiting his work there. Now I know I'm lucky to have my project going rather smoothly compared to Dia's. The organisation there is not very neat, like in Singapore there is only 1 government body issuing permits to do research, whereas over there there're a few, and they keep telling Steve to go in circles among these places.

It's frustrating, but I told Dia if they don't allow her to do her work just do it anyway, I don't believe they'll send people there to watch the plots 24 hours a day. I believe science cannot be impeded by stupid systems imposed by humans.

Ok anyway, I was shown around Krabi and the field site there, met a few good people who have been very supportive of Dia's work. I tried my best to be very polite with my limited Thai, perhaps I should visit them again. As for Dia's university Walailak, it's the biggest in South-east Asia, I think if I remember correctly it's more than 1000 ha. There's many cows grazing on grass all day long, and dogs and cats too, although they usually wait for people to feed them. It's a nice campus, I love the big open environment there. Transport is usually by motorbike, or by Dia's cute little 4-wheel drive.

Ok I shall end here for now, I'll write more about the trip when I feel like it. :)

Steve and I in the "e-tan", which Steve calls the 'limousine'. The roads to the plot were the worst I've ever experienced, even worse than PITC, but according to Steve they are more worse in Indonesia...