the wacky wombat weblog

At the block where I live, there are about 5 cats living on the ground floor, each occupying its own little corner. They each have a their own quirks and temperament, and that’s why I love them!

We found Mr Pogo Stick when he was a wee little one, just a few months old, and possibly abandoned coz he just showed up out of nowhere. He’s completely black, with shinning round yellow eyes. He’s just about the friendliest cat around. He tries to befriend everyone — even a giant huskie doesn’t faze him (or maybe he just doesn’t know what a dog is).

We call him Mr Pogo Stick because he was always bouncing around when he saw us. He still walks with a bounce even though he’s all grown up after a year now. We always thought he doesn’t really have much “cat skills” as he didn’t seem very good at pouncing or chasing anything. That’s until 2 nights ago, when I saw him darting away quickly with a bird in his mouth!!! X_X Was horrified but at the same time I thought — he’s finally a Real Cat now! Haha.

Mr Pogo Stick’s buddy is Marble. I thought Marble was a she, what with the pretty coat of fur and manja nature, but turns out, Marble’s a dude!! He likes to headbump his favourite humans, and leave some of his white fur all over my dark-coloured pants. He doesn’t seem to eat a lot so I sometimes wonder how he grew so big and sturdy.

We’re quite glad these two ended up being buddies. When Pogo Stick was real small, he got bullied a lot by other cats nearby. But I guess after ingesting sufficient amount of kibbles, he’s grown up, complete with a slight tummy. Guess that’s ROI for all the kibbles I bought, LOL!

Besides Mr Pogo Stick and Marble, there’s also Garfield, an orange-coloured cat who’s an old-timer who isn’t always very amused at what Pogo Stick and Marble do for play time. But he humours them and sits with them sometimes. Marble’s mom is also a pretty lady, all white with an all black tail, always sitting pretty, being proper and all.

There are a few more at the other blocks, but these are the few that I always look out for. They’ve all been neutered, and there’s an auntie who regularly comes by everyday to provide them all with a wet meal and fresh water. By the time I get back from work, it’s supper time for them!

The 2008 F1 season has just concluded with Lewis Hamilton winning the championship title by the slimmest margin and what was possibly the most gripping 30 seconds of a race at the final leg at Brazil.

But the best part of this year’s GP season has got to be the first night race in Singapore. Thanks to a friend, we got free walkabout tickets for all 3 days, and I gotta say, the whole thing was pretty impressive!

Electrifying atmosphere

On Friday Practice, we went with the intention to recce the place to find out which are the best spots to catch the action. Being poor and without seats, we had to consider vantage points and look for slow corners so that we could at least have more than one second look at passing cars.

The first thing that struck me was the atmosphere. Thanks to me not getting off work at 6, the practice session was already under way when we got there. But the moment we got out of City Hall MRT, we could already hear the cars V8 engine roaring past. I knew the race is loud but having never attended one before, the first time you hear the cars roar past, it was quite an unexpected volume. Of course, many years back it would have sounded even better (less screechy) when the cars were running on V10 engines.

The whole place was lit up so much so it was practically daylight, and for that reason I could actually capture pictures outdoors at night with my tiny digital camera. And the sheer size of the circuit – needless to say, my feet ached from just walking around.

We also rented the Kangaroo TV – a portable TV that streams the live cast, scores, statistics and also team radio. That’s how we kept up with the race without being seated in front of the big screen. In fact, some others were freeloading off us from behind us but hey, it’s ok, because they were sorely disappointed when Massa drove down the pit lane with the fuel rig still stuck in his car. harharhar. nyehnyehnyeh.

The crowd was also huge, a full turnout from the sold out tickets I’d say. And surprisingly, it wasn’t too hard to get in or out of the venue despite the large crowd, which is commendable.

A tourism winner

But it’s really more than just selling all that tickets. The idea to bring F1 to Singapore is a very smart move by the government. It’s not really just about bringing in an expensive sport. The whole event is really another way to sell/promote the country.

Unlike normal circuits, street circuits, like Monaco and now Singapore, have a different feel. Situated in the very heart of cities, street circuits have a very celebratory and almost carnival-like feel. Roads are diverted so that a race could take place, and the whole city is geared up for it. And more than anything else, it always looks good.

It’s very smart that the Marina Bay circuit passes by some of the nicest landmarks and city views on the island. Heck, the entire race was practically a Singapore Tourism ad! It looked real good on TV, but on location, it’s even better. Everything’s up close, and there’s constant pulsing activity everywhere: Street performers before the races, food vendors hawking local fare, people at Suntec or Marina Square trying to catch a glimpse into the circuit, and as the race got under way, fans and crowds packed the place full. For some other normal race circuits, e.g. Sepang, you’re better off watching at home on the TV because on location, there’s nothing to see. But on a street circuit, it’s entirely different. Which is why we’re paying for seats next year (hopefully). And that is exactly what the organisers are hoping people will be thinking next year and returning for more.

Hopes for the F1 year ahead

Of course, we all heard that hotels, especially high end ones, lost out, possibly out of confidence that they would be overbooked so they hiked their price, and NOBODY wanted to pay for that. And I noticed that despite the crowds, many locals were not actually fans who follow the race but merely went to check it out for the experience. Many did not really understand the race, and the sporting feel just wasn’t really there yet. Which is why I think Mediacorp has to get the rights to telecast F1 races next year instead of featuring only the one Singapore one.

The whole island is mad about football, yet there isn’t any truly great football teams here. People just watch the English kick the ball on the pitch all year round and they are passionate about it. Now F1 is here, but nobody knows anything about the motorsport! So definitely the awareness is lacking, but it’s something that could have the potential to become a national ‘obsession’ if only people can get to watch it on free-to-air TV! Can also learn a thing or two from this little fan here:

So hey, Ch5 or something, please pick up the programme and air it. The broadcast will change hands next year from ITV to BBC, but at least it’ll be better than listening to the tormentingly stupid commentary on StarSports every race (and I still have to pay for it!!) That guy commentates every year and still gets the facts wrong. wtf.

And of course, my not-so-secret wishes for next year’s F1 season are:

• FIA to stop being the running dog of Ferrari and jumping on every little thing the McLaren team does and siding with Ferrari all the freaking time.
• Kimi to kick Massa’s ass and show him who’s the real pro.
• Renault to improve their car so that Alonso can have a proper comeback, kick Massa to the back and we can watch the big players race
• More exciting performances from Lewis
• Kovy to do better next year in McLaren
• For us to save enough money to splash on seated grandstand tickets for the SG race. :p

Take a look at the sights around the SG F1 circuit: go to Gallery, and click on the album Singapore F1 Grand Prix 2008. There’re not many pictures of the cars since they’re all a blur, but there’re some interesting sights, and of course, hot babes.

If this picture doesn’t make you feel like wanting to click and view the album, then I don’t know what will. LOL!

I’ve lived on this wee bit island for close to 7 years now. I’ve not always loved it, especially in the beginning. But if there’s one thing I like about Singapore, it’s how ‘walkable’ it is.

It’s pedestrian friendly. Like the city streets of Tokyo and NYC, except without the pesky cyclists (Tokyo) and filthy sidewalks (NYC). It’s safe to walk around on your own, train stations are near everything, so you can just basically take the train somewhere and spend the entire afternoon walking around doing nothing — which is something that I can’t do when I’m back in KL unless I’m hoping to get mugged or leered at by weird sleazy people and pollute my lungs with exhaust fumes. yuck.

So yes, despite the stiffling weather, random walks around the city is something I enjoy doing on some weekends. Once in a while, I’ll bring my lil’ camera around and take random photos of things. Kinda like a tourist. Except I don’t do those stand-in-front-of-merlion-and-do-the-peace-sign shit. That’s for real tourists.

My favourite building is the Gateway, near Bugis. It’s just awesomely sharp. It’s like, you can cut yourself by just looking at it.

Sometimes the best views are just outside my window. Being on the 16th floor has its perks (besides being mosquito-free).

I think it’s the practice for national day or something.

For more snapshots of my random walks, just go to Photo Gallery, and look for the album “Look Up”.  Click and view!

I’m neither religious nor an atheist, but Christmas is always fun.

It’s a public holiday (auyongtc: not for me, Jesus is not that popular here ), and everything’s sparkly everywhere. That’s what I like most about Christmas. Not Santa Claus, Jesus in the manger, or turkey, but the trees and the lights. I guess I’m like a magpie that cannot resist anything that’s tinsly and shinny, especially the baubles.

Everything is prettier, and the atmosphere’s a little lighter than normal. Maybe because everyone’s looking forward to the drinking and partying, or maybe the end of the year is in sight, but it always feels a little more carefree.

Well, for whatever reason you celebrate this festive season, here’s a little wish from us:

And lets hope it’s going to be a better year ahead.

postscript: yay, will be in Tokyo on New Year’s day. But will definitely avoid the crowd going to the shrines. I prefer my shrines quiet and serene, not packed like a shopping mall.

It’s been an eventful 14 days. Let’s have a rundown on what went on…

1. FYP short film selected in an Australian film festival. Supervisor tells us to try and attend if we can (with the school’s money!)
2. Last minute National Day Sale shopping spree – bought some lovely sheets and towels from Aussino for Mei and her travels
3. Had an interview marathon, made some decisions, and got myself a job (I’m starting next Monday)
4. Bought a 4-piece pots and pan set from IKEA for only $69.90! Plus a 3-piece utensil set for 90cents!! I’ve not bought anything under a dollar for a long time.
5. Cooked my favourite spaghetti aglio olio with the above-mentioned pots and pans.
6. Went back to PJ to visit my family, and provide Mei with guidance in my capacity as Expert Luggage Packer.
7. Developed stomach indigestion as I ate too much pork over the weekend – bak kut teh, fried pork knuckles, mom’s specialty minced pork patties. *burp* It didn’t help when I came back to Singapore and overloaded myself with Ikea dinner with my friends.
8. Completely whitewashed everyone in Scrabble but got my ass kicked in Monopoly. My sisters bullied me into bad property deals. Remind me not to do *real* business with them ever.
9. Discovered that there’s a new mall opened back home in Section 14. It’s the New Jaya, opposite the old Jaya (they could have been a *little* more creative with the name, no?) Nothing there except Coffee Bean and a whole lot of empty space.
10. Signed my employment contract, and submitted my Permanent Residence application yesterday. Level of service at the immigration department here is much more efficient than Malaysia’s.

And I just called home, and found my family having the earliest dinner ever in the history of my household. 6.30pm! These days nobody ever eats till it’s 8 and I’m bugging everyone to start dinner.

They’ll be sending sis Mei off to the airport later. She’s going off to State Uni of New York in Oswego (near Syracuse) to finish up her mass comm degree. Of course later I’ll have to stay up late tonight because she has nothing to do during her 5-hour transit at Changi and phone calls to all Singapore numbers from the airport payphones are free.

Okay, back to my list earlier — the thing I’m most glad about is that I managed to find a job within a month that I got back from Tokyo. At least soon I will be able to pay for my own living expenses here and hopefully have some extra to bring my parents out for a good meal and buy stuff for my sisters. Feel a bit bad that I’ve been living off my dad (and Au Yong – he keeps complaining about my Tokyo electricity usage) for the past few months, so yeah, a job is a good thing. And best of all, I won’t feel restless anymore ‘coz I’ll have lots of things to do and to look forward to! :p

Here’s to hoping all the best for me, and Mei in New York!

It feels great to be appreciated.

Somebody in Australia saw my FYP short film, and actually thought it was good enough.

Good enough for a competition in a freaking film festival!! w00t!

Got an e-mail a few days ago saying that my group’s film has been selected to compete for the Tadgell’s Bluebell Honor Award (best film made by adult for/about youth) at the 10th Auburn International Film Festival in Sydney. Checked out the website and found our film listed right there in a whole long page of other entries.

This is really surprising. We sent the video out for a lot of film festivals, but never really thought we’d get any response. Although the story’s theme is universal, it is embedded in a culture and language that is essentially very locally Singapore. Plus it is a very subtle film, so I am surprised, but very glad, that someone outside Asia understands and appreciates it. That is, wow.

Heh, definitely feels good to reaffirm that those 9 months of stress and hard work was not a wasted effort. (I still cannot believe that I lost weight over the course of the 1-week shoot, even with meals eaten 3 times a day — gotta promote this as the new definitive weight-loss regime.)

I’m in a limbo sort of phase right now.

Feels great to have graduated. No school, lots of time to just hang around, catch up on some regular reading (had no English books for 3 months in Japan), watch TV, go out with friends, get some exercise before the Coming of the Haze. Heck, I even had the time to spring clean my room AND my wardrobe.

But I also feel a little restless at the same time. Sucks having to wait around for a job, not knowing when your search will end – 2 weeks? 2 months? I know everyone’s always complaining about the working life doldrum, but seriously I can’t wait to start. I just wish to have the certainty of a future and wake up knowing what I’m gonna be doing for the next week, and not looking at irrelevant job matchings provided by the various jobsites and going ‘ugh’. Being paid is a bonus motivating force too – doubt I can survive too long with whatever’s left in my account and I don’t really want to dip into my savings in Malaysia just yet.

Anyways, I just attended 2 interviews yesterday, and there’s another 2 later. Yup, interview marathon it is. Tiring, having to run around one interview after another, but the good thing is, at least I will get to consider any offers given at around the same time, so I won’t have to go through the “omg I should have given up that job for this better job” mental torment.

I so despise wearing formal, not because of the look, I like that really. But it’s just too freaking hot out there. Once I get off the bus/MRT, and walk in the afternoon sun searching for the office, within 2 minutes I can feel sweat forming on my skin and my make-up ready to melt. gross.

On other job-search related matters – I do so despise misguiding reports in the papers and all about how great the job market is for graduates and etc. I think sometimes it really does give people false hopes and expectations. I’ve only been searching for 3 weeks so I have nothing to complain. But I know of people who have been searching for months and still are doing so now.

And let’s not even go to the “<insert university name> graduates earn an average of <insert ludicrous amount>” reports. Somewhere out there, some young ciku freshman is all happy of a rose-tinted future that does not exist (ok, unless the person scores uber top grades in engineering/accountancy/business). I believe the CS (Communication Studies not Counter Strike) cohort are single-handedly responsible for pulling down the ‘average pay’ statistics to a lesser and saner number (though still ludicrous – cos we’re too small a cohort to make significant statistical impact).

In any case, I’m glad for my situation I suppose. At least there’s been a couple of interviews, so hopefully there will be good outcomes from them. Just gotta start somewhere and work my way through. Crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best!

When my family was here in Singapore last week, I was left with the task to feed everyone for all meals. Of course I skipped the usual hawker fare that I have, because there’re far better and far cheaper chicken rice or char kuay teow and wantan noodle without tomato/chilli sauce in Malaysia.

So for one of the dinners, I brought them to Arab Street for some ‘exotic’ Egypt/Arabian food. (Mainly also because I wanna try more items on the menu, hehehe).

Everyone was excited because they haven’t really got the chance to try Middle Eastern food before. There’re probably a few in KL or what-not, but it’s also probably not gonna be cheap. This one at Arab Street (Al-Majlis) is decently priced, dishes cost about S$8 to $12 on average.

Fantastic stuff, great flavour thanks to all the spices, and absolutely yummy.

(Top) Yein ventured to try kibbeh – a triangle of spiced minced beef and nuts, with a side serving of cucumber salad in yoghurt sauce. Looks the strangest but the taste made it one of the best dishes which we ordered that night. (Bottom) I had my usual stir-fry lamb with rice, simple but fragrant. (sadly I’ve forgotten the name of the dish).

(T) For the less adventurous, there’s good ole’ chicken chop. Pei claims the potato wedges taste much better than the ones at KFC Malaysia. (B) Also, another standard dish with a spice-filled twist — mixed grill, consisting of chicken, lamb, beef and rice.

(T) My mom ordered ba’mia, a simple tomato-based curry with okra (ladies fingers) and lamb, served with rice or bread. (half-eaten in this pix. apologies hehe) (B) Mei had harissa, a pan of lamb, no idea how it’s cooked but sure taste great, soft, with flavours that linger in your mouth. Everyone scrambled to try it (and then took extra heaps of it for second tries), so Mei had to order a second one as she had nothing left from the first serving.

We also had a dozen of grilled fresh mushrooms for appetizers. Juicy, and nicely grilled, so it was a treat for a mushroom fan like me. To go with the food, we all had iced mint tea — refreshing and not too sweet.

Great stuff. Gotta go back there again for another round. :p

This is a little overdue, but yes, I have officially graduated.

Convocation was last Wednesday in NTU’s Auditorium. Ceremony was, well, long-winded, especially when I thought it’d be quick with our cohort of only 160+, but turns out there were as many masters fellas as there were mere degree folks like us. 0_o

My whole family travelled all the way to Singapore just for this, so haha, what an honour. :p We were probably one of the largest family to attend, but thankfully plenty of extra tickets were available so I don’t feel so bad taking so many extras, and my sisters didn’t have to sit outside and drink coffee for 90 minutes.

Nice seeing everyone again after my 3-month-long holiday. Took me a few seconds to recognise some people. Must be the gowns, made us all look like some harry potter congregation hehe. Took lots of photos too, so thanks to friends, friends of friends, family of friends, who helped with the photo-taking.

My sis Tse Mei and me (with the mortarboard that gives me extra height). She’s leaving soon for her final year studies in the US, so all the best (with the snow)!

me and some of my choir friends who arrived after the ceremony for our lil’ photo-taking get-together.

After convo (and some touristy activity around Singapore with my family), I went back to PJ with them, spent the weekend there fooding around, and now I’m back in the little island, hoping someone will hear my plea for a job (and money to pay my rent). lol. On with more job sites browsing.

Just flew back from Tokyo to Singapore. First thing I noticed when I got off the plane? Travelators and escalators that don’t ’speak’. haha. *In Japan, all travelators and escalators play a recorded female voice telling you to please watch your step and don’t fall on your face, or something, over and over and over.

Took United Airlines, flight was alright, not too bumpy even though weather was cloudy. Food was meh (my butter was not melted into oil this time, but the bread was stone-cold). In-flight entertainment didn’t leave me very entertained with its combination of bad movies, crappy audio and puny screen. Oh well, business as usual on UA.

Nevertheless, the view of the sunset from above the clouds was quite nice (or at least to me it is). :p Plus the seat next to mine was vacant, so, yay!

Flight landed 20 minutes early, so I thought hurray, the faster I get out of Changi, the more I can avoid cab surcharge going overboard. Unfortunately, with the uncanny luck of always ending up on the queue that is the slowest no matter what I do, I only left the airport at 1.10am no thanks to idiots who seem to not have proper travel papers in my queue and cab lines extending to the front of arrival gates.

Anyhoo, I’m back, fatter from all the food in Japan, and sneezing non-stop now after cleaning up the dust in my room. Convocation’s happening in 3 days, and my family will be coming down to Singapore for that, so lots to look forward to (besides more dusting up of my room).

p/s: time for char kuay teow tomorrow. w00t!