I kept myself busy with SEO for the tuition agency website and also made some planning for the pages. After blogging, I continued with SEO till 6am.
I woke up at 2pm and started working for the entire day. I improved on the FAQ page and continued with SEO.
In the evening, my family and I went to Chinatown’s Swanston to top up household products. I was quite taken aback on the bus because I had told myself not to step into Chinatown before the Chinese New Year because of the crowd. The massive jam along the way irritated me. After purchasing the item, spending near to $50, we went to the KFC for our dinner.
Then, we made the wrong decision to cross over to the pasar malam. Eventually, we could only move less than half a step every second. I realised I was getting very impatient due to the fact that there were too many things pending for me to handle and squeezing with the crowd was definitely waste of time when we could not really look at the stalls. I got a little giddiness from the walk. We left through the street before the Indian temple.
We went to the NTUC for a while before heading home.
I continued with the SEO for my tuition agency site, followed by blogging and went to bed at 6am.
I woke up after 7am and went off to meet Gilbert and Wanling at Chinese Garden MRT station. Since Gilbert was late, we left first and I was craving for the KFC twister breakfast, which could be located at the Jurong East Swimming Complex. However, the KFC started at 11am and we were too early for it. Wanling and I went to the hawker centre instead and suddenly Gilbert told me he had used his phone to go online and realised the pool did not open on Monday. I quickly called Wanling to return to the table to discuss before she got her food. George called me to keep me even busier as he was enquiring about the old MTRC cards that I was handling before I left ITE. Anyway, both Wanling and I took our breakfast there and Gilbert arrived soon.
We decided to go to Jurong West Swimming Complex instead. We took the train to Pioneer MRT station and walked over. I was all excited at first since it was the first time I had been there. Gilbert was amazed over the construction of it since the entire pool was built on above the ground rather than digging into it. However, the lazy pool’s depth was too shallow. Wanling had the least fun since she had some phobia with water and she had to grab my hands at times. Then, we went up to rent a float. Eventually, we went to the Jacuzzi. It was freezing. Grey clouds marched by but left soon before another platoon of them arrived. Gilbert and I tried the slide once before we left the pool.
We went to Jurong Point for lunch. We dined the Lai Lai restaurant, which Wanling had tried before. I did not like the curry sauce and that I could not finish my food for my bloated stomach and probably because I was too lack of sleep.
We went to walk around and I was stoning all along for I was totally exhausted. Wanling took the same route as me towards east for she was meeting her friend at Novena. I wanted to send her over but she was too nice that she asked me to go home straight, knowing that I was tired.
After reaching home at around 6pm, I dozed off almost immediately for hours.
My brothers and I had a game of Command and Conquer before my younger brother went to bed. We planned to go swimming in the morning and thus I wanted to try dozing off earlier. However, Eileen messaged me and told me of her failed application to SIM and we started talking on phone later. Her incredible cute stories of her past entertained me till after 6am.
I woke up at around 12pm, feeling surprise that my younger brother did not wake me up for the swim. However, I could see that the sky was not in good mood. Five of us had lunch at the market and the owner selling duck rice turned me off the second time with his sales. My younger brother wanted to add an additional egg and he muttered and then pointed at the picture of a set meal for me, which included beancurd and egg, and thus I said okay to him. In the end, he did not serve us with egg and he told me that he had earlier mentioned that the egg was sold out. It was sort of ridiculous. The worst thing was that his duck meat was over salty.
Not long after reaching home, Huiting messaged me and told me to help her with a banner design for a blog, which she needed it by the same day. I spent the next few hours doing up the banner. Towards late afternoon, Regina told me she did not want to attend her church but she refused to meet me earlier.
I set off after 7pm and took bus 167 at Cantonment Link. When I was near Bukit Merah, I saw a bus number 5 in front and I had a strong intuition that Regina inside and true enough that she SMSed me that she was reaching. We went shopping for food together. I was quite disappointed that I could not find sushi at the NTUC. The MacDonald’s was closed as well. We went to the KFC and that was when I realised that upsizing everything in a Zinger meal could cost a big bomb.
We went back to the interchange and took bus 131. When it started turning into Bukit Purmei, I was quite turned off since Henderson Waves was actually just a few bus-stops in the straight Henderson Road away from the interchange. After making a big round, we finally reached our destination and climbed up the stairs to the beautiful Henderson Waves. I was glad that Regina was amazed with the beautiful scenery as well. It was a cool night and I had never thought of being with a female friend hanging around there at night, especially when I did not own a car.
We walked to the far side of the bridge and found a space to sit down. We took our dinner while playing around with the cameras. Next, we walked towards the Terrace Garden and we stopped by the fitness corner to take photos together. It was the moment I had waited for years as she trimmed her hair super short the previous time I managed to take a picture with her.
As we were entering Terrace Garden, I saw three Bangala walking behind us and I supposed that was the problem with going out with a girl at night that I had to tighten up my muscle and get ready for any unforeseeable event. Regina was acting like a reporter with my Sony camera but the battery was drained up soon. It was to my horror that my younger brother did not charge the spare battery and we had to give up the fun.
We reached the top of Terrace Garden to join other people to glance at the fireworks of the Youth Olympics Games starting ceremony from far, but it did not last for long and I could hardly catch any. Regina was waiting for more fireworks with my Olympus camera but it was a useless wait. I was glad that she was ready to take more photos with me ever since her crush joked with her that she was ugly. She did not see the remote control I held in my hand until I decided it was not fun to keep the secret anymore.
She was on the phone for quite long before I led her down to Forest Walk. The place was beautiful, though it more remote than any other places and I was shocked that she chose to complete the journey with me instead of turning back. It was the first time I went there at night, and instead of being with a group of guy friends, I was in fact with a cute girl. I felt lucky being trusted. We reached the Alexandra Arch after the long walk and finally Hort Park. After using the toilet, we went down to the hall area and Regina took pictures with the SYOG Mascot. We went to the swinging seat near the entrance and finally started heading off.
I checked my phone and was amazed that it was already 11.30pm. Regina was worried about getting home since she stayed far in the east and I was a little disappointed for she should not worry with me around. We crossed over the road and took bus 166 to Outram Park and waited for the last bus number 2. On the way, I dropped Hirman a SMS and he told me I could look for him afterwards.
It was one of the greatest nights I had ever been through.
I basically spent my entire Saturday working on the new design of SmokeForWhat.com after scribbling the layout on my recycled paper days ago. It was nothing fantastic but the new design was more formal compared to the draft design I did on the live site.
I was lack of images that owners would not forbid me from using due to copyright problem. Although it was a non-profit site and such issue could be more relaxed but I did not want to create issues in future.
I was very surprised when dear chio Vanessa hit me up in MSN to tell me about her recent impression on a website that reminded her of SmokeForWhat.com. It was so coincident that I was sticking my butts on the bed for the entire day to do something about it and she came to tell me to do it as well.
I was too focused on my work to do anything else. The greatest problem was the dropdown menu, which I had not touched for long. I basically used the same technique as my personal website to do it.
Nevertheless, it was a better web design experience this time when I was not totally alone.
Irwin finally returned on Friday and I met up with Irwin at Sim Lim Tower. After purchasing his books, we left for a big tour around the building, crossing over traffic junctions to realise we had made a wrong turn each time. Eventually, we got to the correct bus-stop and waited very long for bus 851 to go to Funnan Centre.
There was a mechanical robot car competition and the fact that all the students owned nice laptops made me envy them. We settled down at TCC for coffee before going to the Challenger. After walking around for quite some time, he decided to get a mouse and external harddisk. It was a long moment of relaxation with jokes and opinions.
The Swensen restaurant seemed to be replaced by Pizza Hut and therefore, we decided to hit on KFC. Next, we strolled to Central and rested at the Burger King restaurant. I could not detect any wireless network at all and we tried for quite long to see if there was any problem with my laptop. After giving up, I started showing him my work progress for the new site.
Next, we strolled all the way to my house where he boarded the bus at the bus-stop opposite.
I had a slimming session with Gilbert and Peh on last Saturday morning. Having to wake up early on weekends was certainly a torture.
We met up at Ang Mo Kio to the usual swimming complex. Initially we spent a long time chatting before we started working out. Being the usual bull-headed person, I tried too hard to kick and it agitated my old injury; my right knee cap seemed to be detaching. For more than half of the twenty laps we persisted on, I did not use much of my legs' strength.
Our lunch was at KFC and it was quite a long walk away from Ang Mo Kio Hub. Gilbert and I shared a buddy meal and we bought some extra finger food and my stomach was bloated badly.
We took a little walk in Ang Mo Kio Hub after that and the lack of sleep and the exhaustion of the swim threatened to concuss me. Gilbert insisted to visit Velocity and both Peh and I had to give it a miss.
I had my work till 3.30am and woke up before 8am. I started lazing around since it was still early and that I was very sleepy still. The entire morning was spent on rushing the project, which the team of four fought the battle together. I had somehow totally set aside the forum.
Lunch was at Wok Express, which was just across the street. I had a plate of chicken fried rice, which was tasty. The small cup of hot cappuccino was a waste of money but it tasted quite satisfying. Overall, I paid only six bucks, which was quite cheap for such good though simple food.
It was a tedious afternoon to do relinking of subpages for a page. I repeated the steps numerous times but the CMS was playing on me. This afternoon, I had no choice but to declare that the E was a fucker after reading an email. He simply threw the shit to Kelly who obviously did not know anything about this project. The company was paying so much to this fucker each month just for him to train his “tai ji” and push responsibility around.
Ruifen usually gave lots of tasks for the team and she wanted everything quick. I would not want to compare her with this fucker because by doing so was disrespecting her. She worked hard and tried to do things by herself, sacrificing her time before getting helps to accomplish all the tasks fast.
Something was wrong with the CMS and even another project was down. Finally, we got to rest for the afternoon. However, I was filled with rage to complete as much work as possible and the sudden pause was making me feel weird. It lasted till evening and I went off with Kimmy since nothing could be done anymore. I got to find out her story with the company and it somehow disappointed me.
After reaching home, my brother suggested ordering KFC for dinner. I dozed off before the delivery man arrived. We split the bill since he did not have enough cash. I took only a piece of thigh and chicken wing, which was my dinner.
The remaining time was again spent on updating my sites.
Nothing was unusual about this morning and I managed to go to bed at around 4.30am. I was then waked up by my mum at around 2pm.
It was not a usual day after all. My mum brought home a letter from Google AdSense and inside hosted the cheque, which seemed to have waited for me so eagerly. This aid came in handy. It was my second time receiving it but the first time my mum was able to help me cash it into my bank account; the previous time they sent me from the America and I got them to cancel the cheque, and currently still waiting for them to credit the amount back into my account.
Therefore, I have proved wrong to those people who have seen me staying online the entire day and assuming I’m very free. Although my progress may be slow sometimes due to distraction, such as television, Friendster and MSN, I do work. I do play games but I spend more time on work.
This afternoon, I continued with my work until evening time when I set off to Bukit Batok. I met up with Mingfa at the MRT before approaching Mr Khin’s flat. Kelly was waiting at the same void deck and when the co-broke agent arrived, Mingfa and I quickly went up to prepare the house.
Kelly was intending to let Mingfa do all the talking but he was not really prepared. Since I was not wearing as formal as him and that I was dehydrated and felt uncomfortable on my throat, I did not do anything. The co-broke agent in fact did most of the talking and I was quite impressed that he could relate so much things on the first visit.
Kelly went home after that and the buyers were actually quite interested. Mingfa and I went downstairs to wait for the second group of viewers. We waited for more than half an hour and finally they called Mingfa. Just as we were at the void deck, we saw the same pair of couple who were with the co-broke agent an hour ago. Mingfa got very pissed but I knew clearly it was the couple’s fault for they should not have engaged the agent while looking for flats by themselves; the silliest thing was they did not suspect it was the same flat in the first place.
We left immediately. Mingfa was intending to have a jog with Wilson and if only I was staying near them, I could join them in the healthy lifestyle. I wanted to have my own jog as well but when I reached home, I was welcomed by KFC chicken. I decided to have a midnight jog but later on, my stomach played me and I continued with eating again.
I hated it when agents rang me up early in the morning but did not want to even bother to make appointments for viewing of the flats.
I dragged myself down to see Uncle Sam at noon. He was not there and the keys were not there. I made another trip down at 1pm and it was the same. Then, I got Lulu to give him a call. I went to the flat to check but there was nobody inside. I was at a lost for David had scheduled with his client to view it at 3pm. After hanging out around the shop and the neighbourhood, Uncle Sam finally got back at around 2pm and personally made another call to hurry the tenant. At around 2.20pm, the key was finally back and I quickly went upstairs to check again.
Kelly’s child had some problems and had to rush over to the accident and emergency department; therefore, I met up with David alone and he taught me new stuffs. His clients were late for half an hour and he left for Bishan. Later, I showed his client up and promised Uncle Sam to return him the key on Monday. Everything was an unsure.
I went for my hair cut finally after it was settled. After that, the auntie saw my hand and asked what happened. Then, she gave me some antiseptic cream to apply to the affected area. She was far too kind.
The late brunch at 4pm helped to build up my body again. However, I was exhausted and sick somehow. News of the Ang Mo Kio flat was saddening. I even messaged all the agents who had made enquiries before but none of them replied or called back.
Dinner was packet rice again. My elder brother ordered KFC and the deliveryman said something which I thought was he did not have change. I was shouting to my brother and this guy repeated again asking if I wanted the change. I was quite stunned for his dumb question but finally to wake to my sense that he was simply asking for tips; but I never thought KFC would ever employ staff who would do that. It was my first time receiving such delivery by myself and later I realised he did not give me the receipt.
KFC’s service was simply lousy.
My brother checked the food and realised they gave us three mash potatoes instead of the three coleslaw we asked for. Even though they did send people back to deliver the correct stuff, the time was delayed so much.
I spent the night with my stomach filled throughout.
After trying to wake up early daily for the whole week to jog before the sun got really hot, I failed. I was trying to squeeze my time throughout the night like before, or sometimes, rather wasting my time at some funny shows.
So this day, I could not wake up again, and I had a dream about rushing home from school to exercise. It was a weird dream of course because my elder brother and I were in the same school campus and it took forever for me to pack up my things to leave on a Friday morning. We actually overslept until around 8 o’clock in the morning when we were supposed to leave before daylight and the primary school classes were coming in already.
It had been quite long since I last had a dream. I used to dream almost daily since young until after I finished all my courses in the army. I was quite worried since I thought dreaming was kind of exerting my brain because somehow it was still working while I needed rest.
At least, I was having quite sufficient sleep this few days but I hoped I could set aside more things for an earlier sleep. There was too much sleep debt to repay since I had been constantly lacking of sleep and sometimes I wondered if that was the cause to my seemed-to-be damaged brain.
I did not want to job under the hot sun but I had to exercise after stopping for a couple of weeks; therefore, I had to go down to BMCC to join Mingfa for causal games. I started chatting with Vivi soon online as usual and did not really bear to leave my house to abandon her. Since it was also a good thing to pass Anqi her shoes to reduce the load of my messy house, I went on.
Before leaving the house, I called Anqi a few times until it got engaged. She finally picked up and I knew she was sleeping as usual at two plus in the afternoon. It was pointless to talk to her to find out what was wrong, which I suspected she had another clubbing and drinking session till daylight.
I took the train as usual, was quite worried about the fare price, but it was a faster way to get there. Kok Chiang reached earliest and was dozing on the floor like a drunkard and I started updating my diary to make full of use of my time. It was actually three o’clock and the training time was two thirty.
I put on my old spectacle and got so giddy soon that I started to sweat intensively under the sun and quitted soon. During the free spike, I could not do well at all for the spectacle kept slipping down my nose somehow.
This time, the Punggol boy Louis went down and he created unlimited fun. Halfway in the game, Anqi finally came but she took the shoes and left soon. We had very long games, forgetting to count the score so many times. It got boring at times and we had a common target to tease – the birthday boy Weilun who played so badly. Jianhao and Weitat joined us after some time.
We played until almost total darkness and later, waited for everyone to wash up before going to KFC for dinner. It was difficult to find a parking slot at the one level carpark and Jianhao’s parking skill was quite good.
Since Meijun had discount coupons, Cynthia and I shared the buddy meal. The queues at the two KFC counters were long and slow. They employed old people who did not give any effort to move faster, taking things at their very own slow pace like as if they were in their nineties – they should be around fifty plus. Those old staffs at MacDonald’s could really do things at least double their speed.
Anyway, the counter with the uncle was a wrong choice for his service really sucked. Overall, I could not figure out how that KFC branch in Bukit Merah Central could survive with such service which I would rate two at most. The cramp place was certainly disgusting as well and customers would most probably go there if they got sick of MacDonald’s.
Anyway, I upsized the drinks to the large cups but after waiting for so long, the fatigue had filled my stomach. Cynthia pushed her fries and coleslaw to me and I had a dreadful dinner, never been so full for long.
I took bus 196 home after that. To my excitement, both the lifts were spoilt and I had to climbed the stairs up to the sixteen storey after the exhausting day.
Friday was finally the meeting with the twins - Pretty Yun and Fatty Si. It had been a long time since I last saw them.
Both of them were shy especially for Peiyun, who kept asking Ah Si to accompany me to go somewhere else. We went for dinner at KFC and Peiyun insisted in returning me the treat she had owed me around three years ago. I was not used to it (girl's treat) at all and that my actual intention was to give them a treat instead, I declined but she resorted in stuffing the money into my bag.
Since I went there right after booking out, the heavy bag which contained my uniform and boots together with my injuries shagged me out. My back was aching badly but I made it a point to maintain a strong front.
We went to the Giants as Ah Yun wanted to buy some food. I was surprised that she loved cooking and that she would certainly be a good wife in future. She was kind of chasing me away embarrassingly, in a sweet tone that I was quite confused by her. Later on, I found out that that was the first time she went shopping with a guy.
Both of them were unexpectedly sweet but Ah Si had developed a big waistline since they had stopped playing volleyball. They invited me to Jurong Birds Park to watch Ah Yun with her performance and they could smuggle me in somehow. Ah Yun also had tickets to the Singapore Zoological Garden.
