Ah Di's back!

To all the Swaiji fans out there (yes, all three of you!): our No. 2 is finally back! To others who were less initiated: Ah Di's back from Manchester, Enggggland -- the treasure trove of all football lovers and stars alike. Of course, being the usual lazy blogger that I am, this post is only made one week after his return. The exact definite date was actually on the 8th June, 2008, a Sunday.

Ever since I took that last Economics paper, I haven't been exercising my brain for a while. Most of the time these days, I spent it playing the XBOX360, or wandering aimlessly in cyberspace. Thus, in a bid to make up some excuses for chances to do some difficult mental mathematic calculations, and being the most 闲人 around, I decided to organize a "welcome home" gathering for Ah Di. With a budget of about $60, I expect to invite like about 8 or 9 of our closest friends. Nevertheless, Ah Pa got wind of my plan -- and being the usual prodigal Ah Pa, we see our budget raised immediately to about $200. That about covers the costs of the 2 roast ducks, 1kg of roast meat, 1 dozen beer, curry, mee hoon and other sundries. And we see our attendance shoot to a rocket high -- about 20 people turned up. Needless to say, it was a rowdy night. Also, let's take this opportunity to inscribed our thanks to Ah Ma (where our thanks will be immortalized and stored in cyberspace for ever and ever and ever.. ..) who spent the whole morning preparing the 7 or 8 course meal. Thanks mum, the curry's great!

The party expected His arrival to be around 2 to 3pm in the afternoon. However, due to some notable cock-ups by the Qatar crew, He had his boarding pass snatched (!) away just minutes before He board the flight heading to Singapore. Without giving any reasons or apologies, the barbarians had Him transferred to another flight heading to KL, then a subsequent flight to Singapore. As a result, He is later than expected by about 4 hours, having reaching home at about 7 in the evening.

Of course, the party must be kept going as the crowd gets agitated. Where's the protagonist of the party? Where's are their gifts from Engggland, the treasure trove of football (and not much else, really.)? Why are the food getting cold? Why is our government ostensibly pocketing our money but no one is complaining? I tried to be accommodating, even not minding the greasy hands and brandished out the XBOX360. Even succumbing to invite our ultra cute daughters of our neighbors, Wei Jing and Wei Qi over. And of course, the mahjong table.

Then all of a sudden, the ding-dong-dings of the lift that's just outside the door sounded -- He is back! With his 70s hair style, he shocked the whole party.

What happened afterwards was too tedious to type, and I'd decided to save the tale for another post. As usual, let's end this post with some pictures from that night just to appease that few fans of my blog who are less sensitive to Enggglish words.

The ladies literally stole the night

Boo from Monster Inc was apparently a Man United fan

Ever seen so many Man U scarves crumpled up on the floor? Now you have.

The "Bring your own towel" campaign was a great success.

Our coveted Mr Congeniality was unanimously voted and given to Chan. He's seen here complete with the requisite pot belly and the 2 fingers poser pose.

Lurkers after the gathering. Picture blurred to protect the identities of the lurkers.

quarterly update

Great!! The monsoon season is here again! It was raining none stop since last night. Office corridors, cluttered with umbrellas and wet shoe prints. Policemen, wearing bright yellow water-proof wind-breakers. Taxi everywhere, splashing water pools onto pedestrains. Me, missing the sun, get drenched by water everywhere I go.

Right now, I'm working part time in Institute of Infocomm Research, a subsidiary of A*STAR. Kind of cool when you think of it, since everyone there is like at least a master graduate or something. Anyway, my job is to program C++ applications to run something.. something which i shouldn't say here.

How have I been this past year? I got great results in year 2 sem 2. Semester CAP is 4.4. I got greater result this sem: 4.71. How did I manage to get the result this early? https://integral.nus.edu.sg/ui/exam2000a.Homepage. Anyway I think they took the link down. Lots of As on the report card. Feels great to be a student.. Then again, the part time job makes me realised that results aren't everything. I come to realise that I kinda suck at C++, eventhough I got an A in CS1102C. NUS doesn't really equip its student with what they need in the outside world. In the outside world, the geek that sits next to you -- the one that kept talking about hardwarezone, what makes a wonderful web page, programs in some obscure languages, but averages only a B -- wins. He's the guy that knows everything and anything my boss wants to know. I'm the guy who knows everything and anything the exam script wants me to know but know nothing about what the boss wants. What's the world coming to? Look what NUS did to me!