My Trip To Spain & Portugal (Part II)

Well, people, my sincere apologies if I have been lagging in publishing my posts since Christmas night, but I was recovering from jet-lag which I suffered from as a result of the long flight from Spain back to home. It's ok, there's nothing wrong with suffering from jet-lag as a result of a long holiday, it usually happens for first-time long-distance travellers. Jet lag is defined as a condition where some suffers from extreme tiredness and disorientation, but is nonetheless able to sleep as a result of being unable to cope with the time-frame after returning from a particular country to which they travelled to far away. Reason being for my condition with jet-lag is due to the large time difference between Singapore and Spain, Spain being 7 hours behind Singapore time. Additionally, I've also been lagging in this post for too long already, so I thought now's the time I publish it.

Anyway, allow me to elaborate on part II of my trip to Spain & Portugal.

Day 7(Dec 18, 2008): Today, we left my great-uncle and great-aunt's Portugal home in Lagos to head off for our next destination, the Spanish capital of Madrid, located further north of Barcelona. Firstly, my great-uncle drove us across the Spanish-Portuguese border back to a Spanish town(can't remember the name), from where we found us a bus terminal and a bus ride to take on the way. Hitching a bus ride, we travelled on a one and a half hour bus trip from the bus terminal to Seville and reached a train station to have a train take us to Madrid. From the train station, we bought our tickets and hitched a train ride to Madrid. It was quite a long distance, clocking at approximately two and a half hours. Nonetheless, a movie called "What Happens in Vegas" was played in the train to keep us a little occupied throughout the trip. Though the movie was quite hilarious, it wasn't really my type of movie. Anyway, once we reached the Madrid train station, we took a taxi to our rental apartment in Gran Via, a city just right smack in the middle of Madrid. Once we reached our rental apartment, we took a small rest, following which my father and I took an Underground Metro train to Plaza Mayor, where we searched for the tourist information centre, in search of more info about the city we are staying in for the next two days. We didn't have the time to go to the wax museum for today due to time constraints.

Day 8(Dec 19, 2008): Today family and I went to another art museum in Madrid called Prado museum, if memory serves. We visited the art museum and yet, it was another really amazing spectacle right before my eyes. A lot of works of art in this museum are delighting to the public eye

Day 9(Dec 20, 2008): Today was the most wonderful and exciting day of my stay in Madrid. My family and I took a train to travel to Warner Brothers Madrid, somewhere on the outskirts of Madrid. This theme park is similar to the Warner Brothers theme park I went to in Brisbane back in 2004. I initially expected it to be a long train ride to there, but it turns out, I reached there at scarcely about 10.45am or so. After purchasing tickets to enter the theme park, we went to take an initial walk around until the rides were mostly open. The first ride my father and I went on was this Lex Luthor ride, it was a ride which really kind of blew my mind sky high. The thrill of being thrusted up, down and upside down on the ride really staggered and scared me, but was nonetheless, the ride was still quite a fun one. Next ride we went on was the Superman ride, and guess what? This ride gave me a scare like no other compared to the rides I have riden on back in Brisbane. The starting part of the ride nearly felt like as if I was going to simply fall off the roller-coaster and plummet to my death, LOL! Nonetheless, the ride was exceptionally super-fun and it would be something I would not forget about my Spain trip. The next thrilling ride was a Batman ride, which I had a sense of deja vu upon experiencing; it was strikingly similar to the "Lethal Weapon" ride which I rode on back in the Brisbane Warner Brothers theme park, instead of appearing like a typical roller-coaster cart, instead we dangle from the seat, sorry, I do not know how to describe it in words. But anyway, as we progressed for the day, the next ride we took was a Batman simulation ride, which is exactly the same one I rode in back in Brisbane, where Batman fights three villains, Joker, Catwoman and Mr. Freeze, who are all part of the same scheme, stuff like that, except the main difference is that the ride's language is all in Spanish. Following that, I went on the ride with my younger bro for a second time, all thanks to his fascination with the ride. Following that, we went to have lunch, and then when on some of the kiddy-kiddy rides, just to keep my younger bro and mum occupied, LOL. Anyway after that, to close up for the day, my sis, dad and I went for a second round on the Superman ride, 'cause it was still so fun! LOL! After that, we headed back to the train station, where we took the train, and then headed back to our apartment.

Day 10(Dec 21, 2008): Today was honestly, nothing much of a day. We did a little bit of last-minute stuff packing and headed off to the train station to hitch a train ride back to Barcelona at about 10.45am at reached there at about say, 1 or 2 plus and then we checked in to our old apartment where we stayed in some days ago. After that, we went out for a while and then just did some walking around for the day.

Day 11(Dec 22, 2008): Today, it was another cultural day, where we went to visit the Gaudi museum nearby. Another public spectacle, this does not focus anything on art. Instead, the main topic of this museum is some of the wonderful facades of the insides of the building as well as the roof of the building. Man, it was just amazing to see such beautiful facades to catch my eye. I even took some photos of the facades at the museum for both remembrance and probably, inspiration for school work. Even mum helped me take some pics for inspiration. LOL, seems like she became aware of my school work. After having lunch following the visit, we just went around shopping since there are no more interesting museums. & oh yes, in the midst of that, dad and I took a taxi and went to Nou Camp, the homeground of Barcelona F.C.. Dad and I went into the stadium, which started off with us watching a 3-D film about the history of Barcelona F.C., and then we went around exploring the museum, seeing the various achievements made by Barcelona F.C. in the past years, their history, their various past and present players, stuff like that. Anyway after that, we went to the shop nearby and went to look around the shop, browsing through the various soccer merchandise such as t-shirts, caps and all other soccer-related stuff. After our Camp Nou visit, we simply headed back to our apartment.

Day 12(Dec 23, 2008): Today, we headed off to another art museum called the Picasso museum in the morning. This amazing Renaissance genius has appealed to me the most, as I saw boards of his biography among some of his most recognisable artworks. Anyway, following the visit, my mum and sis went on an all-shopping spree, purchasiing souvenirs, clothes, bags and all those typical kind of stuff. Well, as for me and my bro, we just stayed in the apartment for the whole afternoon, while my dad just went out to walk around the malls. I had to tolerate with my younger bro's watching of Disney channel on TV, though he actually doesn't understand, 'cause every channel on TV is in Spanish, LOL. But anyway, good thing was, at night, he(my bro), dad and I went to a nearby shopping centre to purchase for me some clothes which I could use. Other than that, that ends for the day.

Day 13(Dec 24, 2008): Today, we woke up at about 6 plus and then did some last minute packing and cleaning up, following which we took a taxi and headed for the Barcelona airport, checked in, waited until the boarding gate opened and then headed of for home sweet home. Of course it wasn't a direct flight, an hour and a half later, we "pit-stopped" at the Milan airport, and after about an hour, we continued on our flight to home. I was kind of bored on the flight, just watching movies on the TV screen at the back of passenger seats and stuff, and the most troubling thing is, I could hardly sleep; I slept for about only 2 hours throughout the whole flight. That's probably why I received jet lag as a result of the flight, I don't know. Anyway, we reached Changi Airport at about 7 plus, S'pore time. Then, as usual, we got our bags, took a taxi home, and then finally, home sweet home! :)

Overall, my trip to Spain and Portugal has been an unforgettable and exceptionally exciting experience, despite the main negative effect of my trip which was none other than the jet lag. Now I am going to get right back to prepare for my e-Learning school work next week. Seems like the rains and thunderstorms of stress are going to engulf me in flames again, damn. All I had to do for the week was simply the MMP1 sketchbook and Zoho entries as well as my CMSK3 report draft and APA test practice. It seems that my work, I realised, wasn't that stressful this week, LOL. Anyway this will end the post for now. Cheers.

My Spain & Portugal Family Trip (Part 1) / Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy Birthday Rashad!

It was a bright Christmas morning where I just landed at the Singapore Changi airport, having returned from my long holiday trip to Spain and Portugal. It was a pretty long flight from there and back, at an estimate of about 13 to 14 hours total. It was such an unforgettable experience in my first trip to Europe, with a lot of exotic locations and different cultures of people.

Well, what more can I say, this holiday trip was an awesome one for my family and I! Spain was a beautiful, glorious country with a lot of tourist attractions such as the museums, shopping centres and so much more! The My family scarcely visited Portugal for the sole purpose of visiting my great-uncle who has been living there for decades. Now, I will elaborate on what we have done during our trip.

Note before reading: This post will only encompass the first 6 days of my family trip, the next 6 days will be posted very soon.

Day 1(Dec 12, 2008): Well, first day was actually nothing much really, LOL. All my family did was just checked in at the airport, boarded our plane at about midnight, and we were in a flash headed off for our trip to Spain.

Day 2(Dec 13, 2008): Finally, we reached Barcelona airport at Barcelona after 13 long hours of flying. After landing and checking in at the airport, we had some hot drinks at the airport cafe, following which we hitched a taxi ride from Barcelona airport to our rental apartment, but not before we obtained our apartment keys from the reception building. To my discovery, the temperature in Spain is at quite an extreme low, hitting about 5 degrees celsius to the minimum. I almost felt like freezing to death upon experiencing temperatures this low. Our rental apartment was quite comfortable to stay in and it was nothing like I thought a usual apartment would be. There was a kitchen for my mum to cook for us meals, and there was a large living room. What I noticed about the TV in the living room is that all of the channels featured in the TV are in Spanish and none were in English. Nonetheless, I still appreciated it and got used to it. Following which, in the afternoon, my dad and I went to a nearby McDonalds outlet to get some meals for lunch, and since the meat made here is not halal, we instead ordered fishburger meals. What surprised me was that I noticed that beer is even sold at McDonalds outlets in Spain. LOL. But never mind about that, it's part of their sales in Europe that every European McDonalds outlet sells beer. Anyway, after having lunch in our apartment, we went to the Underground Metro Station to see the sights of Montjuic, a mountainous attraction in Barcelona. The Metro Station system in Spain is somewhat similar to that of the MRT station system we have here in Singapore, except that the Spanish Metro system is a little more intricate. After having reached the station we were to stop at, we took a cable car to the summit of Montjuic, where we saw a large castle and experienced the sights of Barcelona from higher ground. The view was amazing from the summit of the hill, and I gazed in awe at the sight of the city from the summit. There were also quite several war relics surrounding the castle, such as cannons and other artillery equipment. It must have been a very long time since any army have inhabited this castle, and I noticed it has somewhat turned into a restaurant. Anyway, this spectacle is an amazing one for me, as I get to experience the medieval times of Spain. After experiencing the summit of Montjuic, we walked down the hill to reach Fundacio Joan Miro to see some of the famous works by the famous Catalan painter Joan Miro. His works were one of the creme de la cremes of Barcelona, and his paintings were very exquisite. This made me view Miro as a genius of art as I gazed in awe at some of the works displayed at the museum. It was a really amazing spectacle there at Miro's art museum. Later in the evening, after we had dinner back at our apartment, we went to see the magic fountain of Montjuic. It was yet another amazing spectacle as we saw how the fountain's water flows changed patterns and colours, in synchronisation with various classic songs being played, ranging from Disney animated film songs to movie themes and even a song called Barcelona sung by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe.

Day 3(Dec 14, 2008): Today, we went to take a walk down La Rambla somewhere in Place de Catalunya, where along the way we saw quite a number of flamboyant street performers and street painters, in which at the end we saw the massive monument of Columbus, the famous Spanish voyager who founded America. The murals surrounding the monument appeared to be depicting a story of Columbus' voyage, as evidently seen. It was also quite a pretty tall monument standing at about 50 feet tall or more. Following which, we went on a one and a half hour boat trip on Les Golondrines. It was amazing that we get to see the coast and the sights of the city of Barcelona from the boat, despite the chilly climate we experienced on the boat. Nonetheless, we still had a good time on the boat ride. Following that, we had lunch at a Turkish kebab restaurant in one of the La Rambla alleys, and what more can I say? The food there was delicious and finally, I get to consume some meat after a whole day of just seafood and vegetarian meals. Anyway, sometime in the evening, we went to visit the Aquarium, which was yet another spectacular sight, as we saw the various exhibits of sea creatures on display at the Aquarium, and other interactive stuff like gift shops etc.

Day 4(Dec 15, 2008): Today, we went to walk around Passeig De Gracia to explore the various shops, and went by metro train to Sagrada Familia, the landmark building of Barcelona. It is actually kind of a large church with a chapel and various exhibits relating to Catholicism, and we had an audio guide to guide us through the building. There were also quite several statues around the building depicting Jesus Christ, which actually all tell stories of his life. This was yet another great experience as we get to visit the landmark building of Barcelona. Following our visit to Sagrada Familia, we visited Casa Mila, a building designed by famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. It was very interesting with a beautiful facade and a lot of various designs inside the museum itself. Later, in the evening, we went back to our apartment to pack up and prepare for our flight to Seville the following morning. This flight is part of our journey to the residence of my great-uncle and great-aunt who are living in the Portuguese town of Lagos. This visit to them was part of our trip and it is considered a display of respect by the family to do so. My great-uncle and great-aunt have been coming from Portugal to our home once a month every year, and we thought that if he had done it, then by all means we have to do it for him this time.

Day 5(Dec 16, 2008): Today, we left our Barcelona apartment and headed for the airport for our flight to Seville. After reaching Seville airport and checking in at the airport customs, we met my great-uncle and great-aunt, both of whom took us for a drive across Seville and we crossed the Spanish-Portuguese border to their hometown of Lagos. We arrived at their house and for a brief moment I had a wee bit of a sense of deja vu when I saw their house. It reminded me of when I went to Perth way back in June 2000, where I visited one of my aunts who was living there as an expatriate for a short period of time. Their house was huge with several rooms and it was very nice. Following that, we went out for lunch at a nearby seafood restaurant, and then we took a walk on the docks situated next to the restaurant, following which we just took a small drive around the town to see the sights, took a walk on the nice beaches, and finally we ended the drive for the day with a small shopping gig at a nearby shopping centre.

Day 6(Dec 17, 2008): Today was nothing much for me to say, really. We just took another drive around Lagos and Faro to see the shores and high cliffs by the seaside. The cliffs were really very high, and I nearly felt as if I was about to fall down by just taking one small peek down. Following that, we took another drive around the mountains of Lagos, which led us to having lunch somewhere in a restaurant situated in the mountains. Once again, we had a nice meal of seafood for lunch, LOL. Anyway, after lunch, we went back to my great uncle's house to settle in for the night once again.

Well, this is what I can elaborate for this post at the moment, I'll elaborate the second part of my Spain and Portugal trip very soon. To be continued...

Additionally, it so happens that today is my younger brother Rashad's 5th birthday. Nice to be a Christmas baby huh, Rashad? LOL! Happy birthday to you Rashad! Hope you will enjoy it!

P.S.: I would love to wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope all of you enjoyed the holiday! :)

Term Test Week & My Soon To Come Departure For Spain & Portugal

Whew, what a week it's been for me. On Monday, I woke up early at about 6.50 plus to do my morning prayers followed by which I went to the mosque to do my Hari Raya Haji prayers, followed by which after returning, my family and I went to visit my grandparents on both sides as respect, and that was about it, we went home soon after visiting just two houses, LOL.

Anyway, the next day, on Tuesday, I went to school to sit for my OOPG term test. I found the paper to border between easy and difficult, particularly the theory at which I was kind of lost at. Other than that, the program codes writing was fairly alright for me.

Next day, on Wednesday, was CMaths2 term test. It was quite alright, though I have thoughts that I may have been careless in the test. Other than that, the test was fine. Later that day, some time after lunch, I went to ComforDelGro Driving Centre to do my e-trial tests in order to prepare for the Basic Theory Test(BTT) on Thursday. I took small peeks at the questions and I was like, ok, seems like the test is not easy to pass after all. Because of that, I practised like crazy for the BTT and read through the handbook thoroughly.

Next thing, it was Thursday, and time for the BTT. I was doing the test and I managed to memorise most of the answers as most of them were from the e-trial tests the day before. But it turns out, I did not manage to meet the 90% passing criterion for the BTT :(. Seems like I am going to have to practise more for the BTT in order to achieve that bloody high BTT passing criterion. I initially felt let down by the outcome of the BTT, but I eventually learnt that not everyone passes the test with a 90% result on their first tries. This gave me relief, and I have to wait for another suitable day where I can sit for the BTT again.

Today, well, there was nothing much interesting for me, other than I was doing some last-minute packing for my family Spain & Portugal trip. I am anticipating this trip to be an exciting one, as it is my first trip to Europe :). Later in the evening, I went to ComforDelGro again to attend my third driving lesson, and guess what?

This driving lesson was far more fun than expected from last week!:) I was able to pick up my pace much faster in my driving, and this week, I learnt the steering wheel controls, how to navigate around sharp bends etc. Not to mention my driving instructor for this week's lesson is more fun to learn from and had a much greater sense of humour. Everytime I successfully navigate around a sharp bend, he would repeatedly say "It's soooo simple", LOL! Following the end of the lesson, I thanked my driving instructor gratefully for the fun lesson we had for today.

Well, I really apologise to say this, but I will not be making any posts next week, because I will be on my trip to Spain and Portugal until Christmas Eve, where I will be leaving Spain, and I will be back in Singapore right on Christmas morning. LOL, seems like I will be back home just in time for Christmas, hahas. Anyway, I will elaborate more on my Spain & Portugal trip when I return. Cheers and take care! :)

P.S.: I will be bringing my laptop on the trip, so that I can hopefully continue my school work over there. I will try my best to secure a wi-fi connection there, so that I can get the Internet and MSN running. Then hopefully I would be able to keep in touch with all you guys.

Other than that, cheers to all! Take care at home here and God bless! :)

What's Been Up Lately

I understand it's been like so damn long since I have published my last post, my sincere apologies. It's just that I have been quite on a busy schedule lately, which explains why my blog has been down in the dumps for so long already. But anyway, other than that, everything has been fine for me. Let me just elaborate what's been up with me lately.

To keep everything short and sweet first, for the past few weeks, all I have been doing is simply keeping myself busy with assignment submissions. My assignment submissions include my DTAT first assignment, my CMSK3 report portfolio and my IDES exercises 1, 2 and 3. My DTAT first assignment was actually quite alright for me, and I think I have done quite a satisfactory job on it, though I could have taken more pictures which could have be good for pulling up my assignment grade.

In the case of my CMSK3 portfolio, I have to admit I discovered I was a little careless, which resulted in me not getting a very good grade. But other than that, I still have my full report and oral presentation to pull me up, which should not be a problem if I would not be too careless.

IDES exercise 1, 2 and 3 served as both a pushover and a brick wall for me, as I found them to be manageable but quite tedious. 1 and 2 did not serve as problems for me, as I was able to download the Macromedia Freehand software from the Internet through the C213 blog, and insert my ideas from my sketchbook into Freehand. What I disliked about Freehand is that it continuously lags everything on my laptop. Other than that, I was able to complete both exercises 1 and 2 on time. Exercise 3 was quite a doozy, as I did not have the Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver softwares on my laptop, and it caused me to do the exercise at the very last minute. As a result, I submitted all my 3 IDES exercises late but on the same day. Luckily, my lecturer gave me a second chance at punctuality for my IDES project which will be due some weeks after the term break.

Well, the best piece of news of all these school stuff is, I can't believe I scored an A for my French listening and writing tests altogether! This was really quite an unexpected moment for me, as I have initally expected less, but discovered that because of my regular attendance, I managed to be among the 4 people in my tutorial group who scored an A for the listening and writing tests, which makes up 40% of my grade for French. Well, contrary to what some of you readers may think, I was actually the third highest for the tests. The highest was my good buddy Joe, excellent job to you man. You've earned it. Hope you'll keep up the good job for the rest of the semester. Well, the slightly bitter part of it is, I only scored 7 out of 10 for my first culture quiz, but no worries, there will be another culture quiz after term break, and I just hope for the best for the next culture quiz.

On another good piece of news, guess what? I just started my driving lessons last Friday at the ComforDelGro Driving Centre somewhere at Ubi. The first lesson last Friday was quite a blur for me, as I learnt the functions of the accelerator, brake and clutch, since I am learning manual instead of auto. And additionally, I just had my second lesson this Friday, this time there was some improvement in my car movement, though I really need to improve on my braking. Gosh, how I wished I could not have been so careless over my braking. But well, at least I wasn't too careless, or else I would have my car turned into nothing more than a mere pile of scrap metal. Other than that, my driving lessons have been going fine, I just need to prepare for my E-trial test next Wednesday, my Basic Theory Test for next Thursday and my next driving lesson next Friday.

Yesterday, I went out with my cousin Sufri once again to play King of Jurassic at Pasir Ris White Sands. We are so in to this game, and I seriously can't believe he is even planning to purchase more dinosaur cards when he goes to Korea for a family trip in about a couple of weeks' time or so. Well, next Friday, some time after my driving lesson, I will be heading of for my 12-day trip to Spain and Portugal! Well, this is going to be an unforgettable experience for me, as this is my first trip to Europe. My family and I will be going to Spain for 10 days for holiday and Portugal for 2 days to visit my great-uncle living there. We're leaving on next Friday and will be returning on Christmas morning, local time. Great huh? I'll be back home just in time for Christmas, LOL. Because of this trip, I am going to have to bring all my school stuff along with me on the trip, including my laptop, so that I can continue with my school work there. I'll elaborate more when I return from there.

For today, I went to VivoCity in the morning with my family to have breakfast at McDonalds there, and then, following which, we went to watch Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. It was quite a fun and hilarious movie, and laughter echoed throughout and filled the cinema to the fullest. Even I myself was laughing my ass of for a majority of the film. The movie features the voice talents of the cast of the original film, which include Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen and Cedric the Entertainer. The new cast additions include Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas, Alec Baldwin and, in a posthumous role, Bernie Mac. It has been a few months since good old Bernie has passed, and this film has been dedicated in loving memory of him. R.I.P. Bernie Mac, we all will miss you. Following the movie, we went to have lunch at Swensens, and then came back home.

That's it for the moment and this post, and I'll elaborate more soon enough. Cheers to all out there, and peace out. ;)

Week 4 and 5: The "Great IMI Depression"

Hey what's going on, y'all? I know it's been like quite a while and how long since I have blogged, but my sincere apologies. I've been very busy for the past week since I have been burning up for my assignments, projects, class tests and everything, which explains it. Assignments and projects are among the stuff which never stop coming. DTAT, CMSK3 and MMP1, in particular, are what I have been burning up on for the past week. And this week, I have been burning up on studying for my CMaths2 test and OOPG lab test.


The CMaths2 test and OOPG lab test were the 2 class tests which I sat for yesterday. Both really blew my brains out like a shell of mortar fire, with the CMaths2 test being quite a, what I might say, not a difficult one, but a rather tricky one. It took me really quite long to think over doing the test questions, and I felt really like I'm under a trauma from it. Well, OOPG lab test actually wasn't so bad, I just had to do 7 programs for 3 questions, but the crappy thing about it was, I was close to finishing one of the programs by an inch, and due to a lack of time, was unable to do so, and I could not compile and run any of my programs. :( But the good thing was, I was able to get most of the basic elements of the object-oriented programming structure just right. :) That's all I can say for the 2 class tests.


Next, I have the DTAT and CMSK3 assignments. It has been quite a tedious process for me in the case of DTAT, where I have to take a hell of a lot of pictures for my first assignment, though for the final part, I only have to use selected photographs. I have been taking a lot of photographs over the past few weeks, and not a day comes by where I tire myself of all these affairs. My research portfolio for my CMSK3 report assignment was originally set to be due this week, but due to a majority of us lacking time in doing our research for the report, as well as a number of errors in most of our portfolios, our lecturer decided to extend it to Monday next week. But our report deadline still stays to Week 14. Whew, that hopefully gives us enough time to do more research over the term break. Same for OOPG assignment to be due in Week 13. I just hope the term break gets a little less tense for me compared to the previous term break in Semester 1 in June. That's it for the assignments.


Other than that, everything's almost coming to an end, such as the DTAT assignment 1 which is due next week, thankfully I have completed about 80% of the assignment by now. The CMSK3 research portfolio just needs to be amended and then submitted on Monday. Today, in the evening, I just had a French lecture and listening and writing mock test. Whoa, the speed at which the lecturer spoke out the words nearly dragged me off the rails. Fortunately, it was just a mock test. The real test will be conducted next week. So I think I better buck up for it by reading through my French coursebook.


Tomorrow is the day everyone loves and hates, as it is IMIND Day, where students from my course ranging from Year 1s to Year 2s to Year 3s participate in all sorts of sports activities just to have a short day of fun. What I do not like about this event is that it is a 3-hour evening event, starting at 5.30pm and ending at 8.30pm. Hopefully this would ease our tension of our assignments. I don't know for sure. But I was just saying this to stay positive. I really would like to relieve myself of the stress I had over the past week.

Well, this is all I can say for now, just hope for the best of relief for tomorrow and that I would be able to make another post soon. Cheers.

My Birthday Gift As Well As Family's

Well, it's been five mundane days since my birthday, and guess what? I have just got the birthday gift I wanted yesterday. It is none other than, the 3G iPhone! I love this birthday gift to me as the latest model is said to be far better than the original iPhone, with better features and more. There is Internet connection, YouTube, downloadable game programs among many others. I love this new gadget as it means a lot to me in that I am able to even surf one of my favourite websites on this iPhone. Though the main trouble that kicks me about the iPhone is that it runs out of battery pretty fast. But that doesn't matter, at least the main thing is that it is such a cool gadget I feel like I would never let go off it and hand it down to anyone else. Although I will still lend it to my friends or family members if they want to play around with it. Getting an iPhone is one of the best birthday gifts I had ever received in my life. :)

And one more thing, another cool thing my dad bought for the family is, the new Guitar Hero: World Tour game! Oh please, I love this game so much I could play it until from duskfall till daybreak! LOL, just kidding. Though the game may not be as easy as it appears, due to the speed at which the notes it is still considered a game to provide entertainment for the entire family. One particular thing I like about Guitar Hero is that playing "Beat It" by Michael Jackson on the drum controller is awesome and fun! Well, though most of the songs in the game's songlist are from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the game is still very entertaining and unforgettable. As said before, the game may not be as easy as it appears, but it requires fast hands and good eye-coordination. This is a game I will never once forget about in my life. :)

Well, this ends all for now, I'll keep this blog more posted soon. In the meantime, take care to all visitors! Hope some of you will get a 3G iPhone, PS3 and Guitar Hero: World Tour game soon! :)

Birthday Outing With My Father And DL Registration

Yesterday was an amazing night for me. I went out at night after school with my dad to Great World City, and as part of my 18th birthday treat, we went to catch Tropic Thunder, the latest film starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey, Jr.. The movie was quite hilarious and filled with lots of crude and sexual humour. The funniest part of the movie was that Robert Downey, Jr. plays an Australian multiple Oscar-winning method actor who plays a black marine sergeant in the movie within the movie. And also Tom Cruise stars as a balding studio exec whose a real foul-mouthed freak.

The movie is basically about a group of actors who were dropped into the middle of a jungle to film a Vietnam war movie, but they end up being forced to become the soldiers whom they are playing. Ben Stiller plays a high-grossing star, Jack Black plays a drug-addicted, flatulence-humour addict and Robert Downey, Jr., as mentioned before, plays an Australian multiple Oscar-winning method actor. The movie was filled with a whole lot of humour which even had the whole cinema filled with uproarious laughter. Tropic Thunder was even a box-office success in the U.S. and from what I heard, the crude jokes in the film can be a little difficult to understand to the point where the punch-lines needed to be explained explicitly. Other than that, I had a great time at Great World with dad.

And oh yes, one more thing, just early in the morning yesterday, I went to a driving school somewhere in Ubi to register for my driving lessons which I will be taking very soon. My dad really wants me to learn how to drive early, because due to the fact that sometime potentially, the driving age may be raised to 21.

Other than that, that's it for the day. Will make another post soon. ;)

Year 1.2 Week 3 Evaluation

It has been a both tough and tiring 3rd week of my 2nd school semester, and now the stress level among my course-mates, classmates and I is more sporadic than ever. We had to take our third step into a whole myriad of assignments and projects, and the workload for the semester is going to be a little more challenging than the previous semester, which is pretty obvious to many who have already since taken their first step into the current world of mostly design-oriented subjects than computer-oriented subjects. This has tremendously and spontaneously exerted a great amount of pressure on me, and I have to admit that I am usually not used to such a thing ever since the period of my O levels last year.


Monday: For CMaths2, we learnt something new in the first topic called exponents and logarithms. I found this initially a little complicated, but eventually, I was able to get the hang of it a little bit. For MMP1, we started on inspiration and had to do what we can for the moment in our sketchbook entry for inspiration. Well, there's absolutely nothing much which I am able to explain for this day.


Tuesday: We took our first step into object-oriented arrays for OOPG lecture, followed by which we had to continue on our Design Exercise 1 for IDES lab lesson. Following which, we finally had our first APEL2 class, where Mr Sankara, our care person, showed us some of our achievements,such as the top 10% people in our class and listened to our responses to this semester's module syllabus.


Wednesday: Today was kind of a little packed for me, I had OOPG lecture and lab lessons, CMSK3 tutorial and CMaths2 tutorial. Well, OOPG lab lessons went well with the subject leader, as our actual lecturer, Joshua Liew, had another class lecture to tend to. But anyway, CMSK3 tutorial took a little bit of a twist when we delved deeper into the tips we need for our report writing assignment.


Thursday: Damn, I arrived 10 minutes late for MMP1 lab lesson thanks to that stupid bus service, well, actually, it was not for the bus service to blame, it was during the peak hour when I was travelling to school.
Anyway, we used the whole lesson to continue our documentation on the field trip which we conducted ourselves the previous week. Next was DTAT, and we had our lecturer review our progress on the first assignment. Though I had the pictures with me in my digital camera, I was advised to do some photoshoping to them to signify their clarities and improve their brightnesses. Following which, I had to do some work to keep myself occupied for 3 hours following the end of the lesson until my French lecture starts. French classes always gets more fun than ever as I progress through the subject.


Friday: Another exciting day for me. I had a French class to attend to. French classes always get more fun than ever as we learnt more about nationalities, as well as occupations and family in the French language. I really enjoy French classes week by week.


Well, the weekend was really quite a rush for me, had a dental appointment to tend to on Saturday morning, then went to my grandmother's house to celebrate my birthday in conjunction with hers. After that, as part of my birthday outing, I went out with my cousins Sufri and Sulhan again to Pasir Ris White Sands mall to play King of Jurassic. Other than that, that was it for the day.


Sunday was a little busy but fun day for me, as I went around my neighbourhood in the evening to take more pictures for my DTAT assignment. Later, that night, for my birthday dinner, I went to this restaurant in Tanah Merah owned by a friend of my father's called Badoque, where they serve very nice Italian cuisine food. I had a fun dinner night with my family at Badoque, though I have to admit I really pity my sister Sarah, for she is unable to join us due to here currently being in the US as part of a school trip. But no worries, we will all see her again when she returns next week. Other than that, I have to be on a wee bit of a rush for my school work, and this is all I have to say for the week.

Barack Obama For President!

"Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?"
-"Lose Yourself" by Eminem

It's been about four years since the previous U.S. presidential election, and now, America has finally waited for another phenomenal moment. The 2008 U.S. presidential election polls are now over and competing rivals Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have had their long waits paid off by now. It's been about a year or two since both presidential hopefuls have competed in their campaigns for presidency, and now the time has come, for one of them have seized the golden opportunity right before his very eyes. The winner of the presidential election is, obviously, and expectedly, Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois!

I am extremely glad to the fullest that Obama is the winner of the election and has been elected as the next president of the United States after George W. Bush. He won the 2008 U.S. presidential elections by a margin, achieving 52.9% of the votes while rival John McCain achieved 45.7% of the votes. Barack Obama is labeled by many Americans as the next Martin Luther King Jr., the 1960s Civil Rights politician who died of an assassination back in 1968. Obama's ideas for a better America has spontaneously boosted the morale of America and he has officially nailed his name into the pages of the books of American history by being America's first elected African-American president. Obama's charisma, ideas and family background has really drived many Americans into electing him for the next president of the United States. Additionally, his running mate during the election period, Joe Biden(below right), the Delaware senator, has also made it into the White House as the vice-president of the United States, after Dick Cheney. Obama is to me, just the right man for the White House, and there are reasons why I have supported him.

Why I have long supported Obama in the elections is mainly because of his aims. In his campaigns, he strongly addresses vital issues such as education, welfare, health care, energy independence increase and most importantly, the end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he came to the discussion over these affairs, he would address these issues by pointing out what needs to be set on the road straight. His aims for a better America really boosted the morale of the American people and increased the frequency of America's diplomatic relations with other counties. Additionally, I also support him because of his background. Though he was brought up in a poor family and neighbourhood, and was sent to be educated in Indonesia during his childhood and teenage years, he had a remarkably high educational qualification, most notably his Ivy League education. He started off as the poor son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, but grew to become one of the most highly recognised people in the world by achieving an Ivy League education and political career. His international appeal was also what spurred me to support him in the elections. A survey conducted showed that 22 countries preferred him to winning the elections ahead of John McCain, 17 out of which expressed that diplomatic ties with America and the rest of the world would improve. Besides, Obama's image as the hopefully first black American president had earned him the reputation of hopefully being able to change America's racial issues for the better. I have really adored supporting Barack Obama in the presidential elections.











For all those McCain supporters who have thought that Arizona Senator John McCain had won the elections, I only have one thing to say: WAKE UP. Face it, it's a fact that he has lost to Obama in the bid for presidency. Reason being why I did not support him during the elections period is because I feel that McCain, as a Republican, would become the next George W. Bush. A warmongering Texan whose aim is only to start wars and have thousands of Americans, as well as innocents, killed. John McCain has been quoted to be agreeing with Bush's ideas 90% of the time. The Republicans initially were a competent political party, but now to me, they are like a political party consisting of warmongers, and that is all thanks to the reputation of George Bush. How I wished Al Gore had beated Bush back in the 2000 elections, then probably all of this mess would not have happened. Besides, Al Gore is not just a politician, but an environmentalist as well. Besides, at 72 years old, I think that McCain is far too old to be president, though I have to admit, like Obama, he'll also make history if he wins; he'll be the oldest elected president at the age of 72, beating Ronald Reagan who was elected into the White House at 69 years old in 1981. And who knows what could be the possible consequence if McCain dies while in office due to old age? Running mate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin would have to replace him. And the worst part of it is, I think that if Sarah Palin takes over, America's morale would degrade much further into its abode of darkness. Why I think so? Because she is rash, naive and inexperienced. She says things without even thinking, which is obviously quite ridiculous. Therefore, Obama is the better man for the job as he even has backing from not just his running mate Joe Biden, but his Democratic companion, Hillary Clinton, the wife of former president Bill Clinton.

Well, all's been said, I have hopes that Obama would be able to change America's image for the better and that he would introduce his planned policies over issues, such as increase in energy independence, greater racial harmony, civil rights, and most probably, and end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan by pulling out US troops out of those two countries, and probably lose the idea of searching for the man Bush has been hunting, Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organisation, Al-Qaeda. Additionally, I am definitely sure that with Obama as the president of the United States, America's diplomatic ties with the rest of the world would spontaneously improve and that the world could prove to be a better place with Obama.

Congratulations, Obama. You have won the elections, you are sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and now, it's the time for you to make America proud and change her image for the better. You will be officially inaugurated into presidency on January 20th, 2009. :)

Sorry, McCain, you're just not the right guy for the White House. *raspberries*

Outing with my cousins Sufri and Sulhan

Sorry if I'm publishing a post with the same title again, but actually it was because I accidentally hit the enter key after I keyed in the previous post's title. But anyway, let me start off with what I have to say for this post.

It was a wonderful evening yesterday which I get to spend with my two cousins Sufri and Sulhan yesterday. Sufri and I finally managed to retrieve the King of Jurassic game dinosaur cards we wanted from Japan through ordering and purchasing via the official website. We retrieved those cards from this Japanese manga shop at East Point in Simei. Anyway, following that we went to Pasir Ris White Sands mall to test the new cards, and to our surprise, the cards actually did work! We were initially sceptical that the cards would work because they were the game's Version 4 cards, but to our discovery, they actually were functioning just right! Anyway, we had a lot of fun playing the game King of Jurassic with both our old and new dinosaur cards, as we eventually were so delighted in achieving some of the new dinosaur cards which we have wanted for so long already. The following are the new cards which I have retrieved from Sufri yesterday.

Additionally, there was also a Triceratops card which Sufri gave me as my first 1000 HP dinosaur card. But it was not an order from him, instead he gave it to me as a generous offer as I have not until now achieved a 1000 HP dinosaur card. Thanks man, Sufri. You're such a good guy. But how bad of you, Sufri, to just show off your dinosaur cards just like that in front of me, Sulhan and the other people at the arcade. LOL, just kidding, man. You and Sulhan are among the best cousins I ever had. :)

Anyway, just after Sufri, Sulhan and I finished our game, at around 8pm or so, we three went to Tampines mall to have dinner at food court. We initially wanted to have dinner at a fast food joint like McDonalds or Burger King, but since Sufri still has his mouth problems, due to a surgery for his cleft palate last month, we had to eat at food court instead. While Sulhan and I had chicken rice, Sufri had noodles instead. Following dinner, the three of us then went home.

Thanks man Sufri, for organising this outing. This is your final time to enjoy with us before you head off for your ITE exams. I understand that this period's gonna be a real stressful one for you, but just pray hard and study hard and regularly and I hope for all the best out of your exams. Hope to have this outing again in December and other than that, I'll see you around. Take care and peace out, bro! I really look forward to seeing you again :)

P.S.:One more thing Sufri, hope you will graduate from ITE as soon as possible with good results, so get over with this exam fast.

Year 1.2 Week 2 Evaluation

It's been a couple of weeks of school, and this time, the stress really does not rise in frequency any further compared to last week, where a nightmare precipitated right before my eyes, in which I was briefed on a whole lot of assignments and projects here, there and everywhere. I really have no idea why and how this happened, really. Maybe it's that I kept myself occupied by doing stuff in a relaxed way. Maybe it's the fluctuation of the pressures of school life. Maybe it's just the way that I'm keeping calm over such things. Well, I just simply don't know. All I know is that all of a sudden, I feel more relaxed and cool as a cucumber. Well, the good thing about this week is, I get a day off from school on Monday as it was Deepavali which is a public holiday. That, at least I think so to a certain extent, was what sparked a sudden lift of relief in me. Anyway, this was a rough evaluation of what was happening with me during the week:


Monday: As it was a public holiday, there was no school for me, and thus, I received a day off from school. I went for breakfast at Delifrance at Parkway Parade with my family, followed by which we went to walk around and shop for stuff here and there. It was rather a short day there as we just went home after purchasing necessary home supplies. Other than that, there's nothing else interesting for the day which I can explain.


Tuesday: As usual, we had OOPG lecture from 9am to 10am, IDES lab lesson from 10am to 1pm and CMaths2 lecture from 3pm to 4pm. Once again, we had no APEL2 class due to our care person being overseas. OOPG lecture was quite alright, we learnt a new topic called Classes, where we went through the basic stuff here and there. For IDES lab lesson, we had to continue with our Design Exercise 1 and we were briefed on our Design Exercise 2, and we could consult our lecturer for more tips on how to improve our work quality. For CMaths2 lecture, we continued our learning of Functions & Graphs.


Wednesday: We had OOPG lecture from 9am to 10am, CMSK3 tutorial from 11am to 1pm, CMaths2 tutorial from 2pm to 3pm and OOPG lab lesson from 3pm to 5pm. As the day before, we continued learning Classes for OOPG lecture. It really was quite crappy that we could not hold our CMSK3 class in the library as stated in OLE, but at least we had a back-up by holding the lesson in our old PRSP lab. In this CMSK3 lesson, we learnt how to do research for our project through the school's library system. I think it was quite interesting that we learn this as we get our research from other sources other than Google and Yahoo. Well, CMaths tutorial was, what more can I say, quite alright. I realised that our CMaths2 lecturer is still Mrs Kwong-Tang Iman, our CMaths1 lecturer in Semester 1. But she's quite alright, I can give her that. Anyway, for OOPG lesson, we started tutorials on programming using classes, which was what we learnt during our lectures. The pace of the lesson really was quite basic to me and I could learn better due to the pace being much slower than PRSP the previous semester.


Thursday: The shortest day of lessons which I had this week. I came to school just only for a briefing on DTAT assignments, which was like only for half and hour. Following that, I followed a few of my classmates to Pasir Ris Park to take some photographs for our DTAT assignment, which took us about 3 hours to get as much photographs as we can. Thereafter, we separated and while my classmates went home, I made a trip back to school for my French CDS lecture from 6pm to about 6.45pm. The lecture was awesome, we learn more about the language which would be encompassed in our tutorial the following week.


Friday: Another fun day has come for the week. I attended my French CDS tutorial this morning, and what more can I say, another day of fun has arrived. In this tutorial, we tried to recall what we did for last week's tutorial,such as greetings and thank yous etc., but this week, we were taken to the next level where we learnt how to say various nationalities in French as well as how to count numbers in French. This was quite exciting, as the lesson was made interesting where we played a game of hangman in French. :) French classes really just lifts my mood over stress whenever I experience it during school weeks.


Following that, I went home for a while and proceeded for my Friday prayers. After my Friday prayers, I went to the Asian Civilisations Museum at Raffles Place to take some pictures for my MMP1 field trip, which are to be reviewed on next week. The crappy thing about the trip is, while I was navigating through the galleries at one point, my digital camera's battery went flat, and as a result, I had to wait in between taking photos by letting the battery rest so that the battery can charge up again. But good thing is, I managed to take quite a lot of pictures, as well as collect brochures, pamphlets and my entry ticket which are essential to our field trip necessities. Following that, I went home to get ready for dinner out with my family at Shenton Way.


So far, this week was not such a very tough week for me compared to last week where I was scared almost to death over the whole barrage of assignments I was given to do.

Year 1.2 Week 1 Evaluation

It's been a whole new week of school, and I have to admit, life now in school is not getting any easier. The workload for this semester is a completely heavy burden and seeing the whole load of assigments and projects I have to commit to just simply bulges my cheeks out, shoots my eyes out of their sockets and makes me just want to really regurgitate my guts out. I really can't imagine my class and I having to commit to this much workload compared to the previous semester and I am so completely under surreal stress. The following is the evaluation of the 5 school days I went through:

Monday: I had an hour of Computing Mathematics 2(CMaths2) lecture and 2 hours of Multimedia Project 1(MMP1) lab lesson . For CMaths2 lecture, we were introduced to the fundamentals of functions and graphs, while for MMP1 lab lesson, we were introduced to Zoho, a system in the form of an online journal of sorts where we had to record in our Zoho notebooks over what is design all about, and we had to select a topic out of 6 for our research proposal and project. This was the least stressful day of the week I had.

Tuesday: I had an hour of Object-Oriented Programming(OOPG) lecture, 3 hours of Interface Design(IDES) lab lesson and an hour of CMaths2 lecture. There was no Applied Principles for Effective Learning 2(APEL2) class for today this week. For OOPG lecture, we underwent revision for what we have learnt in Problem Solving and Programming(PRSP) the previous semester. For IDES lab lesson, we were introduced to our first sketching-based lesson, where we went to the library to borrow a book that relates to IDES and we have to read through it and in the following lesson we are to explain what the book is all about. Additionally, we are also given our first design exercise. For CMaths2 lecture, we continued on the fundamentals of functions & graphs. This day is when the stress level starts to rise.



Wednesday: I had an hour of OOPG lecture, 2 hours of Information Literacy for Effective Communication(CMSK3) tutorial and 2 hours of OOPG lab lesson. For OOPG lecture, we continued PRSP revision and were introduced to a new programming topic called classes. For CMSK3 tutorial, we were given a few handouts about information sources and we were also briefed on a report writing assignment we are to submit in around the 14th week. For OOPG lab lesson, we once again did revision on PRSP and we were given some lab tutorial questions to attempt. This is when my stress level rises to the upper middle range.



Thursday: The most stressful of this week's school days. I had 2 hours of MMP1 lab lesson, 3 hours of Digital Tools and Techniques(DTAT) lab lesson and an hour of Introduction to French language and culture(French) lecture. For MMP1 lab lesson, we watched a small video clip called Better by Design, about a group of aviation engineers and professionals conjuring several suitable designs for the seat of aeroplanes, followed by which we were to record another entry in our Zoho notebooks which encompasses what we have learnt from the video. Our first DTAT lesson was the lesson of the week which gave us quite a scare. We were imposed with so many strict rules such as the prohibition of using MSN and playing games during the lab lesson, which made me dislike our DTAT lecturer. The worst part is, we are to do a couple of painfully arduous assignments, which makes my guts really spill out and not want to elaborate what they are about. Since it was our first lesson, we were dismissed early at around 1.30pm, following which I had to wait for 4 and half hours for my French lecture to start. In that meantime, I just sit around in the PC lab surfing the Internet for a while just to reduce my boredom, and talk to friends just before heading for French lecture, which ended at around 6.45pm. The French lecture was awesome, it seemed like an interesting language to learn and the lecturer was really very willing to help us. The interesting pace of the French lecture really caused a decline in my stress.



Friday: The most fun day of the week. I had only 2 hours of French tutorial in the morning, where we learnt the basics of French such as greetings and informal conversation aspects. I really find this CDS a very interesting one as I get to learn another foreign language and its culture. I even had the opportunity to make new friends from other courses and get to know them better. Having this lesson just really boosts my morale as laughter and happiness filled up the tutorial room with the students enjoying practising the language and how to pronounce certain French words. This was by far, the best day of the week.



Following my CDS class and after my prayers, I went to Orchard Cineleisure to watch the based-on-video-game movie Max Payne. It was quite an awesomely action-packed movie, with a lot of gunfights and violence but lacked in terms of storyline significance. Other than that, the movie was quite alright. Following which, I went to walk around Orchard just to try to erase my boredom for a little bit.



So far, all in all, this week has been stressful for a first week though Friday was the best day I had of the week, as I have only lessons for my CDS, a fun and extremely interesting one. I am really looking forward to the class next Friday. :)

2008 Formula One Season:Chinese GP Report

The expression on Lewis Hamilton's face seemed like nothing more than a "jump-the couch" one as he has done it again. In a race that had the drivers speed their cars circuit-round, the 23-year-old Briton clinched his fifth Grand Prix victory of the season, tying with rival Ferrari driver Felipe Massa in terms of the number of this season's victories. The Brazilian came in second in this race while his fellow Finnish Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen clinched third place. Both Ferrari drivers rejoiced as they have pulled up their constructors' points up to 156 points, 11 more than that of McClaren's. Hamilton's team-mate Heikki Kovalainen suffered a misfortune which had his brakes malfunction and himself out of the remainder of the race. Spanish Renault driver Fernando Alonso finished the race in fourth, with the two BMWs finishing behind him, with Nick Heidfeld in fifth and Robert Kubica in sixth. Toyota driver Timo Glock finished seventh and Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Vettel finished eighth.

What was quite ironic about the race was that towards its end, when Raikkonen was just right in front of Massa, he slowed down, giving Massa the opportunity to overtake him and earn an extra two championship points, thus making Massa finish in second place. Another irony to be pointed out is that early in the race, Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Bourdais and Toyota driver Jarno Trulli collided and Trulli's car was damaged beyond repair, whereas Bourdais was able to continue the race.

With just one more circuit to go in Brazil, and with Hamilton and Massa just 7 points apart from each other, the final Grand Prix of the season is going to be an all-out race in a bid for the driver's championship title as well as constructor's championship title.

To end this, I wish for all the best for the drivers in the final Grand Prix race of the season and may the best driver and constructor win. God bless. :)

IMI End-Of-Semester Briefing

I had to attend school today for the sole purpose of attending the IMI end-of-semester briefing, where we had a recap of what we had done in the previous semester as well as what we will be doing for the current semester. This semester is going to be a really packed semester as we will be taking on a new set of subjects, including our cross-disciplinary subjects or CDSes. We have to bag a total of 23 credit units for this semester, 3 out of which comprises our cross-disciplinary subjects. If this happens, we will rack up a total of 44 credit units, including those we earned from the previous semester. The good thing about our CDS is if we excel in it, our GPA would be pulled up. The bad thing about our CDS is if we flunk in it, we would have to either retake it or switch to another CDS, which really sucks :( . I would not like to see that happen to myself or anyone else. Another good thing about a CDS is, we get to befriend students from other courses, which I would very much like to do so that I would get to know more about them.

Following the briefing, we were introduced to this guy named Shaun, a Year 3 IMI student who had garnered himself an internship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) in the US. He presented to us some photographs which were taken of him during his trip there, in American cities like Boston, Harlem, Chicago and among others, as well as universities like Harvard University and MIT as well. His experience there appeared to be really quite an exciting one as we see Shaun enjoying himself there. It was pretty amazing to see him actually achieving an internship there, and though it seems he may be having a tough time there, its good to hear him actually enjoying himself there. It would be really fun to be gaining an internship in an overseas country as we would get to know the system there as well as increase our social awareness.

The core modules that we will be taking for the current semester are:

APEL2(Applied Principles for Effective Learning 2)
CMSK3(Information Literacy For Effective Communication)
CMATHS2(Computing Mathematics 2)
OOPG(Object-Oriented Programming)
DTAT(Digital Tools And Techniques)
IDES(Interface Design)
MMP1(Multimedia Project 1)

The cross-disciplinary subject(CDS) I will be taking is:

French(Introduction to French Language & Culture)

What I really can't believe about my new timetable is that from Tuesday to Friday my classes would begin at 9am, with the exception of Monday where my classes start at 3pm. Seems like I am going to have to sleep late and wake up early again like I did during the school days. It seems that I am going to need all the help I can get as well as hard work that I can put in, as this is going to be a wee bit of a challenging semester for me. So I hope for all the best that I can do for this semester and pray hard that I can do better for it.

And one more thing, by the way, today's IT concourse was really packed with a lot of October intake freshies appearing to be having fun with some of the OLs from not just IMI, but the rest of IT school. It's a good sight to see them having fun together and getting to know each other, I really appreciate that. I was actually offered to be an OL for the October intake camp, but I turned it down for undisclosed reasons. But it was a good experience to see the OLs and October intake freshies really having fun with each other :) .

Other than that, this is where my story ends for today, wish for all the best for myself for the current semester.

Outing with my cousin Sufri

Whoo! This was my brilliant outing with Sufri on Sunday. Guess what we did? We went to Pasir Ris White Sands to play King of Jurassic!

I know what some of you visitors may be thinking; it's just an average, ordinary childish game of scissors, paper, stone right? Well, we do this not for our entertainment, but for collecting the cards. Yea man, we both are so IN to collecting these dino cards, and we are hoping to get some of the new ones, LOL.

--> These pics above are of my cousin Sufri. He's thinking, thinking deeply on how to play the game. LOL, okay, probably a bit out of point. Nah just kidding, LMAO, he's just enjoying the spectacle of the gameplay.

See this guy in both pictures? Yeap, it's me, enjoying the game while I can! LOL, can't believe this game is really fun for the both of us!

--> See these pictures? These pics show some of the power moves which we made in the game. Cool huh? This way we get to bust our opponents up like hell! Hahaha!

--> These two pictures on the left are our T-Rex and Triceratops defeats :( . Ironic they get defeated sometimes even though they each have a HP of 1000, but sometimes things happen that we just can't change. Besides, we still have fun playing this game :) .

Well, both my cousin and I have rejoiced over victories but calm ourselves over defeats, but still, the main thing in playing this game is, we both had FUN! I really hope that we can play this game again sometime soon, but for now, my cousin has to complete his NITEC and it would be a hard time for him. So in the meantime, I should let him focus on his studies.

Interestingly, he has found a way to get the game's Version 4 cards we want. We could order them from Yahoo auctions, but at a very high cost. Just hope that we both would get the cards we want soon and that we both would not be scammed or something.

That time was a brilliant outing for both of us and we hope there would be more to come soon.

2008 Formula One Season:Japanese Grand Prix report

"We are the champions, my friends

And we'll keep on fighting 'till the end

We are the champions, we are the champions

No time for losers, because we are the champions

Of the world"

-"We are the Champions" by Queen

The look on F1 Renault driver and two-times world champion Fernando Alonso's face seemed like nothing more than a merely glorious and cheerful one as he has done it again. The handsome, witty Spaniard has scored a triumphant victory in a Grand Prix for the current season for a second time in a row, the previous one being the most recent Singapore Grand Prix Night Race two weeks ago. The 27-year-old Spaniard admitted to have been completely surprised upon claiming his second consecutive Grand Prix victory in such an incident-packed race. He loved the experience of being able to score back-to-back victories for the team and it really gave him the chance to rise into prominence once again after having clinched the driver's championship title in 2005 and 2006.

While the rest of the championship protagonists were cleaning their wounds all throughout a day of pitstops, collisions and penalties, the Spaniard sped his Renault home through the circuit, just merely two weeks after clinching Singapore for his 21st career prize. Alonso took advantage of rivals British McClaren driver Lewis Hamilton's and Brazilian Ferrari driver Felipe Massa's bad day by finishing just approximately 5 seconds ahead of Polish BMW driver Robert Kubica, with defending driver's champion, the Finnish Kimi Raikkonen finishing third for Ferrari.

Completing the race in fourth was Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr. of Renault, fifth was Italian Jarno Trulli of Toyota and sixth was German Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. Vettel's French team-mate Sebastien Bourdais technically finished sixth, but was demoted to tenth place after receiving a drive-through penalty for the incident with Massa, who technically finished eighth but promoted to seventh by virtue of Bourdais' drive-through penalty. Bourdais' drive-through penalty was due to him accidentally colliding with Massa while making a pit-stop exit, whereas Hamilton's was due to him outbraking, causing Raikkonen and fellow McClaren team-mate Hekki Kovalainen to spiral into spins. These drive-through penalty incidents marked another consecutive disastrous race after the Singapore GP Night Race held a couple of weeks ago.

Despite Massa's claims that the incident involving him and Hamilton which earned Massa a drive-through penalty was Massa's innocence, the situation which involved both drivers is still being investigated at the moment. Despite the race being a hellish one for Hamilton, he still leads in the drivers' championship with 84 points, just 5 points ahead of Massa. With two more races left to go, in Japan and Brazil, there would still be enough time for Massa to catch up with Hamilton. The results are as shown below:

Results

1. Fernando Alonso(Renault) 11. Nico Rosberg(Williams-Toyota)

2. Robert Kubica(BMW Sauber) 12. Lewis Hamilton(McClaren-Mercedes)

3. Kimi Raikkonen(Ferrari) 13. Rubens Barrichello(Honda)

4. Nelson Piquet Jr.(Renault) 14. Jenson Button(Honda)

5. Jarno Trulli(Toyota) 15. Kazuki Nakajima(Williams-Toyota)

6. Sebastian Vettel(Toro-Rosso Ferrari)

7. Felipe Massa(Ferrari)

8. Mark Webber(Red-Bull Renault)

9. Nick Heidfeld(BMW Sauber)

10. Sebastien Bourdais(Toro-Rosso Ferrari)

Drivers Who Did Not Finish

Giancarlo Fisichella(Force-India Ferrari)

Heikki Kovalainen(McClaren Mercedes)

Adrian Sutil(Force-India Ferrari)

Timo Glock(Toyota)

David Coulthard(Red-Bull Renault)

For more information on the full report of the Japanese Grand Prix, feel free to look up on any search engine for information on the race. Other than that, this is where my report ends. :)

P.S.: Best of luck for all the drivers on the remaining two circuits in China and Brazil. :) Hope that Massa catches up with Hamilton.