My Turkey trip

Happy New Year!

I know i’m late. Late in posting Turkey’s photo as well. Late in posting my New Year celebration photos as well. And i’m bloody late for my POE mugging + SIP report.

Plus there is NS medical for me tomorrow .

Hello from Turkey

Me on the car ferry

The ferry! First time being on a car… or bus ferry

Blue Mosque

Posting from Turkey, some part of Turkey that is, I don’t really know which part i’m in.

In the last 3 days I spent close to like 12 hours in travelling on bus, and I will be spending another 3 hours in the bus tomorrow and 10 hours the day after. It’s lots of traveling!

I’ll be home on the 26th!

Istanbul

In just a few hours time, I will be in the airport, and then another few more hours and I’ll be at my destination – Istanbul. Ok not really few hours, a freaking 14 hours of torture in the plane… including 1 hour of layover at Dubai the bankrupt country to probably pump some shit out, put some fuel in, swap passengers and stuff.

I pray it doesn’t rain and have some snow please! Check my Twitter, I’ll try to steal some internet there to post some updates, otherwise through the expensive SMS way.

Pre-departure stress

Holidays, I hate them before I depart and I love them the moment I step into the country. That’s when all the troubles are behind me. Never finish my SIP report? Nevermind, come back then do. But just 4 days to departure i’m giving myself a very tight schedule for all my projects, research and reports which I believe that 4 days is enough. But it may or may not be, that’s why i’m having some stupid pre-departure stress.

Adding to that is the thought of my NS medical checkup which happens on the same day as my class test, which falls at 6:15pm, while my medical is in the morning. The timing seems alright, just that I may have to rush a little since the medical checkup will take some time (approx 6 hours?).

Got to write myself a checklist of things to pack before departing on Thursday night!

I hope there’s internet in all the hotels. I’m bringing my lappy. And I really want to sit the hotair balloon! Even though it’s not summer, I hope winter’s view will just be as nice.

Geek porn

After researching online for a camera to get for my trip to Turkey, and due to the overwhelming support for Panasonic LX3, which I believe is definitely the right choice (so far it’s a brilliant cam to me), I got it today from “MS Color” at AMK. I just want a smalllll camera with a wide-enough-angle lens (LX3 is 24mm btw) to take the scenery. Best of all of this camera is that there is a hotshoe (to add external flash) and ability to addon an adapter for wide-angle, telephoto or macro lens !

Even though I’m departing next week, I’m still having my cough and I just went to the doctor just now to get antibiotics due to my infected lungs or something green phlegm. Hopefully it will be cured by then.

And i’m damn pissed off. My graphics card has been giving me problems lately when I play Dirt 2, having 2 rows of small square boxes. Probably due to the card having some problems sad sad day. I hate it when my desktop gives me problem, I have to like troubleshoot it so much!! So I ran 3dmark vantage (which ran fine previously) and it gave me the same problem as well =\. To double and triple confirm it’s not a driver conflict issue or some sort I reformatted the com but still no use!

Oh well I think I shall just roll on to my bed and not think about the stupid computer.

Sick sick

School has started and i’m still sick. Went to see the doctor before going to school, went for one lecture and it was bad enough so I decided to head home. Felt really really drowsy.

On the bright side, just 2 weeks or more and i’m off to Istanbul, how interesting!

Internship end, Don’s birthday and fever

Internship has ended after 3 months, 12 weeks seem to have past so quickly. The company there was great (as in, colleagues). I will definitely miss them. Thanks to my bosses for passing me with commendation!

On my last day we went to celebrate our (the interns) departure at pump room, dancing drinking tequila shots. Went home, didn’t drink enough water before going to bed and was like seriously dehydrated the next morning. Throat extremely dry and went out to celebrate Don’s birthday, developed a fever halfway.

Oh! We ate Oscar’s at Conrad, the buffet was great… food was good and so was the price. About $50 per pax? But it was free to me thanks to Don! Got him a topman bag + 2 shoes shared between Eugene and me.

Then from Conrad we went to Cine for kbox which didn’t help my sorethroat, and then proceeded on to Siglap for dinner then Changi Airport and then East Coast Park.

By the time I was home my fever has already developed to a terrible one. Ate panadols and drank a lot a lot of water. Each time I wake up in the middle of the night I will drink 500ml of water .

Zoo with the old folks

Went with my company to the Zoo today to accompany the old folks from SARAH there. With my little or absolute no knowledge of any dialect, I managed to squeeze out some mandarin juice in other to try communicating with them.

Woke up at normal going-to-work time, got changed, fetched Jasmine (other intern) and Crystal (a mother of 2) from Serangoon area. Went to the Zoo, ate breakfast, picked the old folks up, walked to the tram station, took the boat, then walked to the elephants of asia show and end.

Oh wait, I only took the tram once. The rest of the remaining time was spent chasing the tram behind with like 7 litres of water on my back. Yes, I mean literally chasing. Because there weren’t any seats left on the tram, so we just sent the old folks up and then yup, ran behind. Sweating like mad but we were laughing like hell while running. People must be thinking we are mad!

Going back, I drove back to Bukit Merah together with them (the rest took the coach bus) and ate the catered food there. Then continued on to Tiong Bahru plaza for some walking and buying of stuffs before fetching Jasmine to her new house, which I then went in to have a look! Nice house.

Now i’m in my room, extremely tired from all the running. It’s 7:43pm and my family still isn’t prepared to go for dinner. Will post the photo next time!

New toy to play with

After considering the iMac, I decided not to get it and got a desktop PC instead, since I decided I couldn’t bear to leave my beloved Windows 7 for Snow Leopard, and even if I could boot camp, it just isn’t worth getting the imac for aesthetic purpose only, after all it will go out of fashion some day and turn into some ugly piece of aluminium on my desk.

So, I got my PC from www.googoo.com.sg, the lazy man’s website.  A little pricier than SLS, but then again i’m lazy. The service has been excellent. I randomly configured the system and the sales guy has been very helpful. When my Belkin wireless N USB adapter couldn’t work, I sent them an email and they responded politely with their solution and offered to come down to my place to exchange the usb adapter. The timeline:

Placed my order on Friday at around 10am > Confirmation just an hour later or so, with a long email telling me what I chose was not compatible/recommended, made changes etc > Confirmation of delivery date which is on Tuesday 3pm > Made additional changes > Com delivered on Tuesday

So far so good, playing games on all max settings, first time! However my desk isn’t that nice now because there is a big black box with wires. Sooo yeah, a trade off with the iMac.