My IELTS result is out!

Hey, my IELTS result is out. Guess what? I managed to get an average above 7.0 band score! This means I have cleared the 1st hurdle on my dream of studying in Oz land. Whoopppi...

Despites having not enough time in my writing test, I thought that I'm gone case for this one. Well, it turned out well instead, but, as expected, I have got the lowest band score for this test. Part 1 was about how much time men and women spent doing house chores. Part 2 on is it better for teenagers (err...students?) to focus on specific subjects in school or read all the subjects. My conclusion: Teenagers should not just focus on specific subjects, because they may be too young or immature to discern; having said that, it's also insular to assume a single school system fits all, it should be flexible enough to 'adjust' and enable students to cultivate their specific interests (subjects) and capabilities in the later part of their school's life.

The speaking test was also one tough fight, I was asked questions about, as usual, part 1: my name, whether I'm working or studying, what do you do when your friend visit you?...Part 2: which famous person I want to meet? well, I said Charles Darwin (surprised??!) and talk abit about his evolution theory (that's all in less than 2mins, hehe!). Then, the 'thinking' question: why younger people these days are not interested in politics?... I think I said it's not that young people are not interested, but, is that they are just reading and looking at it on the superficial level; anyway, without a conductive environment for political discussion, education and interests, people will not drill in-depth into politics.

IELTS results on-hold

I received an email from IDP Australia that my IELS results are being on-hold for release, it said that they are doing some kind of quality checking. I think maybe my results for the 4 tests differ in margin, i.e. some highs, some lows, so they have to do a more thorough check again to make sure the scores are right.

Well, anyway, it's stated in the information guide that they can withheld anybody's results and do checks.

Ok, we shall see then...

IELTS Essay 2

In the era of the 21st century, environmental problems such as water pollution, air pollution and global warming are essential issues that need to be tackled.

In recent years, one typical issue has been actively discussed on is the effects of the harmful gases emitted into the atmosphere. According to some scientific researches, gases such as Carbon Dioxide released in the air has substantially contributed to global warming and severe air pollution issues in many cities. The fact is, gases emitted in the air do not only linger around the countries or cities that they originated.

Developing countries where there are intensive industrialisation and coal burning power plants are usually to be blamed for such pollution cases. A good example is in Hong Kong, where its air quality has been affected by southern China's manufacturing activities exhaling inimical gases in the atmosphere. As a result, citizens’ health are affected, and businesses activities (e.g. retail) are impacted too, as people would be less likely to wander out of their offices and homes, or even to a point where business people suspend travel to the city.

In conclusion, a number of environmental problems now affect our entire planet. As globalization persists, initial domestic environmental problems expanded into international issues, they remain huge challenges to be managed by individual persons or countries alone. Rather, there should be a concerted effort of the world communities and governments to address these issues before they get out of hand, or as some environmentalists say it: reach a point of no return.

Gal like that is nice!

If you ever meet a gal with pale white, blemish free skin; did see any wrinkles on her face; with no makeup; just like the one I saw today; she makes your day.

This gal I met at a clinic is a doctor from Indonesia.. She looks about 25 or 26, I think. Not sure whether she is married. With a soft spoken voice, demure and having the kind of mother caring look; guys will like her! She is nice, really nice. I wish I could see her again...

Next 2 months

I have a couple of things to do for the next 2 months. First of all, need to get myself ready for the IELTS, most likely going to take it some time in mid of May. I have been given the deadline of June to get my test done.

I have also started on my Marathon preparation, plan to run at least 2x a week, each of 10-15Km. The race is due in 30May, and it's a after midnight run. Then, as part of my weight and muscle gaining plan, I have to do 100x of push-ups every morning and evening, Monday to Friday.

Oh, not to forget, I'm also planning for a trip overseas, maybe Europe, Japan or Oz land. Recently, there has been the Swine Flu outbreaks in America and Europe, so, some of the places I wanted to go, but can't, like Vienna and Swiss, I heard there are cases.

Whoooh...it's good to start planning, at least, you got the motivation and directions to follow, so that you won't feel lost in life.

At the airport

My flight to KL is tomorrow at 7.20am, so why do you think I am at the airport now? Well, I am afraid there is no transport here in the early morning, so...

There are a lot of people here, and I am lucky that I can hook up to the free wireless internet using my HTC TC smart phone. Not bad, connection speed is pretty fast. I have done checking my facebook and work email. Oh gosh, for heaven's sake, forget about work for now!

Going to KL

On Thursday, I will be flying to KL to meet up with my friend whom I known and have not met for 15 years. It's a good time for me to get away from my stressful work, and get some R&R. I only told some of my senior colleagues about my leaves, but didn't tell them where I'm going. For the rest of the team people, take care man...

The flight ticket I got was not expensive, via JetStar, cost less than $90, a no frills budget flight. The one thing I wanted to see, is the Petronas Tower, other than that, it's really up to my friend to bring me around.

Actually, I was intending to make a trip to South Africa with another friend in May'09, but it may cost heaps. So, I thought of going on a short trip first, then save enough for a further one, perhaps, fly-cruise trip to Alaska and Canada in August?

Fancl TenseUp Ex

My cousin recommended a supplement drink for me, it's meant to be taken daily for improving the skin. It contains HTC (High tripeptide-containing) collagen, which is said to be better than normal collagen found in food, absorption rates by the skin for HTC collagen is more rapid.

The drink tastes like fruit juice, a bit sour, yes, it has fruit juice added. I have been drinking the drink for the last 14 days, I do noticed that my skin, especially, the face looks more firm, brighter, less sagging and smoother. The other thing I noticed is that some of my acne scars seem to appear less obvious.

However, I didn't see much improvement in minimising of pores, maybe this product is not meant for this purpose. I have large pores, that's why my face always appear oily. But nevertheless, the improvement is great, I like it! The only thing is, it's kinda of expensive, for 10 bottles a box, it costs about 60plus.

I lost something

Yes, I lost something. My faithful, life-time warranty Kingston's thumb drive is missing. Just can't recall where did I lose it, not at Operations, not at the servers, can't find it in office, and not even at home. Where is my thumb drive? I feel so sad, because it's a special gift from someone special.

I also lost a tube of my Aloe BB cream that I bought from a recent trip to South Korea, I had only used it for a couple of times, one day, it's just gone, gone, gone...Gee, again, I have searched everywhere, just couldn't find it!

I have never lose something that I can't recall where I could have lost it, impossible things happened!

Murphy's Law

I had a bad day yesterday, things just ain't doing right. Users encountered slowness accessing two of the web systems maintained by our team. One was hosted on Mainframe, the other on Unix and Windows. I was bombarded with phone calls from users, SA, boss, management, etc.

The application running on the Mainframe was obviously not designed to take the load, more CPU MIPS were added, but, it didn't help much. There was simply too may users trying to access the system.

The other one, well, we found that it was due to some DB settings, which set the DB in batch mode during online hours, it slowed system access. One of the application batch scripts was supposed to change the DB settings (e.g. keep buffer) to online mode, but didn't.

The worst things, one of my SA was not at the DC, another one, on 3 weeks leaves (sigh...one more week to go). The other DBA, NE and SA were not familiar with the batch and middleware support. There's gap in the knowledge transfer somewhere, this has to change.

IELTS

You know what is IELTS? It's short for International English Language Test System. An international English test for people who would take if they want to migrate to countries like UK and Australia, or for academic study.

Usually for undergraduate studies, you will need to score at least a 6 out of 9, i think, for post graduate is 6.5. The test comprises of listening, reading, writing and speaking, if you think it's easy, think again. I have got a friend who used to studied in UK, he scored a 5.5 average, well, still good enough for him to migrate to Australia. He's a DBA, and this skillset is in high demand in Oz land.

I'm going for the test too, need to score at least 6.5 for my MSc program by June. I think this is going to be tough, most probably an uphill task.

She goes on holiday

I think she flew off to Melbourne yesterday's night. I sent her a messages wishing her a good trip today, but, she didn't reply.

I was told when she left office yesterday, she was in a rush and didn't even handover her outstanding tasks.

She applied leaves from 9Mar to 24Mar, but, her 'out of office' agent says 6Mar to 27Mar. This means she is clearing Offs for 6Mar, 25-27Mar, some of these off days were from her last year's weekend work.

I wonder where is she now? Kinda miss her...

She goes overseas

She is going Australia, Melbourne, next week's Friday, and will only be back at the end of the month (sigh...I have to find someone to cover her work!). I think she will also be travelling to Sydney and Canberra, visiting her guy friend and sister. Asked her where else she's going....err...maybe Gold Coast? She said she doesn't have much money (I don't believe!), so, not going to many places, anyway, she will be staying at the guy friend and sister's place, I think, so can save money on accomodation.

Well, if I have any advice for her trip, I would tell her "happy go there, happy come back. Don't lose anything there, don't regret doing something, and don't regret not doing something. Be safe."

Today is 14 Feb 2009

Yes, today is Valentine's day.

This is the time where you will see Roses being sold at 5x the normal price. Candle-light dinner package at restaurants being sold at hundreds of dollars. Couples really know how to spend their money in this economy downturn, times are getting bad you see. To me, it just doesn't make much sense, oh well, maybe tomorrow will be better.

I guess I will be spending time doing nothing today, it's so hot weather out there, yeah, stay in door.

*Sigh*...I have got some work to do tomorrow. *Sigh* again....

My thoughts

I have been thinking: have I done overboard? Gee, you know what? I actually lost 15kg for the last 4 months, and prety obviously, it shows on my face and body figure.

Should I continue with my runs and races? I just signed up for a full marathon event in May'09, crazy, you think? That means I have to run at progressive pace of 5, 10, 15...20km at each training run. I know I can do it, hey, I have done the half marathon before, you remember? But, this means I will continue to lose weight, spare my body fat, please! I think I have lost enough!

What do you think, dear? Or anyone out there, share your thoughts?

Chinese new year

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese new year. In this country, Chinese new year or in short, CNY means not just a two days break for everybody, but also, a time of sharing, meet up and gathering. For the Chinese, it is the time of the start of a new spring season, that's why it is also called the "spring festival".

Last year around the same time, things were much more expensive, but now, as the economy is in a pretty bad shape, things got cheaper. Chinese families would gather on the 30th night, or the day before the CNY, to eat a reunion dinner, so, everybody from the same family, if they are overseas, would fly back to have this dinner, usually steamboat or eat at restaurants.

Oh, my dear, do you miss someone now? 8-)

Volunteer for a day

Just yesterday (Saturday), I volunteered, with a friend, to help out with our parent company's fund raising event.

This is the first time I'm doing it, other than the occasional Sundays where I go the the grassroot centre to help out with teaching small kids to read and write. It's kinda of fun to do this, I was supposed to help out with the Water Dunking event which was supposed to run from 2-3pm, but, I was busy with another, the Jumbo sale. It just amazed me that old stuffs donated by the staff were so sell-able, $2 or $3 clothings, stuff toys, bags, souvenirs, etc, were selling like hotcakes!

Now, come back to the Dunking event, this time, the organisers got the F1's SingTel's Grid girls to sit on the platform, with a water tank below them, one at a time. Well, they all got wet for the price of people paying $50 or more! The CxO were also up there, all wet, but, at a higher price, of course.

Well, I think the event was really nice, but, there's no free meals, only bottled water and a T-shirt, lucky, some of the volunteers gave us some free coupons to buy food, how nice! Anyway, I also got some souvenir pins (my favourite!) from the old stuffs for sale. Ok, still worth it.

Happy New Year 2009!

Hey, happy new year 2009!

What's up for the new year? Well, thinking big for this year, looking at further studying, probably overseas. The Australian dollar has been nose diving recently, almost 1-to-1, may be a good time to plan a trip or study there.

IT is getting too tough and too fast changing for me, need to re-charge myself, good to learn some new knowledge. I have email boss to ask him can take up PMP course, but, till now still no respond. I think most probably chance is slim, because there seems to be some cost cutting and controlling going on due to the economic crisis. Well, will see how, maybe is a good time to go overseas for studying by taking advantage of the money exchange rate.

Dinner and Coffee Break

After you went back, I went out with the other two pals for dinner at around 8pm. I had the korean noodles (W3500) with soup and shared the kimbap (sushi roll). The food was nice to eat, especially with the hot soup, good for warming up the tummy, it was so cold out there, you know!?!

After that, we went to Myeongdon at the Coffee Love (6th floor), just opposite the Dunkin Donuts. This cafe is a cool and cosy, with nice seats. I had Citron tea (W6000), it tasted very sweet, we also shared waffle (W10000) top up with 2 flavours of ice cream (Vanilla and Strawberry). We went back to the guesthouse at around 11:30pm.

In Kimchee Land

For almost 2 weeks in Seoul, it's really freezing cold, temperature going as low as 1 degree celsius. The snow didn't come, but, the temperature is expected to go down -10 degree next Monday.

The others are busy checking out bargain buys at Nandaemum and Dondaemum, I didn't get to go there, but, mostly to Myeongdon, just within walking distance from our Namsan Guesthouse. The gals bought a lot of cosmetic stuffs, cheaper than in Singapore, especially BB cream, the current craze, magic cream that can be applied on the face to 'hide' blemish.

Oh right, we also went up to the mountain where the Seoul tower is via cable car. There is also a place near the City Hall where we walk down a river stream, bought something warm to eat at Kwangjang Market, where there are at least 200 small stores selling local food like spicy rice cake, pork meat, etc.

So far, things have been going well, the treatment was fine, in two days time, I will be back home!