Accomplished: To learn the Country Name and Capital City in the world

It’s one of the 3 New Year resolutions I made this year, and few weeks ago I really certain I’m going to missed it. How not? It’s the fourth quarter of the year and I was hardly through Asia and Europe countries.

Thanks to the 10 days leave and the nutrition I had in hometown, I finally managed to memorize the 203 countries – 183 sovereign countries and 20 non-sovereign administered territories. Oh yes that's right!

All ready with the globe, the map, and the book

Funnily, from all the weird names like Ljubljana, Reykjavik, and Yamoussoukro, the three capitals I had to repeat the most are the simple less than 9 letters: Lebanon – Beirut, Macedonia – Skopje, and Sudan – Khartoum.

It’s lots of reciting, rewriting, and frustration. But it was fun once the whole things were concluded. Like I achieved a new level of knowledge, even though I should have learnt this 15 years ago (blush). It makes me wonder - is my brain getting stiff now after 4 years of working? (Or I just never good at this…) Will I be able to survive hitting the book again if I ever decide to continue study?

For now I’m just happy that I concluded the resolution. Dangerous resolution! Have to think twice before making similar thing next year! I believe half the list will be gone from my brain by end of this year, but well… at least I knew once upon my life!

Maybe the best way to learn is to visit each countries :p
ED

When not to say Sorry?

I noticed through movies (and song, and book, and real example) that “Sorry” is one of the hardest words to say. My cute 3 years old niece would rather than having to apologize ^^;

I guess it ties to the fact that by saying “sorry”, you’re acknowledging that you’re wrong, and you’re asking a favor from someone else to forgive you. It’s a big ego to swallow, even for kids.

The funny thing is, as long as I can remember, I never have issue to apologize and I’m glad for it (not sure if it means I have no self respect =___=’). I believe that we learn from mistake, and if you don’t dare to even acknowledge it, how would you ever learn? I stick with that principal and somehow, I think I have overused it – In two different situation today, I was told explicitly that I shouldn’t have said sorry!

First Situation:
My friend A asked me to buy lunch for her. I was going out with my friend C. Somehow my friend C actually helped to order the food for my friend and paid for it. The next day, my friend A said sorry to me that she forgot to pay for the food. I instinctively said sorry back and told her that it has actually been paid by my friend C and not me. She was silent for a while, and then asked me what was I saying sorry for. I said that I’m sorry because I forgot to inform her that my friend C has paid for it. She “hahaha” me and then told me that I shouldn’t be saying sorry so easily :x

Second Situation:
This is more serious. I responded to an innocent looking email without discussing it with my team members. Apparently, there were already separate discussion going on for the same matter and my email has actually ruined the rapport. I received an angry call from A and nasty email from B (both are my team members) for my act. I think through my actions. The next day, I decided to reply back to B saying that I now understand what I should have done, I’m sorry about it, and I will ensure the same won’t happen in the future. He was ok with my first and third point, but said that I shouldn’t have apologies because I did what I have done with the best intentions.

My reaction when I got both these comments in the same day? Haiya! Not saying sorry is wrong, saying sorry also got complained back. Life is complicated. ^^; That aside, I’m thankful that both the people above actually decided to take the extra mile to inform me about it. I believe that this is not the first time I abuse the word “Sorry”, but this is the first time people actually told me about it :) I will consciously monitor the way I used the word going forward. Guess overusing it makes the word loses its meaning. For now, I’m sorry for not knowing when to say sorry =p

The Monday is not so blue today because... all in sudden, no sun no rain; my colleague gave me his wife’s famous banana cake! The whole loaf! It’s the best banana cake I ever eaten, I’m not even exaggerating. Thanks so much, Alan :) It’s calories worth spending on :)

I left office at 8.00 PM today. As usual, I waited and flagged the 51 near NOL building. The bus stopped and – guess what - the EZ Link machines were broken and the bus driver told us that our rides are free! This is the first time I encountered this kind of thing ^^;

I had a lovely dinner at Dawson, and then went to Fair Price looking for my 4th umbrella for the past two months. 4th!! I didn’t eat umbrella, but somehow my brolly turned unrecognizable after two uses. Since there wasn’t much choice available in Fair Price, I decided to maybe search for a better umbrella tomorrow. Any idea of umbrella brand is greatly welcomed.

It’s a day after the 10km run, and I’m really thankful that there is no post-match pain at all at my leg. Maybe I have Tiger Balm to thank for. The official result of the run is out, as well as some interesting statistic: I was on 2553rd place out from 12044. For Women, I stand at 670th place and I was ranked 13th for Female Indonesia category (they are trying to hard to please me with the last statistic). I received an email saying that the official photos are also out, but the website has been down for the last 2 hours =_= maybe I will check it out tomorrow.

My Record from the Official Website - http://www.runpix.info

In the meanwhile - a clear pic taken by Rin2 for me! Thx a bunch Rin!!

Till next post!
ED

Silent Scream

Dear blog.

This is 3AM in the morning, and I still can’t stop crying.

I want to tell… I want to talk… I want to scream… but again, it’s early Tuesday morning and who am I to break the peace? Let me scream in this blog, at least.

Life is never fair. This I knew. There are different position and role in life. Boss and subordinate, client and vendor, manager and executer. When you’re in the more authoritative role, what’s wrong with staying reasonable and trying to understand what you really want before requesting for it? Changing report format every week to suit your mood doesn’t work. Keep asking me to add in obvious information just because you didn’t spend any effort to get yourself updated with it, doesn’t work as well.

I hate myself when I’m blaming someone for my own quality of work. To my defense, I always give my best to the things I do, and as far as I can think of, I hardly get this kind of treatment before. Someone who just asking you to improve without giving a specific point of improvements. Ridiculous! :(

No matter how angry I am, I think I have to calm down and get myself to bed now. It’s human nature to blame other people when something is pushed to them. Like what I’m doing right now, and like what he is doing to me, I guess.

It’s the darkest before dawn.

But the darkest is yet to come.
ED

After all the December fun…

Here come my mobile bill of the month

SGD 124.82!!

Thanks for making me stay connected everywhere. You didn’t come cheap.

Anyway, I learnt that making calls are at least twice more expensive than receiving calls. Lesson learnt.

Time to save more for my iPhone… T_T
ED

Short Update

There have been lots of ups and downs this week. Glad that it’s started with down period and end at the standard level (I’m not Citibank share price although it sounds like that).

The whole week of work can be summed up as one word. Frustrating. It’s not the amount of work that I’m complaining. It’s the gaps between my effort and the result which I’m expecting. What do you feel when you know that what you have done for the past three days (plus OT) are total useless and you have to redo them all, despite the tight schedule of the current phase? What do you feel when people throw you the whole week task to be done last minutely, and question your ability because you can’t done them all? I was demoralized.

This Saturday marks my first time going to office on weekend. Almost are my team members are there, and my gloomy mood was somehow healed only by seeing how they work and perform as a team. I suddenly realized that they have been covering me from a lot of emergencies that they are having. How selfish am I to be thinking about my ownself without looking at it from the team level perspective?

My moral was back, but I’m still tired physically. Haha. I’m expecting this thing to continue for at least the next two weeks… so now I shall sleep.

Oh yes, the NATAS fair was good :) We won a trip to Korea for 4M – 3S, equivalent to 4 minutes 3 seconds. Haha.


A blink trip to Korea - Winter Time

Korea.. Japan.. Taiwan... Gold Coast... ZzZz,
ED

Is it the truth?

Nowadays, it has become an obligation to look for “the other meaning” behind every explicit word and action. You’re naïve if you just believe everything and assume nothing else.

Really, I was a naïve (maybe I still am). I used to believe everything, until the time I heard the same person saying two different things to two different person, and gosh, in so convincing a way!

It makes me doubtful, to think if they really meant whatever they said to me. I started to lost confidence towards myself and still… even if I know what their real thoughts about me are, will it change anything?

Let’s take some similar examples. Your bosses praise you, saying that you’re such a hard worker. Will it make things better if you know they just treat you as a cheap labor? Or when your superior said things to reassure and comfort you, will it be better if you know things are actually worse?

After few weeks in total lost of my own, my answers to all the questions are… no. I was so wanted to know the truth in everything before, but now… I don’t really care. Maybe it’s like I’m living in my own world, but then, worrying too much of what other things doesn’t make thing better. What not just believe that everything is good, until you’re specifically told otherwise? =] however, it doesn’t really mean that you should be ignorant of everything, just that you should not care more from what is necessary.

Ok, just a pen of thought this time. I’m going to end this Vaesak and Mother’s day weekend watching “Push” and wishing my flatmates enjoying their time at Vietman :p

Tired of guessing,
ED

A (Repetitive) Reflection

“To lower to risk of regretting, I finally go with the flow (a.k.a have no self point of view =.=) and pick those most registered subject: Data Mining and Distributed System. Another one that I really looking forward is the Information Retrieval on Thursday..”

I can’t believe this is what I wrote 3 months ago. What on earth make me pick Information Retrieval without even a slightest doubt?

On the other hand, Distributed System, which is the subject I doubt the most of taking, turned out to be the subject that I enjoyed the most this semester… The lecturer is great =) (I mean his method of teaching, of course) Although I have been very scared with the network programming assignment, my teammates are really those I can count on :p haha.. And again, similar to the Cryptography case, this is the course with project cleared first. (Although I haven't touched any of the tutorial)

And again, similar to Neural Network case, I’m now dying with Information Retrieval… Sigghh… Now I understand why war is never ended… People just keep repeating the same mistake and take a long time to learn =_=

In high pressure,
Erlin.D

NTU Undergraduate Admissions 2008

I think my English is getting worse and worse. Look at the image below.


Don't click on the image, it wont bring you anywhere :p

The image is taken from NTU website banner on 2nd of March 08.

I can't figure out why it's using article 'an' instead of 'a' in the 'NTU degree'... Upon searching, I spotted that NUS is also using 'an NUS...' Why? is it because the 'N' read as 'en', so it's considered vowel? I never know about it before! @.@

Anybody cares to explain this English 101?
Erlin.D

Lessons Learnt from the trip

(Not a reflection kind of notes.. just a random thought)
1. Now I know that San Francisco and Los Angeles are in US, America.. not in Europe. Even better, now I know that they are city, and part of California State =D

2. One city in a State is bigger than the whole Singapore. But their public transport isn’t as well developed as Singapore… some public transports are really scary! Some more, the distance from one place to another is very far. So walking is impossible (my poor toes are now getting new skin) So, to survive there, you must buy a car. But the parking and gasoline are expensive… So in conclusion, be sure that you’re rich enough to go there.. or get a salary of at least twice than those in Singapore.

3. People said Singapore as FINE country.. but US make me felt that I was robbed everyday. The internet service is $1 for 10 minutes… and even more expensive when you’re at airport. Do they know that we got it free at Changi? Then we needed to pay $3 for a trolley at airport too.. The car parking is $6/hrs and can reach $40/day. The train ride is $5 for day pass.. and the cab meter jumped faster than your heartbeats.

4. The Burger King there had bigger portion. It has been proven from the 4 times meal. And it’s one of the cheapest meal found. You wont’ be able to find any food cost less than $3. Because of that, I got Breadphobia during the few days back to Singapore. Lucky that now the phobia is gone.. Subway, anyone? ^^ But I miss KFC more.

5. The cold weather make your skin very very dry.. Now I know how to give thanks to the weather in Singapore.. Besides, we need to wear jacket everywhere.. So bring more jackets if you don’t want to see all your 2 weeks pics in same cloth.. (which I did with my pink jacket T__T)

6. The night life isn’t safe.. there are a lot of people asking for changes along the road.. scary.. Now I know that I really love Singapore.. Thanks mum and dad to let me study here.. luv you.. (hah?)

Ok.. until here is my story.. It has been a great experience in US.. especially with such a great group.. Many many thanks to all of you.. Thanks for making this trip such a wonderful one =) Flash back.. it was really amazing how I can eventually be there.. Me as someone who know nothing about Mac until half year ago.. Until the IA, the scholarship applications... All the opportunities.. Let's just call it a fate =) Thanks Apple and NTU for giving me a chance to know all those great people..

Last conclusion: I’m broke~
Erlin.D

We live in Singapura

Not many people came to Engineering and Society lecture last friday. The class was half emptier than usual. Henry was going to Graduate Dinner. Medy and Calvin also preferred to go back and sleep. But that day lecture was much more interesting than usual. As a foreigner who knew nothing about politic, i hardly get anything to my head during all the lectures. After one hour of dozing, suddenly the lecturer played us YouTube from one TalkingCock show in parliement. Hahaha.. One of the show is a song by HossanLeong. Anybody who wants to hear it, can click here. I'm sure that you will atleast smile when watching it. hahaha... Btw, i heard the song before.. anybody knows what song it is? Another show was a woman speaker talking in many kinds of english (includes singlish for sure lol).. wait no more, get it here.

I live in Singapura
It’s not perfect living
But at least it’s interesting :P

Rite, Son? hahaha..
Erlin.D

Analysis of my Information Activity Log...

Dont wonder too much of my blog title today. Currently, i'm taking a GE in MB362.. The subject is now roughly about blogging, homepage, and flash (as far as i know). We were asked to make an Information Activity Log for a day, noted down anything that we feel necessary... (for your curiousity, u can check what i do with my homework.. And now.. If i'm not mistaken, we were supposed to anylisis our own log.. uuurrm.. Dont know what to be analysis... so.. here i go...

uurm.. ya.. i note that i woke up abit late than usual student.. maybe?... but it's due to holiday.. and then.. urm? i just realize that i check time more than five times a day? and that.. heem? i usually go out when talking on the phone?.. ah.. i'm so blur of what to be noted down ><

For further blur, please check http://mb362nbs57.blogspot.com/ frequently.

Regards,
Erlin.D

Dreamweaver Workshop

It was greaat ^__^ .... sigh.. a bit regret, why i didn't attend the last 2 weeks flash workshop. hahaa.. today's seats are almost full. Ericson said that the last fortnight was even more crowded. Even they have to put additional seats at the LT9. waah. cool... The speaker said that he was amazed this year.. last year, only 5 or 6 students come.. huaaa... haha.. everything is perfect enough.. just one thing, they dont provided refreshment afterwards... hahaha.. jk2.. meet handarmin and andi there... Henry n Winson are also there (eventually).. and Arianto is there along =D

Heem.. From my point of view, the speaker is professional enough =).. taught us about the basic of dreamweaver.. mostly about how to design (create) our own blog. =D i was so happy to see the CSS topic in the slides.. (we got a copy of slides, glek, a page for a slide.. so big that i had to move my head backward to read the big words) i really want to learn that.. but too bad, he only speak very brief.. =(.. ya.. i shouldn't have expected much in a one n half hour course. He also introduced us to the other things in the macromedia studio.. oo.. i just knew that now is the Studio 8 already... n they introduce a new file, flash video, newly added to the Flash with extension .flv. Flash8 can convert any other movie file: quicktime, avi, mpeg, etcetc to flv. cool? hehe.. buut, What is the comparative advantage of this file compared with other? (*pretendin to be the speaker now).. naah.. it's smaller in size. And u should know how important it is in i-net world =D.. haha.. he also give an example of the flv file to us.. waah.. cool.. the player is transparent, embodied with the video itself.. ckckck..

Sometimes, he asked some questions about macromedia, and gave free t-shirt to the one who can answer it.. waah, the t-shirt is good enough oo.. the macromedia sign ar.. coool ;).. Salute to our prez that he dares to ask for one after the workshop ^+^ haha.. Want one also... ^//^

Finish with the nice workshop, we went to canteen.. Had a nice vege lunch with Albert. =D.. His right eye is still hurt everytime he winks. Hopefully it will get better soon.. =(

After paying bill (S$ 44.67 T.T) i went back to hall.. rest a while, then typing blogger. hahaha.. seems like i'm a bit sleepy.. want to sleep for a while.. ganbatte later deh =)

Sunny sunny day,
Erlin.D

Dreamweaver & CSS (II)

*bluuush~...*… After learnin more about CSS, I found out that my blogger’s image doesn’t mix well with the content in resolution other than 1024x 768.. Especially in the bigger one.. The texts seemed to run everywhere, with the image stood at the center haha.. I have (temporary) tied them up now.. by adding a layer wrapping them. The image is still standing at the center, but the text is fixed now. :D :D… And additionally, I add a border.. haha.. bo kang co.. can you feel the different? :P) Yooz.. more update to be made later, after I back to s’pore. It’s just too costly to do the preview. (Still don’t know how to do the preview offline.. or can it be done?) Hahaha.. I think I began to inlove with Dreamweaver now. ^_^

Oh ya, I found a trick in CHIP, a way to change the scrollbar’s colour.. *type it down, type it down, incase I forget later:
SCROLLBAR-FACE-COLOR: #COLOUR;
SCROLLBAR-HIGHLIGHT-COLOR: #COLOUR;
SCROLLBAR-SHADOW-COLOR: #COLOUR;
SCROLLBAR-3DLIGHT-COLOR: #COLOUR;
SCROLLBAR-ARROW-COLOR: #COLOUR;
SCROLLBAR-DARKSHADOW-COLOR: #COLOUR;
SCROLLBAR-BASE-COLOR: #COLOUR;

Since Jan of 2005, CHIP began to provide a Flash Tutorial in its Disk. In movie file! Step by step! Don’t know how to describe my happiness when I read the disk’s content. I have planned to learn flash after this dreamweaver indeed.. but then.. Guess what? The disk is DVD!! Adao.. CHIP CHIP.. I didn’t have a DVD reader aa.. Seems you’ll always be a level higher from my standard.. T.T.. Thanks anyway to WK for lending them to me.. bye2 flash…

Oh ya, more article from Chip.. (Sio pa kao ooi..).. About google hacking.. Using the fact that most of directory always began with ‘Index of’, It said that we could find a lot of MP3 files by typing ,,Index of /” +MP3 .. Goin to try it at S’pore too :D :D

Ok.. enough about CHIP n Dreamweaver. Let’s move to food!... haha.. jokin2.. Well, I usually eat a lot.. but this few days, I eat even a lot more.. :P.. mum cooks more and more deliciously as my departure date getting near n near.. Dad also buys lot of snacks.. hoa.. o^.^o.. Just enjoy as long as I could. Haha..

Some of my friends are back. Some from Malaysia, some from Bandung.. but none from Jakarta n Medan.. L.. They’re still struggling with their exams.. Yooz.. ganbatte all, palz!

Lalala,
Erlin.D

Dreamweaver MX 2004

‘Try’ to learn Dreamweaver… the use of apostrophes reflects that I haven’t really managed to get ride of it. ><… Why most of people said learning Dreamweaver is easy? No, no… they even said that we don’t need learn it.. simply going trough trial n error.. urrgh.. I bought a book of Dreamweaver MX while I was in Medan (Henry bought the Flash.. we’ll do barter later.. if my book is still tangible.) I’m trying to follow some of the tutorials.. the first 2 tutorials were easy.. but.. now.. begin to stuck.. T.T.. Can’t control the position of the Tableeeeesssss.. and hate to admit that dreamweaver is all about tableeeeeeeeeee.. gggrrrr.. Face the same problem with the use of table in Microsoft word.. -_-‘’ .. I didn’t even have to make table when I try to make website by using Adobe Photoshop n ImageReady.. Miss the software.. unfortunately I just reformatted my computer.. and didn’t have the installer... T.T.. soo.. now, trying to start from null.. learning Dreamweaver from the Help menu provided.. Getting Started.. hahaha.. sound so desperate, huh? Hopefully in the next few weeks (or monthS), Dreamweaver isn’t a dream anymore.

Go go go,
Erlin.D