• Rude:

In less than 1 minute waiting at a red light, 3 incidents took place. Firstly, a motorcyclist ran over my foot. I looked back, he pretended nothing happened without looking at me as if I was not allowed to put my foot on the street. Absolutely no excuse was heard. Secondly, when the light turned green, a man tried to turn left but the bike shut down unexpectedly. Another man behind him crashed into his back and said "#@$!, go faster!". Thirdly, a taxi intended to turn right but unable due to traffic. Some motor-cyclists behind shouted at him angrily. Maybe he was too busy to remember a minimal human act when running over my foot, or too impatient to wait for a few more seconds before rudely barking at others, or it is normal, as it happens every day every time every where.

• Corrupted:

I hear about it almost everyday, and it still happens everyday. One example is traffic police. They spread over the city, work hard, work under extreme conditions such as hot weather without wearing sun glasses, gloves, masks (according to new policy applying to traffic-police). In compensation, they always hide themselves, or stand at places that we never expect them to be. They appear and disappear like ghost. And they have an ability to receive lots of money as much as water we can drink in a summer day. They love to stop cars, bikes, vans... and love to make drivers happy by not issuing fine tickets and putting a hole on driver's driving license but receiving the "voluntary and charity money" directly from drivers. Lots of instructions were issued from above, yet this problem was solved, especially during this Lunar New Year, as we are always hurry in some last days of the year and want to be out of trouble by giving police money shamelessly. How to solve? Just fire corrupted police. No employer dares to do thing that is strictly prohibited. Especially those who receive much attention from media and people.

I went to hospital yesterday for a medical check of my finger. I thought that I would wait for long for this check up, but in fact it only took 30 minutes.

After dropping my father at his office, I went to the hospital on Tran Hung Dao street. After leaving my bike at a safe place, I registered, bought a ticket and a booklet. Then, I took a number and waited for my call. On waiting for the call, I looked at the ticket number and figured out that in this hospital, they treat us like animals. Why? (photo will be posted later)

The waiting time was just less than 5 minutes, the meeting with a doctor was even shorter. He asked me to move and stretch the hand and said
- "your finger is ok, why need to check?"
- "Oh, it's still hurt, doctor"
- (thinking: you want to loose money, I'll let you loose money) "Ok, I'll give you some medicine, no need for an Xray now. In two weeks, if things getting worse, we'll do it"
- (thinking: how can i see him again in two weeks) "Yes".

Then, I went out and queued to buy the medicines.
Damage this time:
Ticket and booklet: 1.7sgd
Medicine:24.5sgd

I haven't taken any tablet yet, as I drink beer everyday. I hope I can take medicine soon, ha ha ha.

This is a normal evening like other evenings. But today we wandered around.
We dined at Sumo-house, as we want to be as fat as a sumo. We ordered a very funny meal which is called "cold noodle" (I did not remember it's Japanese name). We could neither imagine how Japanese can eat this food nor how they can sell it here. It's a long story. Try it once in your life if you see it.
We went to City Hall after that. Instead of taking the correct MRT, we took the train to Boonlay. Anyway, we alighted and took another one at Jurong East MRT.
Absolutely the cold noodle could not make us happy, so we bought some bread at Bread-talk, near City Hall station, and headed to Peninsula Plaza in order to view some shoes. This night was just not our night, as we could not find any single shoe that fit us (like Cinderella story).
Next we passed by Funan IT Mall, and it turned out to be the worse decision. It was 8:30pm and the mall is deserted: most stores were closed, lifts didn't work, entrance was under construction.
Then that was time to go home, as I need to finish a report.
What an evening!
Anyway, I changed the image of the header of my blog, which cools me down.

Imagine that you are doing multi-tasks: chatting with Yahoo Messenger, watching video with Media Player, surfing with Firefox, typing report with MS Word, programing with Crimson Editor, analyzing results with Matlab and Tecplot... It's difficult to display these applications on a single monitor.
Luckily I have a temporary LCD, and I can use the "Multiple monitors" function to display them to two different monitors. That's really easy and the result is great.
Try this:

• connect 2nd monitor to your laptop,
• right click,
• choose Properties,
• choose Settings,
• click number 2 on screen,
• choose screen resolution,
• stick "Extend my Windows desktop...",
• OK

and you will see the magic.

I did not come back home for holiday in the New Year of 2004 , but I did come back in 2005 and 2006. Reflections of previous New Year holidays at home always make me happy.

On the first day of the lunar year (Mùng Một), we always do a routine activity: In new year's eve, we go to my oldest aunt's house, then the aunt next door. In the morning, we gather at my grandfather's house, then to the pagoda, then the house of my grandmother's younger brother. We always start at about 8am, and we're always late about 15 mins. This activity looks bored, but I always like it, especially when I tell other people to gather for a group photo. It's like a tradition of my family, and we, the young generation, are supposed to do the same when our previous generation is getting older (than today).

The introduction is over, here comes the action: Activities in the first day of the year.

On new year's eve, we gathered at our grandfather's house first, and hurried to my oldest aunt's house because we were afraid she would go to sleep.

Indisputably, I am the tallest one...

Photo taken in NUS, Faculty of Engineering, on 26 Jan 2007, on occasion my undergrad profs went to Singapore.