Sunday, December 16, 2007

Caring for Nana

I am going to Australia! But before I can go off, I need to make sure my darling Nana is well taken care of.

So I brought it for its 10k servincing. Just oil change, nothing special, did pretty much in the last servicing. Might change brake fluid and oil filter in the next servincing though.

After that I washed my beloved Nana!!

Above pic shows the shiny gold rim after getting rid of all the tar, grim, dirt, oil, sand and whatever horrible black stuffs you get from the road. It was utterly black before the wash, but just look at the beautiful gold colour it is now. A pity, but I forgot to take a before and after shot.

After getting rid of the grim, tar, oil and road dirt, I gave Nana a nice good shampooing. I love bubble all over me when I am shampooing, so I make sure Nana got lots on her too. Hmm any nice shower foam to recommend? Those that produces lots of bubbles one...

Other parts of the bike gets the shampooing after I got rid of the blackey, sticky, grewy stuffs with degreaser.


My beautiful Nana is now clean, shiny and dry. She is sparkling all over. I use a special treatment to get rid of other small dirt from her.

After this I rode home and on the way I pump petrol to full. To protect her fuel tank from possible rust. Now Nana look almost like the day I first got her on the 10th of Oct, new, beautiful and clean. Ahhh I love it.

Heh heh so before I can set my mind at ease to go on holiday. I need to make sure Nana is at her best. Now I can't bear to ride her cause she will get all the road dirt stuck onto her all over again... Oh well, at least she will remain clean during the week that I am gone :D

Friday, November 30, 2007

GESL Project and friends!!

Our GESL project had finally ended!

Hmm maybe a little after feelings about our GESL project. Let's see it seems like a major project at first, so I had this initial feeling of intimidation and I felt a bit lost, not knowing where and how to start kind of feeling.

But it turned out to be no cause for worry as I ended up with all these capable and wonderful group members. And even though they were all very weird, they were also very fun loving, and working with them is a lot of fun, so in perculiar ways of theirs, they helped me removed many stress factors.

Of course we met with a lot of setbacks along the way, and on top of this horrible major project, we had to deal with tons of other more stressful modules and a mountainous amount of assignments. But in the end, we managed to overcome all these and completed everything!

Alright, maybe I will talk abit about why my group members were so weird. First of all, which is what made them the weirdest of all, they made me the leader when there were obviously other more capable and suitable candidates. Like for example, Shun Fa - he likes to boss me around, and reminds me of things I should do as a leader (like I need him to tell me, kekeke), so yea, I thought he could have made a better leader. Cause he thinks he is a better leader hahaha. But perhaps he is too shy to be a leader, all the 'orders' I received from him were through sms. He could have just told me face to face, perhaps I appeared too intimidating for him.

Then there is Ezfarinna who is super hilarious and humourous, I so love her. And even though she talks crap half the time to make me roll with laughter, she comes up with very good suggestions when the need arises. Furthermore, she is articulative, charismatic and hot, hot, hot.

Ahhhh, Yvvone. Von is super cute. With her large watery eyes, she makes me, how shall I say it? Makes me feel like I want to hug her. Plus, I would have died without her in the team, she does all these dreadful minutes that everyone of us hates doing. But she takes it all up! Cool huh?

There is Hak Yee, his contact number was handed over to the GESL office and our facilitator, so that they'll bug him and not me (thank heavens). I have enough troubles of my own without having to handle these people, er what is it they bug us for? I don't know, I never had to take up their calls. Hmm, Hak Yee makes a good conversationalist, but we haven't had much opportunity to talk.

Dominic, whom we all just called Dom. Hahaha he is very bulliable. Everytime just ask, can you do it? He will "ok...." So he became the logistic personnel, a vocation with a lot to do. He is also one of the two that came down the most days for the project. And he is ever so helpful, just like Georgina is. Since I am at Georgina, shall talk about her next - she is this other one person who came down the most days for the project.

Georgina is super sweet, super helpful and super cute looking. Small and huggable. Ok I probably have no right to say she is small, cause I am probably the same height as she is if not smaller. But I was thinking if I am a guy, I would think of her this way, sweet, huggable little thing. And she is so nice and gentle to me, always saying "Do you need help?", "I can do it.", "no one takes it up? Ok I can do it.", "Are you coping alright? You need people to help you?" So forever, she is asking after me, concern about me and so on.

Ahh Terence. Hmm, about him, I don't remember bickering with him at all, but my group members always says I am bickering with him. Told you the members are weird. Saying things that never happened. How should I describe Terence, I think he is most suited to be call Lobang king. He has Lobang of all sorts, so he was like the Best Man for logistic team. Would have met with more stumbling blocks along the way if not for his 'lobangs'.

Camila, Wen juan, and Bing Li, god bless them. They took over budget. Did I ever mention I hate budgeting? Well, now you know. I HATE budgeting. So bless Camila, Wenjuan and Bing Li for taking over what I hated most. Sooo their job scope is basically to chase after people for money, to calulate our budget and they deal with the forms and the budget office. The three of them is always together, so I always refer to the three of the them together :p

There is Rahman. He is super organise (opposite of me), I heard he came up with this systematic rules for the 3rd day and it impresses everyone who was around. And he spent long hours at the place during our publicity day. (A little side track, I was suppose to be down on the day of publicity as well, but this asshole hit my bikey on my back and he wants to pick a quarrel with me. Can you believe that? And I was actually stupid enough to listen to his yellings before I finally decided that "hey you hit my back, in the eyes of the law you are completely absolutely wrong. I have something on, so I don't have to listen to a raving mad man. I picked up my helmet and zoomed off.) Rahman is also a very sensitive guy, opposite of me as well, a few times he told me how my actions and words were insensitive to others and I could have hurt their feelings.

Next, Serene. Serene made bookings for the bus. That settle a lot of problem for me, cause I have absolutely no clue how to go about doing it. She is also a nice sweet lady who is always so jovial and stressless looking. I am amazed how she keeps up the happy stressless expression, I almost collapse from stress during the peak of all peak.

Keith, I always thought Keith looked very leader-like. He is always straight to the business, no nonsense type (again opposite of me). He always chop chop does things, fast and efficient complete on the spot (cause most of the time during the meetings, I crap a lot, and being the no nonsense type, he goes about preparing the materials, ignoring my crap and only grasp the important part....). Plus, he is intelligent and really good at his field! He is like one of the 3 who passed the English content thingy out of hundreds of people. Cool huh?

Next, Yingwei. He is a man of few words. But he has good ideas. When he talks during GESL, it is always to give good ideas. If not he remains quiet. I also had the chance to work with him on another project during our social context module and wow, like before, when he talks, he talks intelligently. He tries to organise his thoughts and put it across to us. Cool! But ya, he is still a man of few words :p

Kasturi is super kind! She is always concern about me, she speaks sweetly to me, is gentle to me, greets me, talks to me, smiles at me, pats me on the shoulder, asking after my health, mental condition etc. What is even more amazing is she got her own brother to come down to help us in our project! She is such a dedicated and sweet girl!

So I have all these wonderful friends working with me, helping me. And who is heading these great wonderful people, an unorganised, insensitive, forgetful, blur, talks a lot of crap during meeting, time wasting, no lobang leader. Isn't it just great? These bunch of capable people, chose the least capable among them to organise them!?!? Told you they are weird.

One thing I am good at, I am efficient at delegating work. They always say I am arrowing them, but what I am really doing is just dedicating and assigning work. They really are weird, aren't them? Well, I suppose no one is perfect.

To summarise, I really treasure my group cause I had heard about 6 other groups, and they are in a mess. They quarrelled, they had conflicts, they can't get along, they are divided among themselves, they form opposition cliques and so on. Therefore, I think that I am really fortunate and blessed to have ended up with these members. I made great friends with them, they are very encouraging and sweet to me, and they all allowed themselves to be bullied by me. They kinda submit themselves to their poor fate of having me as their leader willingly, silently. Everytime a job I dislike comes to me, like minutes, or budgeting, I push! And they took up whatever I threw at them. Cool people right?
Conflicts between us were non-existent, cause despite me being insensitive and saying the wrong things all the time, they are very understanding people so they always forgive me unconditionally.

Ahhh, I love GESL. Although it had been a tedious process, I made good friends through this and I love all of them.

Of course I must pay tribute to Ruth too, although she was not in my GESL. I could never have done it without her. During the peak of my stress, where I had colossal amount of other assignments, presentations and projects to do, and then all these setbacks from GESL decided to say hello to me too, then, I almost went mad, break down.... There were also times I lost confidence as a leader cause I knew the rest of them were much more capable then I am. That they should be the one doing this, that and not me. During all these times of being stressed and having lost my confidence from the many hipcups that our GESL is facing, Ruth was there for me. She consoled me, encouraged me, reassured me, rebuild my confidence and told me I was doing a good job. So I really couldn't have done it without her. Thank you Ruth, I love you, and this comes from the bottom of my heart.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Collected Statistics

Was saying in my previous blog entry that I am going to collect data on the gender and age of people who travels on the lane markings itself. Because these are the people who obstruct my smooth flow of riding, so they get me a little on my edge sometimes. These are what I managed to collect:

Number 1

Car Model: Sonata
Colour: Goldenish
Driver: Male
Age: Late fifties to early sixties

Number 2

Car Model: Kelisa
Colour: Greyish
Driver: Male
Age: Late Forties to early fifties

Comments: For such a mini car as Kelisa, I am utterly amazed at how he can travel on the lane markings for such long distances. My Bike will probably be as wide as his car if I put two side boxes. So how, how in the world did the amazing driver not keep to lane when his car is so small compared to the lane.

Number 3

Car Model: Old Civic Model, SDL plate possibly vti version
Driver: Male
Age: Early twenties

Comments: Very young chap. Looks younger than me.

Number 4

Car Model: Jazz
Driver: Female
Age: Early Thirties

Comments: Followed her for about 5 minutes in her blindspot, hoping she will get out of the lane markings so that I can squeeze through (5 mins is a long time for vehicles on expressway, considering I take 25mins to travel from Simei to Boon Lay). But all this while she just happily travelled on the lane makings. After some time she decided she wants to change lane and she just changed without checking her blind spot and without signalling. However, I am attuned to cars like that on the road, changing lanes without knowing I am there, so I had been trained to spot drivers that demonstrate behaviours or intention of lane changing. Hence, I manage to know that she wanted to change lane before she actually did, and I pressed my horn to warn her I am there.

I spotted two other cars that had half their right side wheels into the other lane already. Note, they are not just travelling on the lane markings, they had their half of their right side wheels totally out into the other lane already. Therefore, I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they wanted to change lane, which could possibly explain why they are so totally off. However, after I past them and though there were no cars behind me, they did not change lanes. They were so off simply because they were that lousy. No other reasons. I wonder how they got their licence... Anyway having zoom past them, I am too lazy to slow down and check who is the idiot controlling the machine, so I just left my specimens alone.

Data collection had been going on really slow, because at night or very early morning, it is too dark, so I can't see the driver hidden inside. Other times I am just riding too fast to capture details of the drivers.

Next, the lane markings over paya lebar road had not been widen. They had placed a few layers over since I last updated my blog and they corrected the markings. I think they made a mistake in the width in the first layer, but subsequently they corrected it.

If I have the chance I should really drive a weekend car out illegally on a rainy day, cause never in my 5 years of riding experience have I ever met a TP on a rainy day. It is like TP and rains are mutually exclusive and thus they cannot coexist. A simple metaphor to illustrate this would be driving and sleeping. You don't fall asleep and still expect to drive like normal right? Sleeping and driving cannot occur together, well so does TP and rain. So one day, if I ever had the chance to owe a weekend car, I shall execute to prove my theory :p

Monday, October 15, 2007

Road Observations

When is the best day to bring your weekend car out illegally?

When it is raining. TPs vanishes at the first sight of a rain cloud.

PIE lane markings between Paya Lebar exit and Eunos Exit is being repainted with the lane width changed. Lane width had been made wider. This means bikers can squeeze between cars with more space between them. Terms and conditions applied.

T & C: Assuming drivers have lane sense. Some drivers, not all, travels on the dotted line! Wish there was a law written that dotted lines are meant for bikers :p But seriously, which drivers with the right sense of mind travels on dotted lines... Maybe next time I shall do data collection and plot statistical graph, see whether it has got anything to do with gender or age etc.

The increase in lane width is a sensible move because bikers will always squeeze no matter what you tell them, so why not make it safer for them to do so. Besides it prevents drivers' mirrors from being scratched too haha.

Bikers exercise high self-discipline: Everytime I travel at 60km/h on days with heavy rain, I felt this nagging feeling as though I am short changing myself. And there is this horrible inner voice telling me to speed up, speed UP, SPEED UP. So I am always having to fight this inner voice during rainy days to be safe, BE safe, BE SAFE & SHUT UP!

Though I am well-covered by insurance, I am sure my parents rather me alive than the money, my friends too right? RIGHT? *keeps fingers cross* (afterall friends don't get a single cent if I am dead, but u all will get presents, TLC, companionship etc from me if I stay alive. But you all don't want me alive because of these reasons right? I mean I like you all so much, nice to you all too, surely you all hope nothing bad happens to me cause you all like me too right? :p Ok this part is a joke, back on track --->) So ya, bikers exercise high self-discipline as I am always having to struggle with the impulsive side of me. And most of the times (maybe 80% of the time), my good side wins. Other times, well, the desire to be naughty is too strong to resist :p

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Ride and Rain

On this day, I just finished gym and was waiting for my friends to finish bathing. While waiting, I listened to my mp3, and when I looked at the sky, I saw this lump of dark clouds blowing towards my direction.

This scenic spells bad news, afterall I will be riding home in a while, after lunch that is. And sign such as this is not good for any riders. Well, I do love to ride in the drizzle, it feels cooling because the wind is cold and wet, I just love it. But heavy rain is horrible. I don't have a screen wiper, and the rain just keep splattering onto the visor so visibility is almost nil. It is also pointless to wipe off the water from the visor because it just keeps coming. And traffic is horrendous during heavy rain. So with heavy traffic, poor visibility and poor road conditions, I need a lot of concentration to ride, so riding no longer becomes enjoyable.... That is why heavy rain = no good.

Another pic of the weather, see its becoming darker and it had only been a time span of two minutes.

Just as expected, it rained heavily when I go home.

There was a traffic jam all the way from Bukit Batok to Eunos! And because its raining heavily and with all this jam, I had to go at a crawling speed of 60km/hr all the way from NTU to home! It was a horrifying and tiring experience. All the energy was spent in concentrating and trying to get home in one piece. Besides it is a whooping distance of 40km from NTU to home and I was only travelling at 60km/h and sometimes less... It had been agonising. Rainy days wouldnt have been so bad if it wasn't for the two accidents that happened. I think it is because of them that traffic is so bad. I never experience bad traffic before at 4pm, not even on rainy days, the accidents were the cause of my agony!

The first accident at Bukit Batok exit involved a cab and and a car. No time to check out what cab and what model of car, and it occured on Lane two. Further down, maybe near the exit to Lornie, another accident involving another cab and another car occured on Lane one.

Because of these 4 idiots, cars had to weave in and out between lanes to avoid the obstacles. And as I was squeezing in between cars, I had to be really careful, cause you never know when a car is gona weave out into my lane.

But finally, I made it home, in one piece, drained but still its over. At the end of the day, I still love riding. I suppose these sort of things add spice to my life. Maybe I can boost of an interesting life to my kids in future *wink*

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Nana Darling

Hmm Nana is a very common bike, it had been labelled as a taxi bike by my friend because it is so common. But everytime I look at it, I just love it so much, its like my pride and joy I think.

It is too tall and too heavy for me I suppose, but I still love it very much anyway. Hmm don't everyone feels the same way about their bikes or cars? Love it a lot?


Ricky took this pic for me, its one of my favourite photo, cause its the sole photo I had with Nana my darling. Haven't found anyone else to take couple photos with my darling and I. So I have to be satisfied with this single one alone.

I really like the jacket I am wearing too, it costs about 300+ and its a gift from my friend. Thank you, it fits great, and it looks great. I really like it a lot.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Goals

Well, a few things happened, and I felt like I have been given a new life. I have set a list of goals to be completed before the end of this year.

I am going to be a changed person by the end of this year! (I think ;p) I shall look forward to accomplishing them!

Hmm changed as in change in things that needed to be changed. But basically I will still be the person I am, its difficult to overhaul my character completely. Though I am flawed, as in not perfect, at least I am wise enough to know its impossible to completely change what I basically am. So I will do whatever I can.

First of all, I need to stop being so lazy! So I am going to follow the schedule I have set out really strictly. I realise its really bad being lazy, a lot of time gets wasted!.Now I must move move move!

Haha I can imagine how happy I will be when I completed what I set out to do! So to achieve that happiness, I will move on!

Ahh I miss hanging out with my frds too. I miss the days when all of us game together in GW (grok, dave, lala, mao, wk, hang, and er the missing guild members hahaha)! I miss hanging out with liying, serene, meiqing, qi, edith, xuefen, meiyan, sharry, mary, xiuwen, bian, ks, jim, yingwei. I miss hanging out with my biker frds! People like weirong also seldom meet :p

Arrgh I miss all my frds! No worries. This coming Nov I gona org outings and meet up with them all! I cant be lazy anymore! And I gona gw like mad! Hopefully I can get the whole guild to play again, excluding lala.

See what the article has done to me (refer to previous post)? Suddenly I am so motivated. All Thx to that article (and the author and the introducer). So if you need motivation too! Read it! Somehow it helps for me, I don't guarantee its gona help every1 of you though.