As promised, here’s part 2 of the Singapore pixs.

Indonesians and Malaysians group outing

Shi Min, Jolene, Stephanie, Yuan Yin - all my classmates

Class 23/07 Reunion. Thanks Cicillia for organising!

Chunhui - the Non Mihi Solum award winner (LOL!), Belinda (fellow Council President), Ms Grace Fu (Senior Minister of State - National Development and Education)

My fellow AJC 24th Students' Councillors

I blog but one thing that I’m really lazy is to upload photos onto blog. That’s why I always procrastinate updating my blogs with photos. Or you can also see very clearly this blog is really short of photos. Anyway, I was in Singapore last last weekend to receive an award from college. I thought I’m going all the way down just to collect a certificate. Surprisingly they gave a pretty nice plague too.

Well it was an enjoyable trip. Met up with friends again especially the Econs Symp team. Shona, it is indeed a good trip down, well worth the effort. haha. And of course I collected my A-level and SGC from college and sorted out quite some paperwork in Sg. Good trip. Perhaps I might plan another trip down before I go to uni abroad, this time to meet the Indian kids (all my ex-roommates/batchmates) in NUS.

Here’s some photos to share.

Ms Chin Yee, me and Ms Siew Geok - the cheerful people of Oldham Hall

My juniors in Oldham Hall

My Indonesian friends - Meilani and Cindy

Vanessa and Cindy!

One big family in OH

Anyway, I did not do any shopping in Singapore while I was there although I could get GST rebate of 7%. Pretty good deal I would say if you were to shop. Oh btw, I was also made aware of this site called ShopWiki.co.uk. Using Wiki to build a shopping page. Sweet. This site claims to revolutionizes online shopping as it finds every store on the internet. Well they have a wide variety of things on offer such as women’s jewellery and watches. Hmmm if you love online shopping, perhaps you can give this site a try. Till then stay tuned for tomorrow’s Part 2 of my Singapore Trip.

Why is it that we are all so afraid of risks? Are we all pre-programmed in such a way to shun risks and take the safest road possible? Ok, take a moment and reflect, when was the last time you took a really huge risk on something. I try to think about my risk-taking behavior and I don’t seem to come out with many answers.

Most of us here have followed the conventional path. We work hard, yes. But that’s because it’s the safest alternative to failing exams. We work hard to be the top student because it offers the path to scholarships and top universities.

So imagine now that if you have achieved all that - rewarded by the system in getting a scholarship and a place in a top university as a result of being a top student - what else is up for in life? No risk taken. Perhaps done all the things that we have been trained to do by our parents and making them proud at the same time.

This post is getting more unstructured and chaotic. I can’t sort out my thinking here either - it’s just too convoluted.

Tony Fernandes says

“Believe the Unbelievable
Dream the Impossible
Never take No for an Answer”

What exactly do we dream of? And given different circumstances, would we compromise our dreams and lower our expectations?

Or is the main problem really about having too high an expectation in life? Or are we simply given too many choices? I recently quoted on my Facebook and MSN the following - “Having too many options is sometimes not a good option”

Philip Loh was kind enough to post a link to this YouTube video on the Paradox of Choice. I think it’s a good video that sums up things rather nicely. Thanks dude.

Given two choices, how do you make a decision? The decision you make will decide how you life will be in the next decade. Robert Frost in his poem The Road Not Taken sums it up nicely.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.”

It’s a risk when you have to make a decision. How do you decide which decision is better. You would normally do a cost-benefit analysis. The problem here is, how do we account for non-monetary benefits and the opportunity costs of decisions?

Life is simple without decision. You are stuck, there is only one way to reap rewards - work hard. But life is unfair. It has never been fair and will never be fair. We just have to play with it. It’s a game. In fact it’s a game of risks. Like a game of poker at times. You just have to be smart and play it right. So do we take the risk?

Great achievements never come by without taking any risks. I always tell myself to look how I picture myself 10 and 20 years down the road. Where do I see myself. What am I doing. How am I leading my life.

Are they in congruence with my dreams and aspirations? It’s time to make a decision and time to take risks. But we are all so pre-programmed to be risk averse. It’s never easy to take the unconventional road because the potential downside is just so high.

*Disclaimer: “We” in the most part of this post refers to the perception of the hardworking student with a slight kiasu syndrom in them.

I had to renew my passport a few days back because there was less than 6 months validity and I could not travel outside Malaysia. The rush was induced because I was supposed to go to Singapore for an interview today.

Anyway, being the Internet person I am, I just need to Google for information on renewing my passport. I hopped on to the Malaysian Immigration Department website. It’s ugly I know, but I got some rather useful information that surprised me.

First I found out that students intending to go overseas to study can apply/renew their passports for half the usual rates. A normal Malaysian passport renewal will cost RM300 but if you can prove you are going overseas to further your studies, you need to pay only RM150. Click here to read the details yourself from the Immigration website.

I called up the Immigration Department to confirm this and checked on the things I need to bring. All I need is the Acceptance Letter from the overseas university. I had 2 letters - 1 from Berkeley and 1 from UCL though it’s an conditional offer letter.

I decided to use my UCL Conditional Offer Letter to apply for the special rate. I brought along my Singapore-GCE A-Level results to verify that I have met the university’s criteria and have been confirmed a spot in UCL. (I’ve yet to receive my Unconditional Offer Letter, God knows why UCL’s taking such a long time to change the Conditional to Unconditional though my results had been on UCAS for quite some time already)

Talked to the officer and after verifying the documents (you need to bring photocopies of the Offer Letter and results if it’s conditional), I was allowed the student rate. Note: just bring the all the documents including the envelope the university sent to you cause the officer might be skeptical. Did a few extra documentations - nothing additional to fill up, merely questions by the officers and many thumbprints on the thumbprint reader. After an additional 15 minutes or so, I paid my RM150 instead of RM300 for my new passport. What a bargain!

Now for the 2nd surprise. I called up Immigration Department to check what I need to bring to renew my passport (just 2 passport photos, old passport, photocopy of IC, RM150, Uni Offer Letter, Results if applicable) and asked them which department is the fastest. My family normally go to the old Subang airport for passport application/renewal purposes and was simply told by the officer that the branch in Subang is the smallest one in Klang Valley!

I should go to Shah Alam or Pusat Bandar Damansara instead. There are more counters there. And the surprising part is THEY OPEN ON SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS!!! From 8am to 1pm! WOW. Our immigration departments (though only several) are open on weekends! I’m so proud of this.

It was real easy. I do not need to take leave from office. Dad don’t need to take leave from work. Sis don’t need to ponteng school. We all renewed our passport in Pusat Bandar Damansara on Sundays where they have 40 counters! We collected our passport 3 hours after paying our money. Just spent the whole morning and we sorted our documents to travel again! (Note: the counters stop giving out numbers by 11am)

Also, do not go to Putrajaya to renew your passport. The department there is mainly for Diplomatic passports. They produce only 40 normal passports per day ONLY though the officer told me there are plans to make it open for public in the future.

My First Illustrator Tomoto Design

Illustrator is going to be great fun. i just discovered the power of the Pen tool. Meddling with it for about 20 minutes, I created my first reasonable tomato head! I guess I’m gonna put more designs up soon as I improve my skills the more I play with it.

“Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

I was reading the Star today and I saw this quote. It suddenly meant very much to me. Does it define you?

Don’t look at “Power” at just literally the power to control things like Napoleon did. But look at “Power” at the way you view yourself having - the power with the string of As that you have, the power that you have in influencing people, the power that you have with the money that you earned.

Are we all guilty of having traces of Napoleon in us?

All the staying at home is slowly killing me. I kinda feel like I’m rotting. Get a job, most people will say. But what kind of job? Gah.

Btw my situation reminded me of an article I read in The Star pretty recently about Lee Kuan Yew talking about unemployed graduates in Singapore.

The following is the quote from here.

It is a national dilemma. Unless graduate unemployment is reversed, the middle class here faces erosion and social problems and poverty could set in.Out-of-work graduates are unable to service their home payments or maintain their family. More couples may decide not to have children.When he was Prime Minister during the early days of university-building, Lee Kuan Yew had said that Singapore would avoid countries like India, in producing too many jobless graduates.
With an able mind and higher expectations, too many of them would sit idly around coffee shops hatching revolutions, he explained.

Another article from the same author about Lee Kuan Yew quoted from another article here said:

For me, it’s like reliving some of the problems I had reported in other countries a generation ago.The headline made me recall what (then Prime Minister) Lee Kuan Yew once said about unemployed graduates.Commenting on the street violence that often marred life in India and Pakistan in those days, Lee attributed it partly to the large number of out-of-work graduates.
They were a potential source of instability. Their education allowed them to organise, plan or lead violent revolutions and they had the free time to do so.

I kinda feel what LKY said was true. I put myself as an unemployed graduate. Well I satisfy the first criteria, albeir voluntarily and the second criteria, let’s just say I’m an A-Level graduate and will be a university graduate in 3 years time.

And all the free time that I’m having, what have I been doing? Planning revolutions here and there on the Internet for the local youth scene.

Might work out, might not work out.

“With an able mind and higher expectations, too many of them would sit idly around coffee shops hatching revolutions, he explained.”

Damn I’ve been going for coffee sessions too many time thinking of ways to strike it big. Well perhaps it’s good. Or is it?

And just a few days back, I came out with a rebranding exercise for myself and this blog. I’m working on another personal project. Another revolution? Man!

Working makes time passes by very fast. But not working leaves me with too much idle time. And the brain is always cooking up some surprises for me.

Bobby “CE” Ong: It’s time to implement those revolutions. No more talk shop. Time for action.

My last post had been more than 2 weeks ago. It is really dinosaur age updates in the blogging world for me here. Well, you shall expect the usual Busy excuse from me again.

OK, this is what I had been doing for the past 2 weeks while I was MIA. I put up my last blog post one day before I left for Singapore to collect my A-Level results. It was great fun down in Singapore catching up with friends and all. It was a hectic schedule down there. I met up with about 3 to 4 groups of friends daily while in Singapore. We slept late everyday (around 3 to 4am) and woke up early (8 to 9am) for the next meeting with another group of friends. We had brunch, lunch, dinner and supper appointments. It was crazy stuff every night. My classmates are one united bunch of friends. We are so close we met up about 3 times during my short trip down to Singapore.

The plan was to come back on Monday morning, but I had to delay my trip back by a few days because of some important missing letter from NUS. So I only came back KL on Wednesday.

Back in KL, it’s crazy time applying for scholarships and all. It’s my window to go join my friends in UK and to fulfil my childhood dream to study in a university in UK.

At the same time, I spent 2 full days sorting out my driving license. The Sunday was spent practising before the test on Tuesday. During my last lesson, my instructor was damn anal in pestering me to pay an additional RM200 to grease my way through the ‘On The Road’ test. I was irritated by his demeanours. Well I did not pay the extra money and passed by test on Tuesday. On Thursday my Probationary Driving License arrived.

Also at the same time I spent some days going down downtown KL meeting some friends, so that effectively killed off a huge portion of my time. But I’m still feeling kinda bored these days at home. I need to work on the RedPimple project.

I’m seriously short of cash. Perhaps I will need to get fast cash payday loans to sort out my working capital for the RedPimple project. Oh talking about RedPimple, I’ll write more about the upcoming meet-up I’m planning in my next blog post.

And I would also like to say the following. I’m going to climb Mount Kinabalu on the 27-28 May. We are going to be in Kota Kinabalu from the 25-30 May. It’s an expedition for 5. I still have 1 more place, so anyone interested to go together just contact me.