Episode: last day of fasting month
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I was already up at around 9. Met my gal at 9.30am and we made our way to the banks at Bukit Batok to change some cash to two dollar notes. When we got there, all three banks had no more $2 notes. So, we had to go somewhere else. There was another bank at Bukit Batok, it we had to travel quite a distance to get there. We could take the bus, but we were not sure which bus to take. So we walked there. Though it was quite far away, our conversation all the way there shortens the distance. When we finally got to the bank, it also showed that there were no more $2 notes. But, when my gal asked the worker there, she said there is only about $2k left of $2. We took the chance to queue up and in the end, we got it changed.

Got back home after we went to the market to get some onions. At home, I did some finishing touches to the Crocs shoe design. Then, after doing so, I had to take good pictures of three different views of it. So, I called up my brother to ask for his help. He got an exceptionally good camera, so I decided to go visit him at my grandma's house. Before that, I had to buy something to be its background. My sister wanted to go to IMM to get herself some things, so I joined along, as I needed to buy some stuff too.

We got there at around 3.

Went shopping around the place looking for stuff for our home. There was this part which looks empty, but actually it was under construction.

After getting the things we were looking for, I went to Popular to buy the white and black background for the Crocs shoe design product shot, while my sister was out looking for her things. Without me noticing, it was almost 4.30pm. I said to my brother that I would be meeting him at 4.30 or 5pm. So, I left my sister and made my way to my grandmother's house.

Over there, I set up for the product shot like so, and look plenty of pictures. After doing so, I went home after saying thanks to my brother.

When I reached home, it was minutes away from break fast. Soon, we break fast. Then, later that night, we had this neighbourhood gathering to say some prayers to say goodbye to the month of Ramadhan and welcome Syawal. Every year we do this, we would bring some food and bring down to our block and after the prayers, we share the food that all of us had brought along.

At first, there were not many people, but in the end, more turned up. The rain really makes the whole place chilly. It felt like family, like we knew each other, but we are only neighbours. Still, being neighbours means knowing that each other exist in the area and help each other in times of need.

After that, I watched the new episode of Heroes. It took sometime to load, especially the last few minutes. Then at around 11pm, we made our way towards my aunt's house to seek help from her to take care of my grandmother for a few days. After which, we went to Geylang. Seeing all those bright lights in the area really bring out the spirit of Hari Raya.

It was packed with poeple, even at this hour. It was difficult for us to get a parking spot, but in the end at around 12+, we did. During that time, my sister and myself played a game. It is called, 'Spot the Mat Reps'. It was so much fun, even my parents joined in. All we had to do is to point or say out to who we think are those typical Malay Mats, or Mat Reps. There were plenty of them, especially here at Geylang.

After we got a parking spot, we walked around the place. It was very very crowded. I don't mind it, as I like pushing my way through.

Just look at the number of people there.

My sister was looking for earrings, but after some time looking, she gave up the search. Then she looked for some handbags. Just take a look at this shop. It is packed with ladies crazy over such handbags. It seems to be crowd magnet, especially to the ladies. Same thing, after a long time, she did not get anything. Such a waste of time. My younger sister was looking for Deng Deng, but since my dad have to work on the next day, he needs his sleep, so we went home. So, there was no Deng Deng for my sister.

I noticed that at 2am, we were already in the car going back home. When we reached home, I quickly submitted the Crocs shoe design competition to the respective mail. Hoped that my idea would reach to them and I hope that I am picked as the top 10 finalist. Before I go off, I would like to wish everybody, Selamat Hari Raya!


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Aidie blogged @ 1:14 PM

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Episode: ish ish ish
Monday, September 29, 2008

I made my way towards Bugis at around 1.30pm. Meeting my classmates at Bras Basah's McDonald's. We just having a meeting there. Anyways, I was slightly late. Icy was late too, but she do not know how to get to the place, so she waited for me to arrive. We were on the way there, and as we were waiting to cross the street, I saw this Taxi. It was like no other. I was rubbing my eyes when I saw that Bentley Taxi. Yup, it was a Bentley. I could hardly believe it. I am very sure that it was what is was. It was black, and had those Bentley grills, with the Taxi sign on its top. It went past me, and only after that, I thought of taking a photo. By then it was too late. Somebody please help confirm it with me that what I saw was real. Anybody seen it before?

Anyways, we arrived at McDonald's soon after. The rest of my classmates were already there. Soon, the meeting started. Then, as the meeting was going on, I noticed this Malay couple. Soon, the guy bought some food to their table. When he noticed me, his expression changed. I thought that he was bringing food for the gal, but it was for himself too. Yup, he was eating. How disrespectful of him to eat in public in the month of Ramadan.

When the meeting ended, Ivan, Glenn, Paul and myself went to Popular to buy some stuff. I was looking for markers to draw on my Crocs shoe for the design competition. Glenn bought a pen. There, we met Mdm Wong, our Flash animation lecturer there. She was buying some stuff too. Said Hi to her and then paid for our stuff.

I saw this bag at the Popular there. The black one does not look nice, but it seem to be the only bag pack laptop bag that I have found so far. I am looking for one that nicely holds one laptop. Too bad that it's not nice, if it was I would have bought it, no matter what brand it is. My search for a bag pack laptop bag goes on.

Then, Ivan said he wanted to join the Crocs shoe design competition, so we decided to go to Marina Square's outlet. To get there, we had to cross the road. It was raining at that time. We were drenched when we got there.

Arrived at the shop. After some thinking, Ivan suddenly decided not to join the competition. He said he needed a rest, especially after the Muji design competition that had left him tired. In the end, Glenn bought a shoe there. It looks nice on him, but it cost slightly over $100.

Since we were there, Paul wanted to buy himself some model planes. On the way there, we walked past this shop that has plenty of slot machines. The slot machines had this prize that caught Ivan's eyes. It was a dancing Stitch. Ivan was so tempted to get one for himself, but we just moved on.

Back to what Paul wanted, we arrived at the shop. He did get himself the model plane that he eyed on.

As we walked back, we had to walk past the slot machine shops again. This time, we stopped and look quite some time looking and people playing the games and trying to get for themselves a plush toy. There was this candy machine slightly outside the shop, but instead of candy, they put Sesame Street mini plush toy. The mini plush toy had eyes that are so cute, that I myself was drawn to it.

There were a few friends trying the game. See the guy in black playing? I find the words that are coming out of his mouth very amusing. The machine's game goes like this, you pour the mini plush toys onto a tray and when the tray is full, some of it will fall down to another tray for you to collect as a prize. There was this mechanism that will constantly push the tray filled with mini plush toys, so that it gets pushed to the second tray for you as a prize. Basically, the funny part was that the guy in black was hoping that more mini plush toys would get pushed off, so he yelled,"Push, Push, Push!" I find it very amusing. The way he said it was just like a soon-to-be dad, giving support to his partner who is giving birth. Hahax!


After that, we went home. I had a great time with them. I reached home an hour before it was time to break fast. At night, I got started doing my Crocs shoe design.


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Aidie blogged @ 4:52 AM

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Episode: ready and set to go
Sunday, September 28, 2008

After having my pre-dawn meal, I stayed up. I could not get back to sleep. So, since I have some time, I got online and check my mail. At the same time, I took a look at some portfolio at Coroflot. The featured designer's have an awesome portfolio. All their renderings and designs were very very presentable. I compared Singaporeans' portfolio to all the rest of the world, Singaporeans' standard is just getting there. I did viewed Singaporean Malays' portfolio under industrial design, and yup, I don't see many. Saw Rui Hon's one, but he had no designs in his portfolio. I sent him an email to ask why.

Well, I found this too. Check it out. This chart shows the average salary of the different designers. Design management earns the most.Now, this shows the average salaries for designers in the different countries. I never knew Indian designers earn a lot. (Both charts are by Coroflot)
I did got to sleep after surfing the net. At around 2pm, I woke up and I started to remove my room's curtains. After which, I cleaned the windows before I put up the new curtains. Look at the before and after pictures. This is the before.

And this is after. It look nice new and clean. Even my sisters like it. Well, good job Aidie.

With nothing left to do, I asked my mom for the new bed sheets. As I changed my bed sheets, I listened to some music, using the speakers I have. I really cranked it up. Soon, it was done, and look at my room now. I like how it is looking. Looking good!

For the rest of the day, I took out my drawing pen and paper and did some thinking for the Crocs shoe design. I have not done anything yet, as I have no good ideas. The competition deadline is on the 10th I guess. I do hope an idea will fall out of the sky and hit me in the head. If I don't then, I just have to squeeze the ideas out of my head within a short time.

Well, at 8pm today, the actual race day of the F1 night race in the heart of the city of Singapore started. I watched it from the start until the end. It was very interesting. The overtaking, the crashes, the mistakes and the driver's view was awesome. Well, actually I do not really like to watch these races, but this was exceptional as I not really a fan of F1. Well, Ready, Set..GO!! Yeah!


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Aidie blogged @ 5:15 AM

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Episode: edit portfolio
Saturday, September 27, 2008

From the title, you would know what I did for the day. Yup, I did up my portfolio. I woke up at 2pm, from that time until around 9pm, I just did my portfolio. It took quite a lot from me. Now, I am feeling quite tired. Oh ya, I found Kasbani's blog portfolio. Do check it out. It is under my links. I find the T-shirt in a spray can very interesting.


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Aidie blogged @ 6:21 AM

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Episode: rush, rush, rush, rush
Friday, September 26, 2008

Early in the morning, it was raining. It felt so good to stay in bed at that moment, but after awhile, I had to wake up and get ready to go for prayers. So, I rushed out of bed.

I went to the mosque with my dad in his car, so after prayers, I asked his if he could rush me to school. He did sent me to school, and I arrived in the studio exactly on time, at around 2pm.

I reached the studio, and the first thing I saw was Ivan taking pictures of his Muji bowl in a package. I find it very awesome!

Soon, the delivery guy came to collect and send the package over to Japan. It cost Ivan almost a hundred buck to settle the bill. Ivan used FedEx to deliver his Muji entry, no wonder it cost a lot of money. Ivan, my bro, good luck to you. I wish you all the best in this competition, I guess not only me, but the class do hope that you go all the way to win the competition. With sacrifices and your hard work put to your design, I do believe you will go far. If you do win, don't forget about me, k? Hahax!

Anyways, I was there at the studio to show what I got in my portfolio to my lecturer. He gave a lot of pointers to what should be and what should not be in a portfolio and how to arrange the works. In the end, I got a lot to change. So, I guess tomorrow, since I am free, I will do it. After all, this is for internship and for future use as well.

At around 4+, everybody there went out of the studio, and hailed a cab just outside the campus. During this time, my gal called me up. She called to ask whether I had seen her Ez-link card. She seem to misplace it, and the last time she used it was when we had that couple outing. Well, I had no clue, as it was always with her. After awhile, she put down the phone and went searching again.

Soon, we got a cab. Headed down to Geylang area with the rest of them.

Oh, our lecturer gave us this sweet. It is around 5cm long. Well, it is just a long hard candy. I just find this sweet interesting.

When we arrived there, we chilled and had a good chat. It was my first time being there, so I was quite curious to know about the place. While the rest of them had fresh coconut juice drink from a coconut, I had to just sit and watch since I am fasting.

Over there, there was this Japanese tourist coming in to try some Durians sold there. The sales assistant there somehow conned them, well he tried. What happened was, the tourist asked the salesperson to pick a Durian that is not too smelly and at the same time tastes sweet. The salesperson picked one huge Durian and opened it up. I can see that the amount was too much for the couple to finish it up, so the tourist couple told the salesman that they wanted to buy half the Durian. The salesperson told them that they do not sell half a Durian here in Singapore, in addition he tried to con the tourist couple, $50 for the Durian. In the end, the tourist was smart enough to deny the offer. The salesperson then cursed the tourist.

Is this how people do business? Such bad service. The salesperson could at first take a small Durian to start with. I think he could make some money if he did. I mean, they are traveling as a couple, giving them a huge Durian just would not help. One, they could not finish it and two, the price is really too much, it is a waste of money.

After all the commotion, I rushed back to school for my Sepak Takraw training. Today is suppose to be the selection trial for the team that is going to represent the school in the upcoming competition. I arrived late. I even had to break fast in the train on the way to school. Remember the sweet my lecturer gave? Yup, I had that to break my fast. I though that there would be a lot turning up, but it was the opposite. In the end, only 7 people turned up. We played no games, all we did was skill training. It was really tiring, especially when you have not had a meal for the whole day. Well, we ended training at around 10pm, and the names of the selected ones are announced. Guess what? I am one of them. Yeahoo! I am going to train harder and let no one take my place.

Straight after training, I rushed home. My whole family was waiting for me to reach home, before they start cutting my sister's birthday cake. When I got home, I bathed and then get to the dinner table for the cake cutting ceremony. My younger sister turns 18 on this day.

This was the cake. It was Nutella cake. It looks yummy!

Well, as usual, we took photos.

Cutting the cake.

Well, I had the first slice, as it was the biggest one. Then, I just gobbled down the cake as I was really hungry. Well, the cake was not that nice, but who cares when you are hungry?

My sister received presents from my parents and elder sister. She got a mug and a teddy bear with some cash in it. Well, I did not get her any presents this year. I had hardly anytime to go around searching for her present and I was not sure on what to get for her. Maybe a kitten, but that idea is impossible, as my mom do not like having a cat in the house.

Well, today I did a lot of rushing. I rushed to the mosque, to school, and then after chillin' with my classmates, I rushed back to school for my CCA, and lastly rushed home as my family was waiting for me.


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Aidie blogged @ 10:23 AM

Episode: saying Thank You

You get a laptop, when you do not need one, is a gift that should be followed by a Thank You. What is the definition of a Thank You? It is actually a polite way to appreciate the things that are given to you. Many people think that Thank You is just something polite to say after receiving something. Well, that is wrong. A Thank You takes a lot more time to express. What do I mean by this? Well, you can use a second to say Thank You, but the message would only come across to the person who gave you that item after you make good use of it, and it takes more than a second.

Why did I bring up this topic? Well, I guess sometimes people take a lot of gifts for granted. They would just say Thank You and then leave. I feel sorry for the person who is doing the giving. It felt that the person’s gift is not appreciated and he or she is a fool for giving such things to a person who does not know how to say Thank You appropriately.

A gift, especially something out of nothing from somebody should, in an act of being polite, be appreciated. Appreciating something means repaying the person who gave you the gift with something else. Now, this is saying Thank You. With this, you show how much that gift means to you. Though the person did not ask for anything in return, it is just to show that the gift given is well taken by you.

There are many gifts in the world. This is how one should say Thank You to some gifts.

1) The gift of love(being in a relationship) - stay in love, give hugs and kisses and be faithful.

2) A hand phone – stay in contact (switch it on, and reply all calls and messages as soon as possible).

3) A laptop – get good grades.

4) Friendship – helping one another.

5) Food prepared my mom – help set up the table, eat up the food and clear it up after eating.

Well, there are lots more ways to say Thank You than the ones that I have stated here. As long as you repay the gift, you are really saying Thank You.

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Aidie blogged @ 12:51 AM

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Episode: upgrade
Thursday, September 25, 2008

The whole day I tried to stay asleep, but there is always something keeping me up. At around 10am, my lecturer message to remind about my portfolio and ITP, then another message about tomorrow's meeting after that I stayed asleep until 3pm. Yup, 3pm. When I woke up, I online and did some minor adjustment to my portfolio.

As usual, my day just watched TV and stuff. When it was almost 6, I went down to Bazaar with my mom. This time, the usual crowd is not seen. I guess everyone is busy cleaning up their homes and at the same time I guess got bored with the limited food available at the bazaar.

Speaking of cleaning up the house, my house was somehow the opposite. I saw this huge box right outside of my room. Then, my mom called me up to try open my dad's memory card from his phone. I wonder why she wants me to do that. Then, I saw that my dad bought an iphone. Then, when I turn around, my gosh! My dad even bought a new LCD TV.

It looks so awesome! As well as the iphone my dad bought.


Now, my brother, sister and my dad have an iphone each. Its not that I am jealous that they got an iphone each, I am alright with it. I just find it cool if everyone in my family has it. But the problem is that, I don't find iphone that good. It is very attractive, but it lacks something. I am not sure what it is.

I found Kasbani's design company's website. It is called Virustudio. I though there would be clickables, but it was still under construction. Bani, when is the official launch? I want to check it out.

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Aidie blogged @ 5:14 AM

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Episode: use the time
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My aunt was right in front of my house at around 10.30am. She gave a knock on the door. As usual, I was still in bed sleeping, but I could hear her calling. I just got out of bed for that moment just to let her in, then I got back to bed.

For the rest of the day, I did some photoshop. Since I had some free time, I went out to train myself. Actually, every Wednesday and Friday there is suppose to have training, but since today a lot of the others aren't free, today's training session was canceled. To a certain extent I would like to get selected for the upcoming competition. If possible, I would want to play for my school in that competition. I know it would be difficult, but I think I do deserve to play as I trained really hard and I am the only few who always come from training.

After training, I changed and went back down to buy food for break fast later.

There is quite a few things that I bought and brought back home.

All in all today was just like any other day. Though there is nothing much to do, I would gladly find things to do.

You know what? I found this video in Youtube about sports. I was clicking away when I found out about this. The Low Blow. It explains why a hit to the family jewels hurt so much to a guy.
Check it out..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_FT_kc0wyY&feature=related

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Aidie blogged @ 5:26 AM

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Episode: guys day out
Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Got out of bed at around 1.30pm. The first thing that I did was to check out whether the new season of Heroes was out online. I searched and searched, and finally got to watch it. It took me sometime to search for it on the net, as it had only recently been released in the US. So, those who want to watch the new season, here are the links.

Heroes Season 3, episode 1: http://www.fanpop.com/external/2393695

Heroes Season 3, episode 2: http://www.fanpop.com/external/2393691

Sometimes Megavideo shows that the video is temporarily removed, so you can try finding the links here: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/heroes

Enjoy!


The time I took to search and watch the two new episode from the new season took me up until around 5.20pm. So, with no time to waste, I got ready and went out of my house to meet the guys and break fast together. I reached IMM Giant at around 6+ with Kasbani. Met Rusydi in the toilet, as he was changing to a much comfortable clothing. He was working before that. We waited here for Ali to arrive.

Soon, he came and we made our way to Bagus.

It was nice to get to meet each other again after sometime.

This is Kasbani, I last saw him when our graduation night. That was around 2 years ago if I am not wrong. To meet with him again felt great. We all do miss him a lot, as he is always busy and stuff.

Ali brought along his DSLR. So, we did took a few pictures. Most of the picture for the day is in his camera. Ali, don't forget to pass me the pictures alright?

Soon, it was time to break fast. Yuni was still nowhere to be seen, so we just break fast without him. Yuni was on the way from work.

Only after we had finished our food that he showed up. He had some donuts to eat and then we made a move out of IMM and towards somewhere else.


We head down to Science Center to chill.



We just take a few pictures before settling down at McDonald's.

Sat there and we started talking about how each other have been doing, what's our ambition in the future and for most of the time, we spent talking about the great and funny times when we were in secondary school, and also mentioned about almost all our missing classmates and wondered how are they doing now.

It was around 9+, when we decided to put Ali's DSLR to good use.

We took quite a few awesome pictures, individually and as a group.

After all that talking and time taken to take pictures, we got tired, so we got to the McDonald's there and grabbed some ice-cream.

Went home after that. It was a great meeting, though it wasn't much, what was important is that we remain friends.

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Aidie blogged @ 7:55 AM

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