Episode: what do you do when you are spending the whole day at home
Saturday, February 28, 2009

I was at home for the whole of today. Yea I know, I expected it to be boring. Well, what I did today really filled up my time. The beauty of having time for yourself is that you can do anything that you want at any time. Well, I watched some shows on the net. Went to one of my favourite websites and watch some movies. Well, I watched Spongebob first.

Then I watched Big Stan. I would give it 3/5 stars. As you can see, the type of movies or shows that attract me are those that make me produce endorphins(happy chemicals). Well, mainly of course comedic movies. I found out one thing today. I found out why I was gaining weight recently.

Usually, I would skip breakfast, skip lunch and always waits for my mom to prepare dinner. That is when I would eat a lot. The reason why I skip meals was because most of the time I am busy with my work(school work).

Now, I am working(real work). Every morning, I would wake up very early(the distance from my house to my work place is very far; so do the math) and with the extra time in the morning, I would have my breakfast. There would always be lunch time at work. So now, I am taking my lunch. When I get back home, I would have my mom's cooking. Suddenly, I have time to eat.

Especially when I am at home, with all the time in the world, every time I have nothing to do, I would go to the fridge for food. There was this one time when I was looking for food, I realised and said,"What am I doing?". I have so much time that I want to spend it doing something(eating).

Anyways, for the rest of the day from around 4pm until 2am, I was on Designboom.com. I find the history section very interesting. Then when I feel like sleeping, I slept. That is the beauty of having time. When I woke up, went for dinner with my parents. Then, I got back to Designboom and found a couple of historial pages in the website was taught to me by my History and Theory of Design lecturer. So, that was where he gets his materials.

Do visit Designboom.com. Click on history section. You will definately discover new things.


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Aidie blogged @ 9:49 AM

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Episode: big proportions
Friday, February 27, 2009

Every time I come to work, I have to look at these beautiful houses. Everyday as I walk past them, I feel like owning one in the future. I know that it is very very expensive, that is why I have to work hard to get what I want in life. I hope by then, that owning a house like this would not be a problem for me.


Work was work. Break time came to me when it was 12.45pm. I head off to the mosque and then got back to have my lunch. I had this Murtabak for two days now(yesterday and today). The serving was very big. After eating this, my stomach is satisfyingly filled. The taste was not bad at all. The place is at Serangoon Garden, R.K Indian Muslim eating house.

I was waiting for 6pm today. That is when I finish work and that is when I am going to meet my gal for the first time in three weeks. We agreed to meet near Cheers at Ang Mo Kio. I arrived first, so to kill time, I went in just wondering around. After a while I went out. And there she was. My gal.

The first thing was hugs. I smiled and she seems bubbly as ever(maybe because for exams are over and probably its me). All the way home, I felt so warm. Being with her is what I had missed so much. Thankfully, she was there. Actually, she was the sweet one. She came just to pick me up from work. It was the first time that she had ever done so(I mean pick me up from somewhere). The rest of the day were just normal daily activity.


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Aidie blogged @ 8:28 AM

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Episode: mirror
Thursday, February 26, 2009

The first thing that I did when I got to work was to continue on doing the work I did yesterday. Well, actually Gabriel wanted some minor changes, so I just completed it. Then, I did some electrical planning on Rhino on one of the interior projects. Gabriel left for a while to visit another interior design project's site. I completed the task and then went off for lunch. Met Wendy at the Indian stall and we had lunch together.

When Wendy and I got back it was around 12+. Soon Gabriel arrived. Then, after discussing about the Milan project, Wendy went off after an hour or so. I somehow feel that Wendy was forced to come to somehow babysit me. Anyways, continued on the electrical thing until it was 6pm. Head home straight. This time I had my PSP with me. the journey back home really felt shorter.


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Aidie blogged @ 6:17 AM

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Episode: lateR
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

I do not want to talk about work, as it was the same as usual. Today, I spent an hour more than I used to at work and in the end I got home late. When you get home, its a homey feeling if someone is in the house, but today it seems that everybody is out. So, I am here blogging alone at home. There is not much that can be done alone at home, so I just think about them since they are not here. Thinking about my loved ones, I seem to miss my gal a lot. I know she is busy with her exam so, what am I to do but to give support. I am really looking forward to the weekend, as I hope that my gal is free(she must be as her exams will be done by then) and then we could go spend the whole day together. I already have plans, but I am not sure if that is where she wants to spend her time at. Until then, I am just counting the day.


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Aidie blogged @ 4:40 AM

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Episode: something new; an addition
Tuesday, February 24, 2009

To work again. Most of my time was doing this. Currently, we are doing a work on an interior of a house together with Honfay. So, I did the electrical bits of it. I did the lights, the TV, switches and stuff. Lots of changes were made, but it was alright. From this, I start to learn and understand when designing interiors.

When it was lunch time, we went off to here. Its western food. I know that I am not suppose to eat here, but I just ordered anyways. I had fish to be on the safe side.

After lunch, we were back to what we were doing. Did other things as well, but time seems to fly by very quickly and by then it was already 6pm.

I was on the way home, when the train stopped for about 15minutes or so. The train in front of the one I was in had some problems. In the end, it was towed away backwards by another train. Out of all people, I met Zai in the train. Chat with him for a while and then went home.


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Aidie blogged @ 6:26 AM

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Episode: to work
Monday, February 23, 2009

Well, nothing much to say for today except that I went to work. Well, the whole day was spent doing ideation sketches. Honfay was suppose to come today, but it seems that he came after 6pm; after my working hours. I wanted to stay for a while, but I had to home. On the way home, I randomly call up my classmates to check how are they doing on their ITP. Reached home at around 7+, then just chill.


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Aidie blogged @ 5:08 AM

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Episode: the life
Sunday, February 22, 2009

Its a Sunday. The first thing that I want to do is to have my sleep. I woke up at around 2pm, then switched on my laptop blogging about yesterday. Then, I went to watch movies.net and searched for slumdog millionair. Then, I watched it with my mom. It was a very interesting movie. I really enjoyed watching it. I would give it 4/5 stars.

After the movie ends, I got ready and went out with my mom and younger sister. We head to West Mall's Pastamania to eat at 4+ nearly 5pm.


I had some crayfish. It was too nice, too nice. It was fantAstic. Mind blasting! (phrases taken from Russell Peters the stand up comedian-Red White and Brown) We also had some pizzas and some chicken.

When we got home, I watched Russell Peters on Youtube with my mom. Though I could not find the whole show, but clips of it already made me and my mom laugh.

With nothing else to do, I went searching for another movie to watch online. Click on recent movies and then watched Push.

Well, the movie was quite confusing and its storyline was not that interesting. Other than the super powers the people possed, the movie was a let down. I give this movie 1/5 stars. Its just that the whole movie went very fast.

Got to get ready for work tomorrow. I wonder when is my Liason Officer coming(Edwin). Maybe I should ask him. But for now, I good night sleep is needed.


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Aidie blogged @ 6:33 AM

Episode: my cousin's birthday

This happened yesterday (21st February) Got up early in the morning. It was hard for me as it was a Saturday. Anyways, I had to go to the ICA building to get my new passport. It closes at 12noon, so I got out of the house at around 8.30am. Reached there, went to the second floor and everything went smoothly. This was the queue number that they were serving.

This is my queue number. There were around 47 people ahead of me. I though that it was going to be a long wait, but after about less than half an hour, I was called up. Got my new passport; the one with the chip embedded in it.

Got home, slept until it was 12noon. Then I just played some games on my PSP. At 2.30pm, my mom and myslelf made a move to my grandma's house. We were there waiting for my younger sister. When she arrived, only at 6pm(the rain had stopped;it was raining the whole day), we made a move to West Coast Park. We took a cab there.

It was only my second time there. The first time was with my family just to take a look at the place.

Went searching for the rest of my cousins there.

When we arrive and met up with the rest, the sun was setting.

Pitched up a tent there. Soon after, all the guys in my family got to the field and played soccer. We made two teams, one are youngsters and the other are oldies. I am in oldies together with my uncles. Anyway, the match ended when we could hardly see anything. The oldies won, thanks to my goal. It was the only goal in the match.

At night, we all took pictures when it was cake cutting time. One of my youngest cousin's birthday was celebrated. She got roller blades as her birthday present. i guess she turns 6 this year, but then again I am not sure. Then, the guys wondered off towards McCafe. I was with them. The playgrounds over there seems to distract us on our way to McCafe. In the end, we reached the place and chilled there for a while.

Then with our stomachs filled with Mc foods, we went to a playground and went on the spinning thing. We spun round and round to see who would vomit first. We did got dizzy, but nobody vomitted.

Then, my aunt called for an offer to go to Swensens and eat some ice-creams. So, we packed up and head to Holland Village's Swensens. It opens for 24hours.

Had the earthquake. Well, we had two regular earthquakes and we finished it both. It was awesome!

My dad came soon to fetch us up. Got home at around 1+. I am not that sure, as when I reached home, I went to sleep.

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Aidie blogged @ 12:09 AM

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Episode: learning at work
Friday, February 20, 2009

Focused on the Milan fair's products today. So, we sketched and almost finalise the ideas. Did more sketching. Gabriel taught me about being original in your works, and the importance of doing so. He also mentioned that when doing any project, it is also important to listen to people's perspective and also not to always agree on people's idea, but if you feel that the idea that you have is good, then fight for it.

He did introduced me to many design links. It was an eye opener for me. The links are not to search for new ideas, but instead to check if your idea is an original.

At 12.30pm, I head out to a mosque for Friday prayers. I had my Friday prayers here at Al-Istiqamah Mosque. The place looks old, it smell quite funny too. But, it was nice to see the use of technology in Mosques like theses.

Then, I head back to Gabriel's. Before that, I had my lunch. It was quite chillin, as I was eating alone, only me. Work ended at 6pm, reached home at about 7+. I still need to do some sketching for the Milan fair and then post it for the rest of the guys to see.

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Aidie blogged @ 7:06 AM

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Episode: play at work
Thursday, February 19, 2009

Got to work at 10am today. It was not because I was late, but it was Gabriel's request. Anyways, I was doing my work, doing some sketches for the Milan show then Wendy came. At 12+ we went for lunch at McDonald's. It was awesome talking to them about design and about other things not related to design.

Then, went to some shops to run some errands.

When we got back, Wendy pinned up some pictures that are for the Milan show on Gabriel's wall. Out of nowhere, we started to move the tables making space for the pictures. After moving the tables, we moved to cleaning Gabriel's room. In the end, we found lots of interesting things.

Things such as these IDEO method cards.

It was great to have these cards. I look a few of them. Basically, its a deck of inspiring cards that would help to jolt out some new ideas on our own.

These and more are Gabriel's collection of design books. Well, I have them too, but it is just a few. Mostly mine consists of magazines and exhibitions that are free(except for the NUS "id's in the idea" I bought that for 18bucks). I intend to start a collection of my own.

Then, we did some exhibition design for the Milan show. I did the 3D rendering and rendered in in Hypershot. It looks great. It was sent to the rest of the team online. Hope they like it, so that it could be implemented.

Went home when it was 6pm. I took 73 home as I always do, but when I took it, it seems to be going somewhere unfamilliar. In the end, I landed at Toa Payoh. Then, I had no choice but to take the longer way home by train.

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Aidie blogged @ 4:11 AM

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Episode: the reality
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Got to work from a different way this time, but it was shorter. Met my aunty in the MRT today. She gave me a namecard to redesign. That namecard was for my cousin's(her daughter) business. Well, let me see if I have the time. Anyways, got to work and Gabriel planned to take me to visit a renovation site, so we got in the car, took Wendy with us and went there. Before we go there, we had to take some catalogs from SMRT building near town. It was left at the reception counter by Honfay.

I was the one who took it. Had to walk this path to get to the reception.

Got to the renovation site soon after. It was somewhere near Ivan's house. They were designing on one of the shophouses there. It was damn cool.


What was interesting was that there were many parties involving in the redevelopment of this shophouse. There were architects, engineers, designers(us), electricians, air-con installation guy, staircase people(people to install the staircase uh) and window people.

From the site, I took this picture. I call it looking back. Well, it is a picture of a future shophouse looking at the current shophouse(which is still quite old).

Plenty of discussions and conflicts. For example, the engineers want it to be this way, but the designers say it should be the other way. Usually, the engineers are very practical people but thier practical ways are usually boring, that is why most engineers think that designers are somehow like pests that irritates them. But we as designers thinks that engineers should loosen up more.

Discussing about the how the staircase handles are to be placed.

About what materials to be used.

Some samples given by Patrick.

After everything, we went for lunch. At first we went to a chinese foodstall, but then they realised that I am a muslim, so they found an Indian Muslim stall to have lunch. The servings there was quite a lot. But as usual, I could finish it.

Then, back to Gabriel's house and then to Wendy's to do other work. Maybe the heat of the sun got to my head and also drain out a lot of my energy, that was why I was tired at the end of the day. I also had a slight headache, you know the ones where you tap your head and it will feel giddy? Yaa, those.

When I got home the first thing I did was to find my bed and got to sleep.

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Aidie blogged @ 7:54 AM

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Episode: chill work
Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The usual day at work. I was doing some HTML editting on Dreamweaver and did some Rhino modeling. At 12+, we went for lunch. But before that Gabriel needed to visit the bank. I was waiting outside when this irritating banker guy came and start telling me about some saving stuff. I was not interested at all, but I just listened. Gabriel came out and I thought that I was saved, but the banker guy dragged us to the bank and he did more talking. We were pissed, because he was eating into our lunch break.



Only after a while we were free from him. We then head off to the Serangoon food center.

The place looks familiar to me. Then I realised that the place was on TV once on Our Makan Places Lost and Found. Well, I just had Mee Siam, it was not that nice, but when you are hungry you just finish up everything.

Head back to the studio and did somemore HTML editting and then did a mood board(well it just sourcing out for pictures for now). Finished work at 6.10 or so then, Gabriel showed me a shorted way to his house next time I would be coming. In record time, I got home at 7.20pm. That is about 40minutes faster than yesterday.

Got home, then went out with my mom for a while to go get a shoe for work. I came to work in slippers today. Though it was alright, but I really don't feel coming to work like that. Saw my gal's family when I was with my mom buying the shoe, but my gal was not around. Watched another new episode of Heroes and then I rested.

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Aidie blogged @ 5:44 AM

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Episode: my ITP (first job ever, first day of work)/ 300th post
Monday, February 16, 2009

Woke up as early as 6.30am, and got out of the house at 7am. Taking the train towards the red line was great as there were not many people, so it was not crampy. The journey in the MRT took around 40 minutes. Then, I had to wait for the bus to arrive and when the bus came, I took it. I alighted at the place I recognised around at 8.30am. So, I reached his house and called him up. At that time, he was still sleeping. He told me to go get breakfast and come back at 9am. So, I did. I got to the prata shop and ate some pratas.

At 9am, I got to my workspace. It is not much, but it is cosy. The first thing that I did was to come out with some ideation sketches to one of the projects.

Then, we went to Wendy's house to take some product shots. Wendy is another person in the OutofStockdesign. She is the one who usually does the photo taking. We took photos of the parts of the furniture that they designed. It took quite some time. We ended at around 1pm or so.

Then the assembling part. After a while, we found out that one of the part of the chair is missing. Why missing? It was because Sabastian from Spain somehow did not ship in the part together with the rest. Then, we had ot stop taking the pictures.

We were planning to go the workshop to fix some shipping problems on the chair. But before that we had lunch. I had the biggest serving of Mee Rebus in my life. It was not that nice though.

Only after that, we went to the workshop. We somehow got lost, but we found a new workshop to do some carpentry. It is located at Defu lane. So, next time if I want to custom make a wooden furniture, I would have to come here and provide them the dimension drawings.


After that, we head off to the trusted workshop. Spent quite some time asking the guy(something like our Ricky in SP workshop) on how to assemble the furniture and making it easy to disassemble as well.

With this, I had learnt that providing a good dimension drawing is very important.

It rained as we were going back to Wendy's house. There, Wendy gave some stuff for me to do for tomorrow's work and she even add me to the OutOfStock work area online. Left there at 6.30pm. Got home at around 8pm.

Tomorrow, I will be coming to work in slippers and a much more chill shirt. Gabriel does not mind at all.

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Aidie blogged @ 5:00 AM

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