Zit Seng's Superwall

I just realized that I’ve been “offline” for a while. “Offline” in the sense that this blog hasn’t had any updates for almost 2 weeks now. There are a couple of reasons for it. Probably the chief reason is that I’ve been very under-the-weather lately. Then, there are also critical project milestones to meet at work. The two combined together have left me no time and no “mood” to blog anything.

It’s the first time that I’m getting such an acute sinusitis. It was so bad that the pain I had felt, wasn’t headache, but literally pain the sinuses. It was as bad as, or perhaps worse, than the intensity of my typically headaches.

(more…)

The most patriotic member of the family this year has got to be Vanessa. She’s been bugging both me and Mummy: “Why we no Singapore flag?” “Why our car no Singapore flag?” “See, Singapore flag!” “Why we no Singapore flag?” “See, another Singapore flag!” “Where’s my Singapore flag?” (She got one from her child care centre.) “Why our car no Singapore flag?” ”Why we didn’t bring my Singapore flag”? Repeat and repeat, in various random sequences.

(more…)

Not quite riches. But it’s amazing how in a little over a week, all this mess is going to turn into something that actually does look nice enough to be paraded around in a sort of competition. That is going to become a float for NUS Rag Day which, this year, is going to fall on the opening of the inaugural Youth Olympics Games.

The campus is bustling with orientation programmes right now. Week 0, which is the official freshmen orientation week, starts next week. But the noise, particularly when some student groups take their activities rowdy indoors, is starting to cause the peace to be disturbed.

(more…)

We’ve finally moved to a new office. Three years late, after the rest of the school had already moved. We joked that we were unimportant third-class citizens, and hence were left behind. (Sometimes we do feel like third-class citizens…) This is only my 3rd room, although some colleagues who worked for slightly shorter time could have had gone through more rooms than me.

I’m quite pleased to get back the original furniture arrangement that I had in my first office. My then colleague and I had this idea of a centre island of work tables that we share on opposite sides. We shared offices two-to-a-room. The design was unique, functional and promoted team work.

(more…)

Last year’s ICT achievement was about an arcade game. This year, I couldn’t advance to the next level because the fire button was broken. Oh, too bad. But we didn’t have a lot of time to spend in the mess anyway. What would this year’s most significant ICT achievement be? Hmm, I can’t seem to pin it down to anything specific. So perhaps I’ll just mention a few.

(more…)

I told Vanessa on the second day of ICT, as I was preparing to head out: “Papa has to go army now.”

Vanessa looked at me, her face was painted in shock and disappointment: “Again???”

I told her, “Yes, and there will be many many more days.”

She asked, “But why you always go army?”

And I said, “Well, I also don’t want to go army you know. But the government wants me to go.”

Vanessa: “Why?” Yadda, yadda, yadda… “The government naughty?”

(more…)

It’s almost 20 years since I first stepped into Tengah Air Base. In all that time (well, mostly just the two years of active NSF service), I’ve been to all over the air base, either on wheels or on my two feet. But there is this exclusive piece of real estate that I’ve only travelled on for less than a handful of times, and until now, never actually stepped on with my two feet. This piece of real estate is actually quite huge, and is, in fact, a significant part of the air base. It’s the runway.

(more…)

We’re seeing more of the e-armed forces. BMT recruits, 2600 of them, were issued with notebook computers at the start of their BMT course last December so that they can do “e-learning” at their own time. They are learning about such things as riffle handling, grenade throwing and first-aid. The learning format sounds like what universities do for some courses: online learning, supplemented by recitations and tutorials/practical labs.

(more…)

Earth Hour is coming up again. It will be from 8:30pm to 9:30pm this Saturday, 27th March 2010. Everyone’s encouraged to participate and show their support by switching off their lights during this hour. Earth Hour is a call for everyone to be responsible for our future.

Okay, now the serious part of showing my support for Earth Hour is done, let’s look at other things surrounding Earth Hour. This switching-off-the-lights business, do you think it makes any difference at all? It’s really all about publicity. But could they not do something more meaningful? After all, we have been switching off ours lights for some years.

(more…)

For many years now, I’ve never been very keen to go to any of the computer shows, not unless there was something specific I wanted to get or to check out. There are probably some marginally better discounts that can be gotten at the show, but those discounts tend to also be available outside the show during that show period. So, there’s little point to jostle with the crowd.

(more…)