on friday i went off to city hall with shawn, reu, ql and stel for a get-together, and also to celebrate shawn's belated bday. after running through a few places to eat, we decided to go raku ninja, the dark and very much overlooked restaurant at the top of the escalators at the citylink mall.

we had a pretty good time chatting together there. it was only after a while had passed that ql and i realized that we'd been waiting for our food for a really abnormally long time, while shawn, reu and stel's food had already arrived.

we waved around for a waitress, but everyone were busy looking the other way.

in the end, too hungry to wait, i hopped off to ask a waitress about our status. she said she'll look into it.

our happy chatting started skewing off towards grumbling stomaches, fainting of hunger and cold dinners.

half an hour had passed since the trio's dishes had arrived. we singled out the manager, and went up to him to inquire about our food.

now we were really losing our confidence in the restaurant. and upon taking a good look around, we realized that - reu's tempura udon had no tempura.

after a while the manager bustled over to inform us that qiu and my orders were not reflected in the order slip. i shot a death glare to the waitress a few tables away. so he took our orders again.

and when we informed him that the tempura udon had no tempura he gave a limp laugh and said "is that so... ha...ha... that's so weird...."

i was ravenous. i was pissed. i was just this close to biting his fingers off for dinner and setting their messed up restaurant on fire. but i set quietly by...

and after a while all the food arrived. at long last. stel's laksa and shawn's wadeva were already cold. at least reu's plate of tempura were hot.

when we waved for the bill, the manager came over once again.

"i guess we're getting a discount after all this trouble?" shawn asked.

"no worries about that." was the reply.

10%.

*sharpens teeth for the chomp*

I opened the mail just, and found a postcard from ning. an Egyptian postcard. the first i'd ever gotten, and with an Egyptian stamp too =) Ning just came back from Egypt lately~ all burnt and peeling and crispy, and very hyper and very very happy.

i wanna go Egypt too~! Even if i'm gonna end up all burnt and peeling and crispy and delicious to the hungry camels and scarab beetles there~ 

pyramids~ the mighty sphinx~ the libraries~ Cairo~ sand~ heat~ architecture~

i admit i noe nuts about Egypt save for the above. The postcard showed pictures of the harbour city Alexandria. It looks really like a scene out of Aladdin and the magic lamp!

=happy=

thanks, ning~! 

and on the 7th we went for a pre-birthday celebration at marina square. there were 10 of us in total, the dhs4b clique was finally gathered from all over sg and the world! (note: ning just arrived at sg from egypt)

we ate at MOF and very very luckily caught the fireworks from the NDP rehearsal from where we were. it was super clear, and really beautiful. after years of being chased off the highway by irritating traffic police and getting blocked by coconut trees along the ECP, i finally SAW fireworks again! yay~ i'm bringing my mom there the next rehearsal. =D

and i got tricked by everyone into eating a lot + a very very heavy chocolate fudge cake. >__<

when they presented the chocolate slice as a surprise, i greeted it with mixed emotions. 60% was pleasant surprise and 'feeling touched' that they went this extra step for me. 30% was curiosity as to when this thing popped out. 10% was 'a bad feeling that i'm gonna be putting on a lot of weight'

when they said that i have to eat up the whole cake... it was 20% i knew it's gonna end up like this. 40% is it really alright for me to eat this whole thing, can we share? and the remaining was just OH NO~ I'm gonna die of bloatedness before i reach 21.

the next morning i woke up at 4am, unable to sleep anymore coz i was too full lol. happily digested my way to breakfast from 4am to 10am.

ok, i'm rambling. need sleep. zzz

i decided that for my 21st birthday, i was gonna get up the webcomic that i'd been trying to do for the past 1 year. so at least i fulfilled one of my dreams at 21.

the art's all out, inked, and ready to be scanned and coloured. the page contents are out. the host is found.

and i had a good 2 days (ample time) to do it all up nicely by tomorrow dawn.

and ytd evening, during a get-together, yy suddenly told me that i needed to get out the Dinner and Dance posters by this morning. apparently something happened to the sms she sent out and it didn't get through to me two days ago.

so i hectically rushed home to ammend the posters (the original deadline was sunday) there was a virtual memory crunch and much time was spent  staring at the slowly moving save-bar and chewing on the end of my pillow.

by the time i was done, it was midnight, my parents were asleep, there was a hole and lots of drool on my pillowcase. i didn't even have the energy (and wits) left to make my long-lost-twin-brother's birthday gift (it was completed on the trainride this morning)

and today i came back home, happily pulled out my scanner, only to find that the attached wires were mismatched. it must had been lost or stuffed somewhere in the big move from hall. yay~ now i have a functional but utterly useless and super-outdated scanner sitting around the house collecting dust.

undaunted i set about trying to work with digital camera photoes instead. one hour down i had pretty much given up hope.

so there. 

if the upstairs wanna give me a hint at the direction i'm going in my life, i guess it can't be any clearer than this. i'm studying now. harumph.

and these past two days the bosses and seniors had been treating us to lunch. yesterday was dim sum, and we were fed so much i felt like a bloated balloon. after which, our stomaches had 1 hour of rest before we were invited to an interview with one of our agents at killiney's. we drank lime juice in an attempt to digest our food.

after that, to work off all that excess chow in my stomach and earn brownie points, i stayed back another hour to do filing. then it was off to marina square Waraku's. and the bomb dropped.

anyway~ today was another lunch treat by 5 seniors at a thai restaurant. they collaborated to have a mini-birthday celebration for my long-lost-twin-bro and me too. was too full again. following which we were gifted curry puffs, and a super nice butter cake... the puff's in the fridge now. tomorrow's breakfast. (@_@)

and tomorrow night we're going down to marina square to watch fireworks, so i guess its another big dinner out. and there's the actual day... and the birthday cake too...

i'm growing fat. 

les gave me an air hockey table! and he lent me his scanner so... anyway~ come over and play air hockey~!!! =D

today we went off to Sentosa to play. sped down 650m of track in luges (go-karts cum tobogan) and rode the skyrail - something like the elevated metal chairs you see going up and down ski mountains.

went to Images of Singapore and refreshed our knowledge of history.

then went over to Underwater World. its even better than before! there's a new huge pool for touching stingrays; when you approach the tank, the friendly rays would swim up, and some would poke their heads and flippers out of the water.

*swim*

*pops up*

*gets stroked*

*goes under again*

some overly friendly (actually hungry) rays would rush out of the water so fast the water gets splashed all over you.

some rays are soft and flacid, others are tough and leathery. so cute~

and the original touchpool had starfishes, bamboo sharks (leathery skin; they'll stay there unmoving as you run your hands up and down its length), puffer fishes that move lethargically so slowly you get a good touch. and the stupid archer fish that's impossible to catch.

and there's all manners of crabs and HUGE fishes. 2m wide japanese crabs. i'd seen them in menus *salivates* huge prehistoric fishes. huge catfishes. jellyfishes. sea angels. and the stupid dugong~! (^_^)

went over to ben's and jerry's for icecream and a walk on the beach.

after which we tried to rush over to the musical fountain by going through the dragon's trail a second time. rushed through the sandy path in the forest in the darkening dusk. there's a lot more rustles from the bushes this time around; but it was too dark to see what it was.

and the musical fountain 7.40pm show was sold out before 7. we got the 8.40 one. there was a lot more pyrotechnics this time around; i actually enjoyed that more than the water works. and fireworks~!

lastly, dinner at the siglap hong kong cafe~! want to upload pictures of the fishes, but can't figure out how to work this thing so oh well.

air hockey at my house~!

the day is 20072007. and its the last day of internship~!

i'd been sleeping at 3am lately, coz i was staying up to write cards and stress over my =its not coming to me= professional attachment report.

and i just realized yesterday that my logbook is to be handed up to my supervisor... *check computer clock* 2 minutes ago. (12:02 now) ah well~ i'll just apologise and drag it on ba.

so today, we reached the office earlier to write some last minute cards. jac helped to buy fruit tarts, and we went around the 3 floors table-by-table to offer them to the people we know. and we waited around for our target gift-receivers to come into the office and ambushed them to push gifts onto them.

most of my gifts were from minitoons. back massagers (weapon of mini-destruction now under the hands of one of the seniors), super cute handphone pouches and soft toy dogs! everyone just squealed "so cute~" *touch touch*.

then we came back, did our work for half an hour, before we were called off to a consolidation meeting with our supervisors and the HR manager.

after which, we came back again to do a little more work, before we were called off upstairs again for a more indept tution session with one of the specialist managers in trade credit - a field i indicated interest in.

trade credit is really fun. we insure businesses from the risk of their customers/suppliers bankrupting after receiving payment for a contract. so we have to take the economy into account and evaluate the risks of each industry in each country. check the company's books. find out their growth potential, share price etc.

i also learned a lot of economics/investment/business-related knowledge as well. such as how costs are passed down, how various small changes in the economy/climate affects the different industries...

QBE is really a good place to intern at. although there is a lot of administrative work involved, there's also a lot of effort put into exposing the intern to various parts of the company.

the people are also super friendly! always joking around, treating us, and ready to smile. gifts-count today: one precious thots figurine from my dept, one bouquet from some managers, one namecard holder, one gift chocolate, one box of cookies, accessories and ornaments.

brought one huge bag of gifts, and one box of left-over tarts home. had dinner with yuanyuan (who we're leaving behind in the company) before leaving on our own separate ways.

i'll drop by the company again some time. =)