Ahead of Time

I'm glad that this semester has been pretty merciful. I would say that it's more project driven this sem round instead of essays and tutorials and stuff... but this time around, it's like mostly just doing projects thru the semester...

and becoz of that, i've been doing pretty well... most, if not all, of my subjects are scoring pretty good marks so far and i'm very very on top of my projects... for example, for Project Management, my project manager has been going around asking his other project manager frens their progress and my grp is really really quite far ahead of everyone else...

For ICT based inter organisational processes, our assignment handed in, presented and the only thing left is the essay that's due in week 12 [we're in week 8 now]... coming up with the skeleton of that by tomorrow and i wanna finish off that essay by next week to just leave it till week 12 to tweak.

For ISA, basically the lecturer is asking us to stat thinking bout assignment 2 and start planning the interface... my group has already finished the assignment.

For HCI, the idea is already there and we're a week ahead of schedule...

So everything's going good for now. just dun wanna end up slacking too much and stop keeping ahead of my subjects. :)

but yeh, OCF has been good too. leading BS always helps me get on check with Bible Study and ontop of things so i dun end up just going to OCF and soaking up but also giving :) so yeh.

Beloved - Tenth Avenue North

Current Favourite song... i really enjoy their songs and the album is filled with GREAT lyrics and music. :) enjoy this... i think everyone needs a little reminder of God's love from time to time. :)

Grey clouds loom

Taken from here.

When i signed on to NetSpace, we made 2 appointments for a Telstra guy to come and twiddle with the phone line box and an Optus guy to come down today to come into my house and test the socket.

Yesterday, I manned the phone and waited for the Telstra guy to call but no one did and thus I assumed he already twiddled with the phone box.

Today, i skipped a lecture and accidently missed a project meeting becoz i had to stay home and wait for the optus guy to come. The appointment was 8-12pm.

12.30 i called netspace and 'complained' about no one coming and they informed me [and he was pretty upset with telstra] that they came yesterday but couldn't get access to the box and prob just left. They were supposed to call me but no one did and thus, they didn't do the job. Which means the optus guy wouldn't even show today and thus had to reschedule another 2 appointments for me. That's not it, due to the easter holiday, the next available slot is 9th apr friday... which is a week and a half away. then the optus guy will have to come in on a saturday or a monday to get the stuff done.

And i'm like wth lah... of course i didn't whine to him about it over the phone coz it's not his fault but the Telstra guy's fault for not calling me to get access to the phone box... so he jotted down a note saying that they MUST call me when they are coming and that they'll re compensate me for the trouble caused. I assured him i do not blame netspace since it's not their fault and was very appreciative of the things they are doing for me coz he said he'll get my first month's bill to be waivered off which means i get my first month free... that's like $70 so i'm not complaining...

but i'm jus bummed out that becoz of this, i also missed a lecture AND i totally forgot i had a project meeting today. when my project manager called, i realized i was supposed to be in school. sent him a long sms explaining and apologizing... but then he called a bit later on and said he never got the message. so i apologized and explained over the phone [he sounded disappointed... i would be too] and said that we'll meet on facebook to chat thru the meeting. however, he hasn't popped online for facebook yet so i'm like just sitting here missing the meeting.

And i was going to cook lunch for laura but she hasn't woken up yet nor came online. and i dun have her aussie number so i can't contact her... which means i'm jus sitting here waiting for her to wake up so i can cook lunch. as per yesterday's lunch events, i'm a bit wary of cooking early and waiting for her. She jus came online and said she'll be ready by 2. that's an hour's time. sigh... late lunch i suppose.

Davin jus reminded me of my meeting tonite which i forgot AGAIN... what's wrong with me today?

i'm so bummed out... sigh...

NetSpace and Logitech X-230

Netspace just called. They're coming by tomorrow to test the internet line... and hopefully by the end of this week or within the week, we'll have Naked DSL running. :)

on other news, Laura is here! :) glad that she flew safe and can join us for our easter break.. hope that she has fun here too lah. :) managed to cook steak for her and charles last nite, along with phyllis and hannah, it was a very nice and yummy dinner. :)

Schooling week is back in... monday's halfway done for me... have one more lecture, then i'm going to fly home to cook and eat lunch. then back to school for 1 more lect and then i'm done for the day... will try to start on my ISA project today so i can at least get some work done. :)

Going to eat at No.1 Delicious today... gotta go with group mates to take photos and all. :) heh... then i shall eat good tonite coz i'm really trying to save as much money as i can due to the fact that i just bought new speakers... Logitech X-230... powerful stuff and really value for money.. well, not at the normal shops like Office Works and Big W... they were retailing for $80.. but i managed to find smaller shops with little overhead costs that sold it for much cheaper. got my set [first hand with 1 year warranty] for $49. :) so i'm pretty happy.

Alright, i'm off to lect. see u .

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 7

Mwhaha. Nick, it's as though Sleep Cycle Alarm heard your comment... there's your deep sleep for you. :) woke up quite awake today despite sleeping at 3.36am... and yesh, project is STILL not done. :S shall keep working on it today. sighhhh

Sleep statistics for 26 - 27 Mar (Sat).

Went to bed / woke up: 3:36 AM / 7:18 AM
Total time: 3h 41m

My sleep graph for the entire night:





-- Rui/Joel --
Sent from my iPod Touch

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 6

Woke up today and went back to sleep again. i HAVE to stop setting the alarm so early... have class at 12 but set alarm to 9.30... it woke me at 9.07 and i went back to sleep. hahaha decided i was too lazy to cook lunch. guess i'll eat a late lunch... or buy food back. haha see how la. :)

Sleep statistics for 23 - 24 Mar (Wed).

Went to bed / woke up: 3:33 AM / 9:07 AM
Total time: 5h 33m

My sleep graph for the entire night:

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 5

Success! Today, sleep cycle alarm woke me up at the appropriate time and I felt well rested.. the graph looks quite cool. Apparently, i normally hit the DEEP SLEEP periods during the half hour times... like 5:30am, 6:30am... so when i set my alarm to 8:30am, the app knew that it shouldn't wake me during that time otherwise i'd just be a grumpy fella the whole day.. so it woke me when i'm normally in my Dreaming-Awake stage... which is the start of the hours... 5am, 6am, 7am and thus it woke me at 8:02am. :)

pretty neat eh?

Sleep statistics for 22 - 23 Mar (Tue).

Went to bed / woke up: 1:37 AM / 8:02 AM
Total time: 6h 25m

My sleep graph for the entire night:

-- Rui/Joel --

Sent from my iPod Touch

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 4

Still failing to wake up properly... I woke up today to switch off the alarm and went back to sleep. meaning it's still not working at waking me up at the right time that i dun want to fall back to sleep. lolz.

will keep... trying. :S maybe i shouldn't be setting the alarm so early. haha

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 3

Sleep statistics for 19 - 20 Mar (Sat).

Went to bed / woke up: 3:10 AM / 7:34 AM
Total time: 4h 24m

Analysis made by Sleep Cycle.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

Hmmm.. looks like the system is slowly learning my bed and the sensitivity and stuff. :) woke today after the alarm rang quite a few times. still felt sleepy so ended up sleeping in still until it was just about nice to get up, clean up and leave home...

Guess the system needs to learn my bed and i need to learn the system coz i'm still not getting up when it tells me to. haha oops! :) onwards!

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 2

Today thankfully, i set the alarm to the correct time.

Woke up this morning [from the alarm] sleepy and didn't feel ready to jump out of bed and face the day so ended up lazing in bed for another 20more minutes....

Here's the graph of my sleep last nite. I suppose the sleep cycle alarm is still calibrating itself to my bed and stuff coz i couldn't have been awake for the whole night. :)

Sleep statistics for 17 - 18 Mar (Thu).

Went to bed / woke up: 2:55 AM / 7:33 AM
Total time: 4h 37m

My sleep graph for the entire night:

Wonder whether i'll sleep better the next few nights but like i said, it's worth a shot. :)

Sleep Cycle Alarm App day 1

I'm documenting a week's worth of finding for using this new app i've been researching on. It's called Sleep Cycle Alarm and it uses the ipod touch's accelerometer to gauge movements when u're sleeping to tell you when your cycle [dozing off, sleeping, deep sleep, back to sleeping and waking up] is... and using that information, it'll choose an appropriate time to wake u up [during your waking up/dozing off stage]... hard to explain but it's supposedly able to make you wake up less abruptly which would naturally cause u to not feel tired through the day.

It has a 30min time period before your actual alarm is set so you can be woken up during that 30min gap... which is pretty awesome if it works. :)

nonetheless, after reading up about it, i decided to try it for myself and document my experience.

Day 1:

Set the alarm to 10.30 and went to sleep at bout 2am. Woke up naturally half way through the night coz a poster i stuck on my wall fell down and made a sound. Went back to sleep and woke up naturally at 9plus wondering how long more i had left to sleep. Woke up again at 10plus wondering why the alarm hadn't sounded yet. Woke at 10.50 and checked the app. Realized i mistakingly set the alarm to 10.30pm. :S stupid me.

Checked the statistics page and i think it's too sensitive coz it showed i was awake all the time [it takes 2 days to calibrate itself to your sleep pattern and mattress quality]

Will try again tonite and for the next week but for what it's worth, i woke up today feeling quite awake... and i can't attribute that to the sleep cycle alarm clock. hahaha :)

Thirst

It's been a while since i thirsted for church. To worship the Lord in His glory, to raise my voice and sing His praise. To intellectually, spiritually and emotionally engage the word of God through sermons and testimonies. To feel His power and Spirit flowing in the congregation as they thanked the Lord for healings, for blessings and even for trials through prayer. To see lifted hands seeking for God and pining to feel His strength in their life once more.

It's been a while. And only God knows how much I miss this feeling. The Lord is alive, so why do we sometimes worship Him only when it's convenient or only when we think it's about time to? The Lord never changes, we do.

Lord, let this thirst never die. Let me look forward to coming to your House every Sunday and praising you with all that's within me. May my life on the weekdays be no different from this life on Sundays. Lord, let me thirst for you with an unquenchable spirit. To never be satisfied in my current situation and feelings... may You put a lasting desire for You and Your Word.

Lord, make me like You.

The Grace of God

Something irrational doesn't mean it's beyond rationality. It just means it's something that can't be understood... can't be comprehended... something like the Grace of God.

Why does He love us? Why did He send Christ for us? Why did He create us?

My friends, it is something unexplainable, something unfathomable and most of all, something undeserved. Nothing we can ever do can earn God's grace. Nothing that we say, do or think can ever equate to us being entitled to God's grace. No my fren, it is when we are broken the most, when we have nothing left to give, when we have nothing but a broken and a contrite heart, THAT, the Lord will not despise.

The Gift of God's grace can only be received with open and empty hands. God is either Lord of all, otherwise He's not Lord at all. I wish u knew my heart, i wish u felt my cries, i wish u knew how much I don't know about tomorrow... and i wish u knew my Jesus.

The Lord works, the way He wills it... He gives us time, He gives us examples, He gives us Love... and what do we give Him back in return? a "maybe tomorrow" or a "i don't need to change"...

My cries aren't for myself, nor are they for strangers... not tonite. Tonite, i seek and plead with Christ concerning you. My friend. The Lord will not stop pursuing you, He will go through flame, through flood and through flogging so that YOU might know Him.

Oh Lord, give them peace, give them Love... but most importantly, Give them You.

"Prayer For A Friend"

Lord, I lift my friend to You, I've done all that I know to do

I lift my friend to You

Complicated circumstances have clouded his view

Lord, I lift my friend up to You

I fear that I won't have the words that he needs to hear

I pray for Your wisdom, oh God, and a heart that's sincere

Lord, I lift my friend up to You

Lord, I lift my friend to You

My best friend in the world, I know he means much more to You

I want so much to help him, but this is something he has to do

And Lord, I lift my friend up to You

'cause there's a way that seems so right to him

But You know where that leads

He's becoming a puppet of the world, too blind to see the strings

Lord, I lift my friend up to You

My friend up to You

Lord, I lift my friend to You, I've done all that I know to do

I lift my friend to You

1st Week of school's benefits

mmmm. free bbq. :)

Back in Melbourne

Hey guys, sorry for this late post but days here in melb have been really hectic... the moment i touched down, we taxi-ed to the apartment, dumped our luggage and proceeded to rent a SUV...

Then, we went around city to different houses to pick up and dump off our stuff... [moving house] it was epic tiring for most of us [i was the driver so i really didn't do much of the moving] but it was epic stressful too coz driving in melb city is not fun and driving an SUV loaded with boxes and heavy things aren't fun too. there was a point in time where i could really jus see half of my side view mirror's view... quite scary but drive with caution and alertness and you should be safe.

Then after moving, there was crazy unpacking and buying stuff from Safeway, Big W, Ikea... goodness.. it was jus tiring day after tiring day. and then monday, school started. so really, we haven't had much rest since touching down... but now that everything's settled and school's back in gear, i think the rest of the year looks promising. :) I jus came back from my 1 hour lect at 10am... walk to sch for 15 mins, attend a 45-50min lect, then walk back home for 15mins... lolz. :) but i find quite a bit of interest in this subject. It's called human computer interaction. in summary, it's how people interact with technology and how to design technology that people will WANT to use and will ENJOY using... so it's pretty neat coz it ties in very well with my diploma in mobile and wireless computing. :)

Yep, so thank God for all the protection, providence and love that He's shown me thru these few days and i'm glad that there's a higher being who not only loves but disciplines when necessary. :)

Oh, another awesome fact is phyllis and hannah are literally 3 doors down from my unit. and that has provided a lot of entertainment, love, fun and fellowship. :) So awesome that we jus walk out of our house in bare feet or socks and reach their door in like 10seconds. :) fun fun fun.

Happy 8th Months Wongster... it's been so great being with you. :) but u already know that. and before everyone else dies from diabetes, I love you very much. :)

Flying off.... AGAIN...

So here we are once more. on the night before i fly off to melbourne ONCE MORE... i know rite? it's like a ritual almost to blog before i fly. :) but that's me, sentimental ol' me. :)

Just glad that this time around, i go with so much more zeal and preparedness.. it's like going home to a familiar place with things i'm looking forward to.. compared to a year ago, going to some unknown place to meet unknown people. :)

this time, i fly with 6 friends and i'm looking forward to going back to move into my new smaller, but cheaper, place and start surviving again. waiting to wear nice wintery clothes and walk down the streets of swanston and lygon once more... to grace the halls of Wilson Hall and to walk down the lanes of Pelham towards ICT. :) it's weird... the want to go back to school has never been so strong. what is wrong with me. :)

but yay. thank God for provision and providence... for direction and discernment... for grace and goodness.... He's been with me and in me all my way thru last year and I pray He'll stay strong by my side as i weakly grasp on to His strong unwavering hand of mercy and peace.

Melbourne, here i come!... again. dammit. hhaha that always spoils everything.

River Hongbao Festival

Today after dinner with B.Wong and Anne.... Hannah and I went to walk Esplanade.... and then when we got there... we realized the river hong bao festival was on...

it was CROWDED!!! but quite cool :) got to go on the floating platform and enjoy the chinese tradition we would hardly find in Melb.

Quite interesting to see how the culture of Spore is still vibrant and strong... and oh, Mr. Goh Chok Tong also walked past us with his entourage... i was quite stunned coz we were walking then suddenly this huge grp came with police and all... so i scanned the mass and saw the tallest guy there... i was like.. oooo check it out.. mr goh!!! :)

lolz. fun time.

Aloe Vera

Yesterday my mum came into my room in the morning to wake me up. She sat me up in bed and started to rub aloe vera plant over my burning face... That's coz i went to sentosa the day before and got really sunburnt... the next morning, she drove to the market to buy the aloe vera plant and brought it back for me.

I'm so thankful for my mother and the big and small blessings and sacrifices she always does for me without ever needing to ask her to. A mother's love is beyond words and I'm so thankful for such great parents and a sibling that never stops loving me either.

Thank You Lord for them.

Blog Skin Working!

Yay... oki dokes, apart from small minor changes i might make [look out for a POSSIBLE new header on top]... the blog skin looks good. i like it's simplicity but i love the fact that it separates all my entries into different individual nicely coloured boxes. :)

yayz.

Sentosa today was A BLAST... it was HAWT.. and now i'm a lobster.. all read and sunburnt. but it was good gettin out of the norm of life, away from handphone, emails, internet and even ipod touch... and jus relax on the beach with good friends, a guitar and a breeze... :)

After that, managed to visit Divvy's house for Bai Nian and sharing good times with the Calvary people. :) Going thru all the "fuzzy wuzzy" kind of jokes and random things like that... haha

Then, met up with the Exco peeps for dessert and drinks where good news was shared. :) Glad for the issue and i hope my prayer for them will be true and that God will watch over my good friends in Shalom. :)

Drove them all home and then came home. now i'm going to shower and hopefully let me lobster of a body cool off before i sleep. :) tml's a long and fun day. looking forward to the evenin plans!!! woo hoo. :) oh, and i'm collecting pay tml too hahaa yayz.

Blog skin wonky.

As you can see, the blog skin is still in testing... i'm working on making it work correctly. :) check back again!