I've been dog hunting for the past few days. Or more specifically, poodle hunting. A brown cute poodle with a red ribbon on top, that is.

Not that I'm planning to adopt a pet, but rather I'm helping my dear friend Sparky to find his true love in StarHub's Love Tail campaign. Not to mention maybe bagging a 10 000 dollars reward at the same time if I do manage to find her.

In just a short period of five days, StarHub has already given out a Blackberry Playbook, a MacBook Air, a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, a Dell Streak, a Samsung 32" LCD TV and countless popcorn combos as part of an effort to reward us all poodle hunters for our hard work in helping Sparky. And there are still countless prizes coming.

Which is why I have been faithfully sitting in front of my laptop every night, 8pm with the Hub It App (that's the app you need to participate in the campaign) ready on my phone. It's because the first person who manages to solve the daily task released by StarHub will walk away with the daily prize of the day. It's that easy. Too bad I'm always not fast enough to crack any of the tasks (so much for thinking that reading Sherlock Holmes would help me sharpen my detective skills).

I really wanted this monitor :(

.
Oh well, there's still 10+ more daily prizes up for grabs (that iPad 2 is really tempting) and if I still fail to win any of those daily prizes, there's still the 10 000 dollars grand prize. I just hope that luck would be on my side. And lots of speed too.

It's not too late for you to join this competition too if you want to try your hands at some detective work and perhaps walk away with the attractive prizes up for grabs. All you have to do is to download the Hub It! app from either Apple Store or Android Market and try to be the first one to solve the daily task that will be revealed at 8pm every night for the rest of the campaign. And maybe be the first one to find that poodle and reunite Sparky with his love.

As for me, I will continue my routine of camping in front of the computer and praying that all those years of reading Sherlock Holmes would finally pay off. In a form of an iPad 2. Or 10 000 dollars.

P/s: You're still able to redeem free prizes from hidden easter eggs inside the Hub It! app even though you may not be able to unlock the big prizes. And since the game wouldn't be fun without any freebies, I'm gonna teach you how to earn yourself a free PC game or a music store goodie

1. Fire up your app and the "fetch-a-reward" camera.

2. As usual, turn up the volume your speakers and align your camera to the commercial.

3. Tap at the correct scenes to unlock the extra content. There's a few scenes in which you can tap at, one is during the scene when the guy is handing out the game and the other is where the lady is holding the bulldog. I think you can also tap at the scene where the artist is drawing. Basically just tap away until you get something.


4. Interact with the bonus video if needed, or you can just laugh yourself away at the quirky characters. The girl with the bulldog certainly reminds of me someone.

Bonus video of the artist

Bonus video of the game seller

5. And voila, win yourself a freebie from StarHub! Simple as that. Details of how to claim your prize would be sent to you and everyone could win! How awesome is that?



Happy Poodle Hunting!

Every blogger have their own list of blogs in which they look up to for inspiration. These are the blogs that we go back to time and time again to keep ourselves updated, get useful info, stimulate our thinking or just to pass time away. And like any other bloggers, I have my own list of blogs too that i regularly read for inspiration and in a way, the way I blog is also somewhat influenced by them too.

Since 31st August happens to be the 6th Blog Day 2011, I have decided to put together a tribute post of the blogs that I regularly stalk for everything and also to share with you on why I love these blogs.


1. Xiaxue.blogspot.com: "Everyone's reading it"


How can someone who calls himself a blogger not follow the blog of Xiaxue, the queen of bloggers?

Despite how some might comment on her looks, her plastic surgery and other forms of flaws of hers, one cannot deny that when it comes to blogging, she is one of the top. One of the few things that I enjoy reading in her blog is the way she argues. She has this way of putting her thoughts so well in words that most of the time, I end up agreeing to whatever she's saying.

Another thing that I like about her blog is her confidence and self esteem. Although she may constantly get attacked online for all her controversial posts, she doesn't care and is still true to herself. I mean, how many of us can be true to ourselves in today's world? I can't. Whenever I want to post some controversial stuff, I get scared by the repercussions that I might get and hit delete.

Also, she happens to be my role model blogger when I first started blogging. I told myself that one day, I want my blog to be as famous as hers in terms of viewership and influence. I'm nowhere near that dream yet but she's the one reason why I think I can make it big in blogging.

2. k0k bL0k (Kok Sen Wai)


 If you're looking for controversial, k0k bL0k is the block for you.

Belonging to a doctor in the making, who also happens to be a very strong atheist, this blog is mainly about challenging conventions. I love how Kok blogs using sophisticated English and strong arguments to prove out his point, though I may not agree with them everytime.

I still remember the first time I landed on his blog. He was talking about how religion corrupts people and being the Christian I was, I took it upon my responsibility to prove him wrong. After countless paragraphs of arguing (I bet it's more than all the Harry Potter books combined), I promised that I will never return to this blog again in fear of another World War.

But return I did. Though I still disagree with his views, I find it enlightening to try to sometimes just try to look at things from another point of view. Besides, the sarcastic way in which he writes can also serve as a morning entertainment too.

3. Vincent's Philosophy (Vin Tsen Gan)


I once called him the next Kenny Sia in the making because his posts are funny, random and lame (in a good way) all at the same time.

A soon to be lawyer, Vincent would just talk cock about anything and make witty statements of our everyday life. Laughter is something that you will definitely get out from this blog. Reading his blog is a great way to de-stress. It's sort of like watching Russell Peters perform but the only thing different is that it's on a blog and it's written by a Malaysian Chinese.

4. Niamah!!! (Patrick Teoh)


Not many people enjoy reading political blogs. Mainly because some of them can get real biased, vulgar and outrageous at the same time. Take a look at a Malay supremacist blog and you'll understand. Niamah!!! on the other hand, is different and by being different I mean it's mostly neutral (although there's still strong language) and funny at the same time.

If sarcasm was a language, Niamah!!! is full of it. That's one of the reasons why I enjoy reading this blog. I also use this blog to sometimes keep up to date about all the drama happening in Malaysia and also to de-stress. Patrick Teoh has this uncanny ability to turn the politicians' words against themselves and make something funny out of it at the same time.

And the word "Niamah!!!" that he always use to end his post? Priceless.

5. Cheechingy

 CUTEEEE!!!! That's the one word that can describe this blog written (or drawn) by a girl called Chee Ching.

One of the few comic blogs that I read, cheechingy.com is funny, colorful and makes you go "aww.." at the same time. She mainly blogs about her life but her posts are mostly all in visual. Ideal for someone who hates too much word like me.

And she's really talented too! The most I can go with drawing on my computer are horribly distorted stick figures so I really admire her ability to produce such an awesome comic blog. Maybe I could ask her to help design a cute+handsome banner for me :p


6. Lukeyishandsome.com


Last but not least, I have lukeyishandsome.com! (No one said I cannot share my own blog right?)

As the name suggests, this blog is written by a guy who loves to call himself handsome all the time in his posts. Every single post, to be exact. He's not Steven Lim's brother though.

The blog consists of his daily rantings about life in university and also about any topic that he finds interesting or controversial. Sometimes he would also muse about the big questions in life (when he feels like it) but most of the time, he's just his lame self.

Though his blog is nowhere near the awesomeness of the other 5 blogs above, he is in fact trying really hard to make it there (by posting everyday) and maybe one day you could see in newspaper headlines, "Lukeyishandsome.com, the most popular self claimed handsome blog in Singapore, Malaysia and some say Steven Lim's house".


Happy blog day everyone!

Okay, to be honest, today's task was not easy. And for all of you who are still having problems with the task, here's a step by step solution to it.

 1. Open the commercial. Unlike the previous tasks, there would not be a high pitched cue for you to tap the screen today. So you have to roughly guess where you should tap the screen based on the clue. It's around 0:32 seconds onwards when the artist added the bow unto the drawing of the poodle.

2. The app will then bring you to a video (for some reason I can't view the video) and a snapshot of a bow being sold on some website.

3. Based on the snapshot, head on to ebay.com.sg and search for "The Most Beautiful Bow in the World" and you'll probably end up with a result that is similar to the snapshot shown.

4. Check the item description and you'll find a poem (so much for being poetic) there that reads:

 

*****

Today's task may be the hardest I ever seen, due to several reasons and not all of them good:

1. You may have to tap a few times before you manage to unlock the task. I tried tapping on the correct scene twice but nothing happened, leading me to think that today's task require no tapping, which ultimately led me to a wild goose chase of intently staring at the commercial hoping that there was some hidden number in the drawing. There wasn't

2. You may need to be a frequent shopper at ebay to recognize that the snapshot came from ebay. The first time I saw the photo, the last thing that came to my mind was going to ebay.com.sg and type in "The Most Beautiful Bow in the World". The only indication was go shopping. Boo to us who never shop online before.

3. LP42. Don't ask how I decode that because I have no idea either. How would Elle translate to L and Pee translate to P while Four and Two becomes a number. I guess it was the pronunciation of Elle and Pee but still, it's kinda hard to guess which word to use and which not to. I guess it's a matter of trials and errors until you get the right combination.

*****

A lot are complaining about the app though and how it doesn't respond and things like that, from what I see from StarHub's Facebook page, but I guess we all should cut them some slack. This is after all, the first time such a big interactive campaign is organized (and with so many prizes) in Singapore so there's bound to be hiccups here and there. It's unavoidable.

 And I'm sure that the people at StarHub are working their best to give everyone a good experience too (designing an interactive app is never easy) so just have a little patience and have some fun along the way. Who knows, there might be more interactive campaigns in the future in which the experience you acquire now would help you much in that future campaign. Besides, there's still the grand prize and loads of other prizes to be won so who knows you might get lucky the next round?

When I was back in Malaysia, back in a small hometown church of mine, I used to hear a lot about this church called City Harvest in Singapore. People frequently commented on how great church was, how big it is and how passionate the members of City Harvest Church are for God. There was even times when the leaders of our church urged us to strive towards what City Harvest is. To us, City Harvest was like a role model, showing that even in the world today, you can still get thousands of people to love God. 

So when I first found out that I was going to further my studies in Singapore, visiting City Harvest was one of the items in my Must-Do-List-Singapore-Version. I have always wanted to see and experience what would it feel like to be in a 10 000+ people church. The atmosphere and energy would have been awesome, I imagined. In my mind, City Harvest was like the church everyone must attend.

When I first did my chance to attend City Harvest for a Christmas Celebration, only did I know how "different" this church is from the one I had in mind. I mean, I did enjoyed myself during the praise and worship session and also the drama presentation but when the pastor (Kong Hee, if I'm not mistaken) took the stage, that's when my image of City Harvest took a downfall.

From listening to his sermon, I gathered nothing about the message of love and salvation at all. But instead, all I heard was something to do with "You have to donate money to God in order to live long and prosper" that kind of message. I mean, on a Christmas day? Where there could people who would be hearing the message for the first time? I thought Christianity is about spreading God's love and not asking people to give you money.

And true to the message, a few years later City Harvest was investigated by the Singaporean authorities for money fraud. Sometimes it makes you wonder what kind of message we are sending out to non-believers out there. That we're a bunch of money loving thugs. Makes us no different from the pharisees of the past.

And just a few days before, I managed to chance upon this video made by Sun Ho, described as an "international pop star" who also happens to be the wife of pastor Kong Hee's, one of the founders of City Harvest church. (Details here). And here's the video:-





Let me reiterate, she is a pastor's wife. A PASTOR'S WIFE. Who sings about killing her husband in a music video. And I won't even talk about her dressing.

I'm not trying to be a moral police here but all my life, if I'm not mistaken. we're repeatedly asked to be good examples in the world, to be the salt and light, so to say, and to bring people to God. And what kind of message will you be sending when you happen to be one of the leader's of a mega church singing about killing your husband?

You may say that she's pursuing her dreams of singing as a counter but my question is, why sing songs like that? There are so many other types of songs that she can use her talent in (think Hillsong) and she chose the one that you just saw.

Which is why sometimes I am very disillusioned with the whole religion thing because in religion itself, you can find the most hypocritical people ever. On one hand they're telling you that you should do this, do that but on the other hand they're doing loads of shit behind your back. Like "Keeling" Bill or using your donation to travel for holidays.

And you just don't know what is right or wrong anymore. God bless us all.

"CLUE #5: My owner is making this love chase his own. Making a pass at the lady with the bulldog, chatting her up. Dude even tried to make me settle. Grrr, who's the dog now? Someone needs to have a word with that guy. Go ahead, interact with my commercial now, and take home today's prize."

If you're still stuck on Clue #5 for StarHub's Love Tail campaign and is too lazy to look through the whole bunch of comments under StarHub's Facebook page for the solution, don't worry, this post is for you.

Basically the solution for today's clue is quite simple. If you have watched the commercial carefully, you would have noticed that there's a scene where lots of people are lining up with their pet dog to see whether if their pet is the poodle Sparky is looking for (kinda reminds me of the Cinderella glass shoe scene) and there's this woman who look like Babarella with a bulldog. That's the scene you need to tap to unlock the next task.


I don't know how exactly the next step goes, but either a video will be played, showing the interaction between Sparky's owner and the bulldog owner, or either a 7 digit number will be flashed. I did not got the video though (maybe it was my tablet) and my friend Xian You did not get the number. The video's not important though because the next thing you need to be doing is to call the numbers flashed. If you're too lazy to do it yourself, the number is:

When you dial the number, you will hear a pre-recorded message of Sparky's owner trying to hit on the bulldog owner (I love calling her that) and based on the conversation, she must have asked for the number to unlock the map too. And here's where the next clue comes in. Being a responsible owner, Sparky's owner (let us call him Pikachu from now on) did not reveal the exact number but mentioned that the password was the year Sparky was born.


But what year exactly was Sparky born?


Like they said, Google is your best friend. Simple Google search "StarHub Sparky Born" or click this link http://lmgtfy.com/?q=starhub+sparky+born+ and you will land on a blog belonging to a girl called Stoofi. She's one of my fellow Standard Chartered Top 23 World's Coolest Intern but that's another story, but on her blog, you will find a bolded sentence that read "It’s Sparky’s 9th year on the job – Sparky was born in 2002 when he fronted our first hubbing campaign and has only been getting the best treatment since."

And voila, there's your password. Task solved. And fyi, the task was solved in under 5 minutes. I got it at 8.07. Kinda sad actually. But fear not! The 10 000 dollars will be mine!

My computer died. Died in a way that it automatically shuts down everytime you turn it on, gets blue screen every so often even if you manage to load Windows and reformatting it doesn't help. I suspect it's a hardware problem, but then again, it works perfectly fine in safe mode so I really don't know what to expect. It might be a corrupted driver but as I'm a Arts student, my computer skills are fairly limited to Bloccing, Facebook-ing and Tweeting.

I would want to send it for repair but judging from past experiences, it would not be cheap considering that my warranty just expired. Great time for a computer to die right? 

I firgured it would be much cheaper to just get a new computer because 2 years is considered to be the mid point of life in a computer already and it would not be worth to be repairing if the repair costs shoots up the ceiling. However, being a poor student as I am, with more debts than than income (actually my income is relatively 0, this blog earns peanuts by the way), a buying a new computer with my own money is definitely not a viable idea, unless if the next powerful computer costs 50 cents that is, because that's all I can afford. So like any cheap-free-stuff-loving-blogger, I devised a few strategies in which I can get my hands on a free new laptop:

******

1. "Hi, my name is Lukey and I happen one of Singapore's top emerging handsome blogger. In regards to the email subject, the purpose of this email is to propose a deal between lukeyishandsome.com and your company, in which I would review the top laptop of your company in one of my blog posts and in exchange, I would appreciate it if the laptop would be given free as a courtesy of the blog review. I wouldn't want to choose, but your company's new Razer Switchblade does look quite awesome. Can I review it please? Pretty please?"

2. Scout for any blogging competition which has a laptop as a prize and enter it. Then, ask my computing friend to hack the rest of the participants blog post and sabotage it to read "Lukey should really win this competition". Just to be safe.

3. Create 10 000 fake Facebook accounts to like the photo of myself doing some weird stuff so I can win the ongoing "Beg Your Friends For Likes" competition on Facebook because they are offering a laptop as the first prize.

4. Rob a computer store.

5. Rob my friend who has an Alienware as his laptop when he's walking back from school at night. And I must remember to wear a mask this time

6. Camp in front of the computer every night at 8 pm and hope to bag one of the 10 major prizes StarHub is giving away as part of the Love Tail competition (this is perhaps the most feasible idea yet. but also the most unsure one)

7. Pray really hard that a free laptop will drop down from the sky.

8. Take a walk around NUS canteens and hope for someone who would be naive enough to use their laptops to chop seats. And I would be teaching them a good lesson of not leaving your laptop unattended because you'll never know when a desperate guy without laptop would be stalking the canteens for a free laptop.

9. Pray harder for that laptop to drop from the sky because all the methods above don't seem to be working.

10. Walk into a computer store, points towards some random direction, scream "Tony Tan is distributing free KFC chicken there" and grab the nearest laptop on display and run when everyone is looking at that direction.

******

I just hope that I would get a laptop before my first assignment comes in. Oh wait, it already had.

And I made a card.

Life's good :)

Okay I'm being extremely nice here. For those of you who are still stuck on the 4th clue finding the poodle video, and for taking the effort to Google it (and indirectly contributing traffic to my blog), here's the poodle video that Sparky mentioned for the 4th clue.

How I found it? Just watch the original video, look for the part where there was a scene of Sparky on Youtube, look for the title of the video and search for it in Youtube.

Sadly though, by the time I got to the video 301 people had viewed it. Oh well, they had a 3 hour headstart anyway. Sorry lah, it's a Saturday night after all. Sitting at home waiting for a clue to come out is so not my style. Better woof luck next time then. And bye Samsung LCD TV.

Also, stay tune to this blog for updates because I'll be posting more about the competition as time passes. Hopefully the 10 000 dollars is mine!

Task: Prepare a proposed budget for your committee and send it by tonight for approval.

How normal people do it:

1. Open Microsoft Excel. Load the excel spreadsheet "Proposed Budget.xls" that you have prepared weeks ago (after numerous research, discussion with your main comm and sleepless nights planning on how you can get the best budget out).

2. Triple check the budget again and see whether there are any errors and whether the value adds up.

3. Find that everything is perfect. Compose an incredibly long email explaining the 120 items contained in the budget, attach the spreadsheet and send it for approval. Not forgetting to cc all your comm members the email too.

4. Budget gets approved. Total time spent: 30 minutes

How Lukey does it:

1. Open Microsoft Excel.

2. Have a sudden realization that you have no idea how a budget looks like.

3. Google for budget examples

4. Check Faceboon and Twitter in the meantime to see if there's anyone who replied to your update about dying your hair pink

5. Type in the title "Proposed Budget".

6. Spend the next 15 minutes deciding whether Times New Roman or Arial looks better

7. Eat a biscuit

8. Start to ponder on what activities and events you need to budget for.

9. You start with supper and allocate 300 dollars for it. Add another 2 suppers

10. Go for dinner with friends

11. Come back from dinner. Decided that work after meal is not healthy. Play a game of DOTA with friends to "de-stress"

12. Play another game of DOTA because you lost the first match

13. =SUM(supper1+supper2+supper3)

14. Facebook and Twitter again. Annoyed that no one commented on the picture that you posted and thought that it would become viral.

15. Take a 10 minutes nap

16. Get a call from your boss asking you the reason why you're not at the budget meeting yet

17. Rush off to attend the meeting

18. Feel very bad because everyone keeps emphasizing the importance of getting the budget done early.

19. Go for supper with friends to shake off that bad feeling

20. Come back from supper. Go bathing to cool off

21. See if anyone commented on the photo yet

22. Start to enter the second item in the budget

23. have no idea what to enter for the third item

24. Give up. Dump all the remaining money into "Miscellaneous"

25. Write an incredibly short email, attach the spreadsheet and sent it for approval

26. Blog about the entire experience because you're lazy to blog about other stuff

27. Budget gets rejected. 

28. Repeat 1. Total time spent: 10 hours and counting

And people wonder why I hate to be a treasurer.

Commercials are boring, that's what I think. Whenever I see a commercial playing anywhere, I would just switch my channels or go do other stuff because there's nothing interesting about commercials anyway. All they ever do is to sing some songs, dance some moves and show you some statistics (which you do not know if it's authentic to begin with) in an effort to make you buy the product. Which fails most of the time because the information only travels one way and we're only passive recipients in that matter. Boring.


But come this end of August, and all the way to mid-September, StarHub will be launching the first of its kind interactive commercial in Singapore as part of an effort to engage consumers better and to be the pioneer of such interactive commercials in Singapore. Which means no more ol' boring one way commercials but a commercial that you can be a part of!

Given the name Love Tail, the campaign sees the return of Sparky, StarHub's favorite Jack Russell terrier in his quest to find true love. The story goes like this: One find day, he saw this really cute brown poodle that he really liked. It was love at first woof, you could say. But before he could do anything, she was gone, just like that. Poor Sparky couldn't just let it go, you know, because never in his life had he experience this kind of feeling before so he decided that no matter what, he needs to find her back.

Have you seen her?

The task wouldn't be an easy one though, god knows how many brown poodles there are in Singapore and that is the reason why Sparky's buddy, StarHub, has decided to help Sparky by utilizing the social media to help him find that cute poodle. (And of course, putting up some awesome rewards too at the same time).

Starting on on the 26th of August, Singapore residents everywhere would have the chance to take part in Sparky's journey and help him find his dream poodle. Not only that, you could also walk away with prizes like iPad 2, Macbook Air and Samsung 3D LCD TV if you happen to be the lucky person who manages to find Sparky's love.

The whole thing is very simple actually. So simple that I have decided to include a step by step guide on how to get started on your quest to find love and perhaps win the 10 000 dollars grand prize! So here goes:

1. Make sure your phone is a smart phone with a camera and runs on iOS or Android. If it's not smart, send it to more tuitions.

2. Download the Hub It! app for either the Apple Store or Android Market, depending on your device. This app is extremely important because all the things you need to do to win that $10 000 in cold hard cash is inside there.

3. Get hunting! Basically all you need to know is in the app and if you're still blur, maybe this video can help you a bit:





And of course, I'll be joining the hunt too! The 10 000 dollars is just too good to ignore. In fact, I was already in the game a few days ago to try and win the Blackberry Torch and Dell Streak (I lost by a few hundred taps, I guess). Don't worry though, it's just a warm up challenge by StarHub, the official competition starts on 26th, but a little head start wouldn't hurt right? Besides, I'm desperate for a new computer now.

Watch out people, Lukey is in the hunt!

So yeah, start downloading the app now and start hubbing! Who knows what great prizes you'll walk away with? You can also like StarHub's Facebook page for daily clues about the cute poddle's whereabouts. Remember, the official contest starts tomorrow on the 26th! And like I said, this competition is awesome right? In fact, in the past few days a Blackberry Torch, a Dell Streak and a Samsung Galaxy Tab has been given away in the warm up challenges. And there's a lot more even more awesome prizes waiting when the competition starts.

So help Sparky find his true love now!

When God created humans, he decided to grant them FIVE major personalities type. He also decided that these 5 personality types, which is Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness and Neuroticism would be universal across the human population and all of us would differ from each other according to the types of personality we have. 

Not only that, He also made it such that we do not get a chance to choose our personality types, instead we are given it when we're born, thanks to our parents, and that type of personality that we're born with will stick with us throughout our entire life, affecting every single thing that we do and engage in. At least that's what Psychology says.

And since I'm being lazy, and this is not gonna be graded in my exams, I have decided to copy and paste from Wikipedia the definitions of the Big Five Personality types (fyi, these 5 traits have shown to be consistent across cultures and is the most used personality measure by Psychologists today):

*****

From Wikipedia:

Extraversion is characterized by positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek out stimulation and the company of others. The trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world. Extraverts enjoy being with people, and are often perceived as full of energy. They tend to be enthusiastic, action-oriented individuals who are likely to say "Yes!" or "Let's go!" to opportunities for excitement. In groups they like to talk, assert themselves, and draw attention to themselves.

Introverts lack the social exuberance and activity levels of extraverts. They tend to seem quiet, low-key, deliberate, and less involved in the social world. Their lack of social involvement should not be interpreted as shyness or depression. Introverts simply need less stimulation than extraverts and more time alone. They may be very active and energetic, simply not socially.

Conscientiousness is a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement against measures or outside expectations. The trait shows a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior. It influences the way in which we control, regulate, and direct our impulses.

Openness is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. The trait distinguishes imaginative people from down-to-earth, conventional people. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. They tend to be, compared to closed people, more creative and more aware of their feelings. They are more likely to hold unconventional beliefs.

People with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests. They prefer the plain, straightforward, and obvious over the complex, ambiguous, and subtle. They may regard the arts and sciences with suspicion or even view these endeavors as uninteresting.

Agreeableness is a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others. The trait reflects individual differences in general concern for social harmony. Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are generally considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with others. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature. They believe people are basically honest, decent, and trustworthy.

 Disagreeable individuals place self-interest above getting along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others’ well-being, and are less likely to extend themselves for other people. Sometimes their skepticism about others’ motives causes them to be suspicious, unfriendly, and uncooperative.

Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression. It is sometimes called emotional instability. Those who score high in neuroticism are emotionally reactive and vulnerable to stress. They are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. Their negative emotional reactions tend to persist for unusually long periods of time, which means they are often in a bad mood. These problems in emotional regulation can diminish the ability of a person scoring high on neuroticism to think clearly, make decisions, and cope effectively with stress.

At the other end of the scale, individuals who score low in neuroticism are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. They tend to be calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings. Freedom from negative feelings does not mean that low scorers experience a lot of positive feelings.

*****

And I just had to have the highest score for Neuroticism. I guess I now have a valid reason to be emo all the time in my blog. "Blame my genes, yo. They have neuroticism written all over it".

Is it me or is it getting kinda crowded to board NUS buses lately? From my past experience this few days of attending lessons, taking the NUS buses for my lessons in uTown have been nothing but a terrible experience for me. If I were to put it into a picture, it would be something like this:

Yeap, we're sardines alright

 

Believe when I say that the buses are that cramped. Sometimes, I even have to wait for 2 - 3 buses to pass until there's a little tiny standing space for me. It's that bad. The weird thing is that I really never encountered this problem of taking NUS buses before until this semester. Which lead me to formulate a few reasons of why NUS buses seems to be a little bit too crowded this sem.

1. The most plausible explanation that I've been hearing is that a few of A buses are shifted to become D buses this semester, which inadvertently lead to fewer buses around. But still, with the shift of a few classes to uTown, along with the students, the number of people taking buses should be around the same. So it doesn't really explain the matter. Besides, I thought NUS has always have a few D buses lying around? What happened to those?

2. The kiasu-ness is exceptionally high this year. The new batch of freshies are more afraid of doing badly this year, so they spammed all the classes that they can, attending every single lecture every day, even classes for modules they did not take, thus increasing the number of students that are at school everyday. Unlike us old birds who prefer to sleep at home and watch the webcast later rather than go to school and fall asleep in the lectures.

3. NUSSU SAVE secretly signed an agreement with NUS to cut down the number of buses in their effort to save the environment and reduce the carbon footprint of NUS.

4. Part of NUS's plan to encourage healthy lifestyle among the students. Can't take a bus? Walk yo! You can cut a few calories in the meantime, especially when you're living in Eusoff and your class is at science. I had a few friends already who walked from Eusoff all the way to science because they could not take a bus. And I must say, they're really looking great now.

5. Maybe the buses frequency has never really changed. Maybe what's changed is us students ourselves. After all those years of eating McSpicy, the effect has finally caught up on us, making us grow in size and therefore there is less space in the bus now because we're all bigger now.

6. Or perhaps in the effort to cut down the foreign talents in Singapore, a few of the PRCs bus drivers were sent back home to China. And there is no way Singaporeans would want to drive an NUS bus for living right?

 

7. The new buses are so comfortable that some NUS students would just take it over and over again just to enjoy the air cond and the journey around NUS, even skipping class to do that, thus increasing the number of people taking buses at one time.

8. Or it could just be uTown. You know, more people living there, more students, same number of buses, longer travel time? So much of wanting to make uTown the central of NUS.

But still, having to pack like sardines isn't such a bad thing after all. In fact, thanks to the increased proximity among all of us students in the bus, I actually made a few new friends while our face were like inches from each other. I mean, you don't really have a choice to be unfriendly when you're that close right? In fact, I have my standard "Wow, NUS students really love to take the buses this sem right?" line ready to start a conversation with anyone who has their face inches from me. But usually they will give a cold stare back because I realized that I just forgot to brush my teeth in my haste to catch a bus which I have a tiny space to stand on.

I have 0 motivation to read my textbooks.

I have 0 motivation to attend classes and tutorials.

I have 0 motivation to participate in any hall CCAs this semester.

I have 0 motivation to blog.

I have 0 money in my bank account.

I have 0 knowledge of this semesters module in my brain right now.

I have 0 reason to touch my laptop now it keeps crashing and getting blue screen even though I formatted it.

I have 0 ugliness in me. Sorry. Just thought about inserting something positive after all the negative 0s up there but yeah, basically there's a lot of 0 in me right now, thanks to my terminally ill laptop and also the extra mindfuck subjects that I'm taking this semester. God bless my life.

Okay, at first I totally did not know that there was this event going on in Singapore. The only toys, gaming and comics convention that I know about are the ones I see from TVs and sitcoms, you know, from shows like The Big Bang Theory and The Guild. I never imagined to be able to visit one myself.

Luckily for me, my luck always beat my imagination. On the day of the convention itself, I got myself a ticket to visit the convention from a friend of mine, Huang Hua. One of her friends could not make it due to work and I was the lucky one to get the ticket. And so together with another two friends of mine, Jason and Kok Weng, I went to the first ever nerd convention of my life, which was held in Suntec City, Singapore.

Look at the amount of people at the convention

The first thing that I learned about conventions like this is that the whole place is a photo taking gold mine, thanks to the cosplayers that are walking around. Looks like the television is not lying after all when it comes to sexy hot girls in conventions.

Everywhere we went, there were people from all the animes, comics, movies and games that you can possibly think of. And everywhere we went, there were hordes of other people snapping picture of the cosplayers with badass DSLR cameras. We brought one too (although it's nowhere near a badass DSLR), Jason's Canon 600D and like people out from the kampung, we spammed taking pictures of our favorite characters.

Huang Hua with my mini father

The 3 guys with War Machine!

Huang Hua again with Ichigo from Bleach

The 3 of them with loads of power rangers red

The plumber brothers say hi. Classic characters

I dunno her character but she's definitely kawaii

A hunter was seen lurking around ready to pounce on any survivor

And that's me with my favorite character from Star Wars, R2-D2! Triple nerd like!

But photo taking and cosplayers aside, the whole convention was only on an average scale for most of us. I think we may have slightly over-anticipated the size of the convention (no thanks to the impression given to me by The Guild and Big Bang Theory) and in just less than two hours, we have already circled the whole area a few times and seen all the stalls there (not forgetting the few thousand photos that we took along the way). Which inevitably lead to boredom.

There were not much things to buy too, most of the stuff available to sell were either toys or figurines that were too expensive so all of us came back empty handed despite some of our initial plans to get some souvenirs like a sweater. Except Huang Hua, that is. She bought a replica of Ichigo's Tensa Zangetsu (his sowrd, basically) which was made out of wood for only 20 bucks. A cheap price if you ask me. You can see some of us holding the sword in the pictures up there.

So we went back after one or two hours there because there was no more other things to do there.

But still, the STGCC was a great experience, especially for a nerd like me. Next stop? Maybe the annual Comic Con or Games Con in US. And I can go there dressed up as my favorite character too. Myself.

Haven't been feeling like blogging much lately. In fact, I have 0 motivation to blog as for now. I think it must be due to the depressing state of my life. Real depressing. I mean seriously.

Firstly, my laptop is dying. I think it must have gotten the laptop version of cancer, AIDS or some kind of terminal disease. It overheats easily and every now and then, I get a blue screen of death. Which is quite annoying actually because most of my leisure time and not so leisure time is spent on my laptop and with the frequent blue screen, I can't do anything in peace. I can't blog in peace, I can't watch movie in peace and I even can't game in peace. The computer just flashes a blue screen on me whenever it thinks that I'm having the most fun or during the most important times. I think it must be getting back on me for not taking good care of it. And my friends must be hating me now for crashing a few times during the DOTA games we're having. Sorry.

I sure hope that the formatting tomorrow will at least save it or prolong it's life by a little bit. Because there's no way I'm getting a new computer anytime yet. Ugh. But then again, this laptop is getting a little old already going by the computer's age. Still I was hoping that it will be able to last at least for years during my university time. To my dear laptop, please don't play this kind of prank on me again. Thanks to you, blue is my newest hated color.

And computer problems aside, the start of the new semester is also another reason why I'm feeling in the dumps. I mean, what could possibly more depressing than the start of a new schooling term to the student right? Just thinking of the new assignments, new classes and new exams sends chills to my spine. Brrr... Not to mention that two of my lecturers think that its very fun not to upload any lecture notes and make us copy like slaves during the class. And there's this radio antenna I have to build to capture the Sun's cosmic rays as part of my Breath module assignment. Yes, they expect an Arts student to do just that.

And to put the final nail in the coffin, the Asean School Games organizer and IP Media has still not pay me yet for the videography work that I did for them. A freaking 1300+ SGD. Thanks to them, I am literally eating maggie mee everyday now. If they still don't bank in the pay, I dunno what I'll do. Maybe starve to death I think. Never again will I take up freelance videography work again simply.

So yeah life's pretty in the dumps lately for me. Which is why I have 0 motivation to blog now. I would rather much prefer to lie on my bed and be depressed until something good happens. Speaking of which, something good did happen to me. Perhaps the only good thing now amidst all the gloomy news surrounding me. Maybe I'll share about it in later posts to come once everything is confirmed :)

In an effort to combat the ever laziness of Lukey, I shall declare every Friday a mug day! Not a cup, not a plate, not a fork but a mug!

Yeap it's mug day alright!

Fyi, mugging is the Singaporean slang for studying if you don't know.

And let this post bear witness to my effort to try and raise my grades this semester and if I fail on any Friday to sit a whole day in uTown to mug, I swear on the handsome word that my computer will burn down and explode, barring me from doing unnecessary activities like gaming and writing lame blog posts anymore.

But I do hope a new replacement computer will come a few weeks after that. Maybe an Alienware.

Hi everyone, please meet my new friend, Motorola Xoom the tablet! It runs on Android, has a camera and it's free! Many thanks to StarHub!

And if you're eager to lay your hands on some cool gadgets too for free, you can! There's iPad 2, MacBook Air and also a Samsung 3D LCD TV up for grabs!

As long as you're a Singapore resident, owns a smart phone (or a tablet with a camera like Xoom), knows how to surf Youtube and loves to solve mysteries, you can win a cool gadget too for free. Best of all, you'll get to have lots of fun too during the process. There's something big coming alright, perhaps the most revolutionary campaign ever organized in Singapore, this coming August but as for now I can't reveal too much yet.

All you have to do now is to follow this blog closely, and maybe like my too because I'll be posting updates there too, and when clock strikes 1pm this 25th August, there will be a blogpost up detailing how you can join in the fun too and be on your way to getting all those awesome gadgets, for free! And guess what, there will be a cute dog named Sparky too involved!

So stay tune! I promise you that this contest is in no way like those lame contests where you have to ask your beg your friends to like your photo in Facebook or stuff like that. It really requires skills from you and it will be an exciting journey all the way. I would say that it's the social media version of the Amazing Race itself. But that's all for now!  Spread the message to your friends and wait for the 25th of August 2011, 1pm! Woof!

Today was my first Monday of school. And to go with the Monday blue mood, apparently someone up there decided to throw in a torrential rain in the morning for us students who are already half depressed by the fact that we cannot sleep til 2pm anymore everyday because school is officially starting. The rain was that strong that even standing 5 seconds under it with an umbrella has gotten me a soaked pants. Seems like wearing a black underwear today wasn't such a good idea anymore.

Even the drain in NUS cannot take the amount of water

And as if the rain weren't enough, there was a surge of people in NUS this semester. It's either that NUS has secretly decided to take in thousand more students or the NUS students this year are a lot more hardworking and kiasu. Everywhere I went today, there was a queue. And the queues were horrible. I need to queue to take the bus, I need to queue to enter the LT, I need queue to use the computers and heck I even need to queue to buy textbooks. Not forgetting that I had to be a sardine in the D1 and D2 bus too.

Where did all these people come from anyway?

Not to mention that the buses frequency of this semester was horrible. In just one day, I had spend almost one hour waiting for NUS buses (I had only one class today) because there was just too many people and too few buses. The uTown part was especially worse. I mean why do you want to shift all the classes to uTown when you cannot provide enough transport to shuttle people in and out? I understand that NUS is trying to get people to uTown but shifting classes there is not cool. Gone were the days where I can wake up 5 minutes before class and walk slowly there.

And the worst part of the day? Learning that I had to do some sophisticated astronomy experiment with lots of complicated maths and physics theory like calculating the distance that the stars move, measuring the sun's radioactivity or measuring the change of the ocean tide over a period of 9 days while referring to the moon's distance from earth. %#$$%#%%^%$^ I'm only an Arts student and this is supposed to be a introductory module to expose the universe to people from other faculties, not some Physics thesis class for final year students. Heck, the group that the lecturer used as an example built their own radio antenna to measure the radioactivity of the sun and even ordered an receiver chip from NASA to help in the experiment.

Awesome way to start the semester right?

I still refuse to accept the fact that tomorrow marks the start of my junior (third) year in university. Okay, the official start was last Thursday but as you know, I'm a bit slow in anything related to studies and I've not really enjoyed my holidays enough so I shifted my calendar back a few days. Besides, I prefer to have my week start on a Monday to get me into the mood. Nothing but feeling blue for the start of another year of hectic life of studies and activities right?

Time flies. In a blink of an eye, I've already spent two years overseas studying and more than half through in my journey in university. In another blink of an eye, I'll be starting another part of my life already, finding a work, building up my career, finding a purpose in life and perhaps even starting a family, if God permits (whoever who said finding a girlfriend is easy in university has never been Lukey before.)

And the fact that I'm getting older terrifies me. I'm not ready for any adult commitments and responsibilities! I still wanna enjoy the carefree student life, doing what I like, slacking and having fun for maybe 100 years more. In no way would I want to be stuck in the repetitive work cycle of waking up at 8 am everyday, go to work, come back at 6 pm, eat, sleep then repeat again everyday. In no way too I want to be bogged down by car loans, house loans, family commitments and not forgetting the huge debt that I've accumulated in my studies here. No no no >.<

Sometimes I wonder what's the purpose of all this actually. Of each and everyone of us going through the same cycle, going to study, trying to find a job after that and settle down etc etc. Makes no difference from animals actually, if you think of it. Because they too are subjected to the same routine since the day they're born. To survive and propagate their genes. That's the primary purpose.

But then again, this question is just big for us to ponder. Never fails to give me the mindfuck. Because there's just so many reasons that you can devise out to keep you going in life. Some do it for religion, others for the sake of humanity and some just choose to ignore it. But no one really knows what's the true answer of the purpose of our existence. It's a question that can be answered when we hit the grave. Seriously. 

But I'm not in a rush. I'm still loving my life right now. And looking back, I'm glad that I took a leap of faith and came to Singapore, though life here is much harder than what would have been if I chose to stay in Malaysia. What that does not kill you makes you stronger, I couldn't agree more with that.

In just a short period of two years, I've done tons of things that I otherwise wouldn't have chance to experience if I've stayed, which is part of the reason I am glad I'm here in NUS, because I make it a point to experience as many things as life can offer before I die. And in 2 years, I've been involved in countless activities, big and small, such as (in chronological order starting from Year 1, depending on whether my memory remembers it):

1. Freshman participating in MSL's (Malaysian Student League) UFO (University Freshmen Orientation). Got to know my first friends in uni, the Polobunnies and also the first time I came to know the custom of overusing abbreviations in Singapore

2. Eusoff Hall freshman for The Rise of the Titans orientation week. Didn't quite enjoy it because well, somehow I just couldn't click

3. Rag helper for Eusoff Hall. I remember carrying a landscape with lotsa corals on it.

4. EusoffWorks videographer for the Tech Crew. My first hall video was the IBG video with the help of Nisha Alex. Woots. Did a lot more videos also under EusoffWorks. And the most epic part was where I got arrowed to be an old man in the short film. Big =.=" face.

5. A salvation army tutor for EVC (Eusoff Voluntary Corps). One of my most challenging activities ever because you have to get yourself used to being ignored and talking to someone who doesn't respond to you. But still, it was eye opening.

6. SAC (Student Affairs Committee) member or as I would like to call it, the Sai-kang Action Committee, where all you do is sai kang work for hall like serving food, packing welfare pack and sorting mails. But still we have a great head, Hun Sopheara, which made the work much more bearable. And I got a glimpse of all the behind scenes work. Not easy.

7. Phantom Drama member. Phantom because all I ever did was to go for audition, workshop and helped out some behind the stage work for dunno what already. Perhaps I'm not made for the stage :(

6. Tried and failed my auditions for Eusoff Dance, Eusoff Choir and Dance Production :(

8. Became a member of the Elixer, Eusoff's Percussion group. Despite my experience of being a church drummer, found out that I still have lots to learn regarding my beats and rhythm. But still we had a great head called Azad. And I had the chance to perform a gig at Shaw Foundation House.

9. Got promoted to Junior Video Director of EusoffWorks. I have no idea what I was doing when I said yes.

10. Joined the EHOC programmes team as a way to spend my first three months of holiday break, much to the horror of my parents. Wasn't the best experience I had, but it sure helped to pave the way for what is going to happen at the end of my Year 2.

11. Signed up for rag dance as I was not giving up on dancing after the two initial rejections. My first actual serious dance experience in life. It was an awesome learning experience and it was the reason why I was able to go further in dance during my second year. And my first major performance on stage, which was held during the Youth Olympic games opening ceremony.

12. Started my second year as the Video Director of EusoffWorks, who is in charge of hall level video coverage and production work. Not exactly the best job that I ever did and wasn't exactly prepared for it. But still it was a great experience, a painful one to be honest. Learned that being leader isn't exactly as easy as I have always taught it would be. 

14. Tried to run as Block B head but failed. Still, it was a good thing that I did not get elected or I don't know how badly would I have died.

13. Switched from being a SA tutor to being an Elderly Service member in EVC. Made a vow not to retire in Singapore seeing the state of some elderly here. Getting visits from university students is definitely not on my to do list when I'm old.

14. Got accepted into Eusoff Dance. The rewards of not giving up.

15. My first major blogging breakthrough when I won an iPad and a Nokia X6 from two different

15. Passed my Eusoff Dance Production auditions too. Though the practices were really tiring and difficult, being able to perform on the big stage was an entire different type of feeling. An experience that I would never forget. Enjoyed it to the max.

16. Became Standard Chartered Bank's Top 23 World's  Coolest Intern. How I got that, I did not know. But I did learn this thing about social media and its rising influence in the world.

17. Went to Chingay, so called the "grandest stage of Asia", where there was procession of awesome floats followed by dance performances to the crowd. Danced a total of 6 times for the same routine. Also one of the biggest event I ever danced for.

18. Participated as one of the Top 10 bloggers for Singapore's Dance Delight blogging competition. Though I did not win any major prizes, it was my first introduction to Singapore's blogging scene which is quite a vibrant and lively, I must say. And found out that there were many more better bloggers than me.

And now I've ended up as a head for the block I'm staying in. Awesome right?

In short, NUS has never been short of awesomeness for me and frankly, I really don't feel like putting all these fun and excitement down. In psychology terms, I have a high threshold to be stimulated. Which means that I can never settle for routine and normal.

Well, I just have to see what third year has to offer me.