Speak for yourself

Singlish is the trademark and part of the Singaporeans' culture, it represents us. There's many other versions as well, like Chinglish, Konglish, Spanglish etc. Is Singlish bad? Well, i'm sitting on the fence. On one hand, Singlish is the hallmark of Singaporean. On the other hand, it does not reflect well at work or in school or business, where we are expected to speak proper English. At the rate that Singapore embraces globalisation, i'm afraid proper English should be the way to go.

So i'm doing good here by spreading word about the 'Speak Good English' campaign. This year's theme is: Impress, Inspire, Intoxicate.

I like that! The theme is an alliteration, already demonstrating what makes English interesting. So click on here, and explore the website. English teachers would find the site useful.

Dark Chocolate

image taken from the dailygreen.com

I love to eat chocolates, especially dark ones. The darker they are, the more bitter they are, the more I like it. It's a very special kind of food because of the contradicting feelings you get from it, and it resembles life.

How is that so?

We know chocolate is supposed to be sweet, but dark chocolates ain't all that sweet. At first bite, you would think that : ahh.. it's sweet. But as you chew further, you start to taste the bitterness of it. And once you're done eating the dark chocolate, you'd find a sweet, fragrant aftertaste. We call that 'bittersweet'.

Life is a cycle of ups and downs. When we're infants, we had no troubles. All we did were sleeping and eating. As we grow older, things get more complicated and not all things go as we planned. But whatever problems we face in life, we have to deal with it and emerge as the winner. Success is only sweet when we have tasted failures, isn't that so?

So the next time you eat a dark chocolate, don't just eat it like a snack. Taste it thoroughly and thoughtfully, taste it with your heart. And i'm sure you will start to love dark chocolates as much as i do.

yaa..... pardon my paragraph full of grammar mistakes.
It's weird that when my Korean is improving... my english is.... going the other way. Korean grammar is so messy.

*dance around*

Exams over again..... man, this is a marathon race, exams every quarter. Time really zoom by when you are busy.

My calendar is fully packed for September already, fantastic. Living life to the fullest and enjoying every moment of it.

Dialogue with wise man

What is leadership? What makes a business successful? How his mentor build his network in China? Those are the serious topics that I had with 2 wise men at the S-11 kopitiam last night. After an invigorating session of toastmaster chapter meeting, the coffeeshop talk is yet another mind blowing session. The things that I could learn from those conversations are precious knowledge that I would never be able to get in textbooks and in school. 'Leadership' has take on a better meaning now. Thank you for your sharing, I will definitely miss chapter meetings for the next 3 months.

Now, if only my company's head honcho could have an opportunity to hear from him, I believe the impact it could have in my workplace would be somewhat magical.
A colleague bade farewell today, another 2 is leaving end of this month, and another 1 next month. What kind of turnover rate is my company facing? Someone commented that its quite bad, i say its very bad!

depressed

I blank out at the exam hall today, I hate myself. I can't believe my hard work goes down the drain like that.

I can only pray that my content is still relevant despite me not getting the correct order of things. I am crushed.

Horoscope analysis of Men

Its 1.20am now but I'm logging in to blog. Its a way to destress.... weird right? I guess it helps because it brings my mind away from the books. I'm getting so nervous that I kept burping.

Anyway, for the sake of blogging, I am finding a topic to write about... instead of writing about my exam blues.

Horoscope analysis of Men. I am no expert in this, but I would say I have good observation skills on people's personality. When a bunch of girls meet up, it is usually catching up on one another's lives and gossiping and bitching about men. So I'm going to let you in on the horoscope analysis of men that me and my gal friends often talk about.

Disclaimer : This is purely for entertainment purpose and may or may not hold any truth. My opinions are absolutely bias and unjust. So read and forget about it yeah?

Pisces : Nice people, but soft. When I say soft, I'm talking about their character. Nice, helpful, creative, smart are the words to describe them. But one thing is, pisces men have a tendency to be gay.

Aries : Short temper, short temper, short temper. Yes, they are really short tempered. They are often quite influential, but..... they can only talk. No action is taken. In other words, they like to 'talk big'.

Gemini : Super chatty, super talkative, sometimes to the extent of long-winded. I do not have many gemini guy friends, so I do not have a good understanding of them.

Taurus : Stubborn, but very traditional and down-to-earth, and very simple.

Leo : no available analysis on them yet.

Cancer : no available analysis on them yet.

Libra : Friendly, nice, charming. But, they are superficial people. I have receive alot of feedbacks on Libran men. There is great disparity with the before and after. The charm will wear off very fast.

Scorpio : They are flirts. The most flirtatious men are Scorpios, because they can charm people. Strong tendency to stray as well.

Saggitarius : no available analysis on them yet.

Capricorn : no available analysis on them yet.

Aquarius : no available analysis on them yet.

Purely non-sensical. But I believe, the negative traits that I talked about only happens to be the black sheep amongst their species.

Now, back to studies.

What do i do when i feel down?

I need to laugh. The saying that says laughter is the best medicine? Yep, it works for me. That's the thing about me. I don't easily confide my problems, hence I keep to myself alot. And since I don't get the problems off my chest, something else needs to be released. Or else my head would get messed up.

I'll drink wine, yes, even at home. I can sip wine while I type away at my laptop. It relaxes my mind.

I'll tune in to 98.7fm at night, when 'Muttons till midnight' is on. They cheered me up the most at my lowest.

Watch korean variety shows on youtube. I am amazed at the creativity of Koreans, the standard of entertainment is something that Singapore Variety shows can never perform up to.
So here's something that I found today -- badminton at its best. They played badminton with huge-ass rackets, spatula and different weird sizes.

The progress of my Korean Language learning path

Some of you may know, that I have took up an elementary Korean Language course. How is my progress so far?

So far so good. I have learn to recognise the fundamentals of the Hangul characters; the consonants & the basic vowels and some simple phrases. I still rely on the romanization very much when I read, because the Hangul characters need more time for my brain to process it individually. Attending classes is only a way to build on my foundation, a lot more comes from what I do outside those classes. Naturally, I have once again rely on the Internet for resources to add on to my learning. (I cannot emphasize enough how important Internet is to me)

So if you are reading my blog now, and is also a Korean beginner like me, congrats! I have listed below some of the useful Internet resources I found. And since I found them useful, I hope you will too. (I am not affiliated with any of them, it is purely personal recommendation.)

1. http://www.koreanclass101.com - I strongly urge you to sign up for the trial, its really good. I downloaded many of their podcasts and accompanying PDF notes onto my itouch and found the lessons both educational and entertaining. If you like it, then you may decide to invest some money to subscribe.
2. http://www.learnkoreanlanguage.com - it contains alot of useful beginner lessons for free.
3. http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr - Official Korean Tourism website. This contains useful lessons for common phrases you might use when you visit Korea. The lessons are done in flash so its not too wordy and yet interactive.

Good things are meant to be shared, spread the word!

In memory of my uncle

The life you led
simple and carefree
The smiles you had
simple and pure
The thoughts you carry
simple yet loving
Your early departure, puts an end to your torture
But your sudden departure, was not the best picture
Your selfless nature, seems the least mature
For not everyone could understand what you went through
Thank you for your smile
Thank you for carrying me
Thank you for believing in me
Thank you for supporting me
And most importantly, I am sorry.