Mid-trip Starbucks Post

Hello from the land of hot creamy Caramel Macchiatos and Frappucinos =D While the last two days have been rather uneventful, what with the lack of rain which I was hoping for (it's to do with the rain water I'm collecting for analyses), peat water and also the lack of some leaf samples I've been hunting for. It's been a very boring sleepy day, only made worse with that niggling lil part of me telling me I should be doing some work at the back of my head. While I've helped William and Cheryl for their work last night, and probably will tonight, I've had little progress with mine since I cannot do much with the lack of rain going on. Ah well, I have finally been bestowed with some rain which I can work with in the late evening till earlier just now, so I may go get some to work with tonight before continuing for the bottles I left in the jungle tomorrow early in the morning. I must be talking in long nonsensical sentences here, I dunno why, but I just feel like typing on and on and on...

By the way, that hazardous cough of mine is finally subsiding, much thanks to Wood's Peppermint cough syrup, recommended by Su-Jin (Ex-chemistry lab student, now a student helper for this trip).

I feel so lazy. Bahh.

Took some pictures last night while I sent Junie down after dinner, pictures of random bugs and spiders at the corridors and staircase ceilings etc. It's kinda random, but fun =p Like some peaceful photography therapy.

Plan : Get back on Friday, process mua samples, fly to Miri on the 7th feeling light-hearted and sexy-farted.

Some catchy lines from this trip..

Last Night
Tze Wei: Hey Tse Yuen, your potato very hard ah..
Me: Oh, so you guys call it potato now...?

While talking about grinding leaf samples in a pestle and mortar
Cheryl: Ah man, I have so many samples to grind.. William grinds the slowest among us..
Me: Slow's.. good right? You lose sex appeal if you grind too fast.
Cheryl: Are you trying to say something about Tse Yuen (fastest grinder)? nyahahaha

We've been laughin like hyenas up here at night, and we hypothesize that this unusual behaviour is due to the high altitude we're in. The higher we go, the higher we will be.

Pre-trip sad post

Once again, I'll be going to the highlands (Need I mention which?) tomorrow, for 5 nights or less this time (I hope less). It really depends on how quick I get work done, and the weather. Ah well. I'll be back on Friday, latest, and then I'll have to work on those fresh samples in the lab before I fly to Miri on the 7th July and have some fun with them East Malaysian and Brunei endangered species. If I have time, I'll drop a picture post I wanted to write before I go to Cameron's, or else, it's unlikely I'll have a chance to post at all till after July 10th. Wish me luck, a lot of it, Tralala, time to resume and finish packing for tomorrow. Research life is a big sacrifice. I am in the lab, on a beautiful Sunday Saturday afternoon, and I think it's time for an intense toilet berak break, so, see ya!

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Pattern deciphered

Piano class yesterday was smoother than expected. As usual, the 2 hours or so of practice right before class, tee hee~ the typical, procrastinating, busy, lousy, lazy student. I feel reading notes is getting less troublesome for me, at least for the level of stuff I'm reading (e.g. "Oh When the Saints come Marching" etc). I'm a happy guy. Only, I realize my wrists have a slight niggling pain after I play every time, even if what I'm playing is so simple. The teacher tells me it happens to adult learners whose wrists have pretty much set and become less agile. Ah well, gotta bear with it for now and hope it gets better.

In relation to the title, I just realized, every 2nd time I wear my new basketball shoes to play, I'll get an injury. My last pair, the orange AND1s that got me a horribly sprained right ankle that made me limp for more than 2 months, did it on my second outing.

This time around, new AND1s again, in a different colour, but it's the second bball outing with them alright, yielding the cheesy wound from my last post. It's still cheesy now, and I can't walk/run properly with that stupid wound. Nor can I play ball since it gets worse when it gets wet/sweaty when I exert my left leg; it'd start oozing loads of puss again.

I don't look forward to new basketball shoes anymore. No more, please, let this pair last.

Adult Cheese

Let us have some left out random pictures up today. Hello friends!The usual broken string picture; yes, I broke a string the instant I installed and tuned Emma perfectly. Within the first 3 notes I played. Bleah.

This was taken in the lab when Dorin the Dodo was using the connection here a bit.

More.
My turtle studying Dorin's phone =p Modelling her watch.
Sher Lynn's (Barney) and Dorin's (Dodo) laptops going head to head.

Dorin's drawing. It's a leafy thing on the left and a smiley on the right (she failed the 'smiley' again, tsk tsk).
They vandalized my bottle. With a lotta grashitty graffiti involving a certain male from my lab whom they accuse to be my gay lover. He's not! Shim is!
My impression of Dorin if she were a real Dodo (she added the halo)
And this'll be Barney (Only, I ran out of space so the head's way smaller in proportion)
And their impression of how much I love leaves. My project revolves around leaves a lot and they think I'm really obsessed with it.
More on my bottle. Bleahhh
Tralala
My punching bag's taken down since the sun is killin it and I've got little time recently. But I just gotta hang it back up if I want to use it, not hard.
My effects box - Behold, the effects box without the batteries! I have finally gotten a proper adaptor to connect it all out!


goodbye RM10 batteries! (it's expensive in the long run to use batteries, ouch).

An odd hair I found with a white tuft on one end. It was connected to my head, with the white-tuft being the end facing OUT! Now, that's odd.

Along with that, anyone when I set sail on my Piano adventure? Well.. behold...

My Adult-version book!For Adults!

OK, NEXT 3 PICTURES ARE SEMI GROSS, FOLLOWED BY A FEW MORE MAJOR GROSS ONES, PLEASE DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU ARE NOT GROSS-TOLERANT

My cheesy scar: Got it last Saturday morning as I heroically dived to save the ball in a full court game before someone tripped me and I landed knee-first on a rough stone-piece pathway. This was the initial emergency bandage that Nurse Dodo sweetly supplied to rescue the Turtle in pain, thanks!
Fresh on day 1. (measures about 2x2")
The new, cool bandages, after daily doses of Dettol and antibiotic cream (ouch).

Now this is when things get cheesy. The first night onwards, I've gotten lotsa puss oozing out of the wound, so if you wanna go on diet DON'T WANNA SEE GROSS STUFF, SKIP THE NEXT FEW PICTURES!!!!
Wong-Kok Cheese-baked rice anyone? Or creamy cheese lasagna? Nyahahahah
Yum?

Sing Jia Buo/Sing Nia Poh/Tiu Nia Sing

My sis, mom and I were hosted by our Singaporean relatives, who were so hospitable I actually feel a lil embarrassed somehow. I dunno why. haha. I didn't take many pictures in Singapore. I also realize I'm more interested in taking nature-related pictures, e.g. bugs, trees, moss (hehe), branches, roots etc. Singapore's a nice place, my first time there in > 10 years I think, more trees than I expected (hehe), but nevertheless, not exactly what I'd call shutter's paradise for me. Chicks were aplenty though; short shorts, ample cleavage for every meal, all dolled up girls all over (MRT, malls, streets), legs.. hmmm, yeah that's about it. Lotsa chinese too, Indians and Malays are rather scarce, 'twas the first thing I noticed there. Anyway, I'll let the pictures take over from here.

Pre-fly Fly Still Fly Touchdown and collected by my Singaporean granduncle! hehe, I really liked how the trees in the car park looked from here, it's just... cool. Especially how each tree trunk branches out into branches, the whole mangle of it. Trees in a row. A lil obsessed ain't I? Ah, what the heck. haha Our shared room, which was very windy, cozy and comfortable. Extremely cold when aircon's turned on. My sister caught being retarded. Nyahahah View from the apartment's balcony.

The apartment's situated about a 10 minute walk from the nearest MRT station, (my main mode of transport when I went out alone) which was by the way, quite excellent in my opinion. You can get about anywhere you need using the trains, they're not extravagantly priced, you'll never get lost because of the good signage (come on, even the infamous "King of Directions" [me] can't get lost... it's just a good system.

Bright green tree that day.
The uncle (dad's aunt's son), and my aunt (no, not his wife, dad's brother) at a place called Ice³ (the '3' is superscript). A dessert shop that serves awesome mud pies (I think that's what they call them, it tastes like ice cream cake - mind you, they're awesome).
Example. Mmm..

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My new bball trotters!
(Damn, I just remembered there's basketball training tomorrow, gonna be super tired)
Woo!
Wooo!

ANDY AND1
okay, so I didn't take the effort to neatly tie up the laces before this shot.. got a problem?
Did I mention I really like them? (~ 100SGD after discount)

Bum Bum Bum

Night Safari!

.. which wasn't all that interesting. Echoing YH's thoughts on caged/captive animals being an atrocity, I felt rather sad for some of the animals on display as people continuously tapped the one-way glass they were separated by. Also, I didn't get to walk all 3 of the treks because the rest were tired, would've been more enjoyable alone. The safari was too brief for us to absorb anything the guide was saying, as accomplished a speaker she was. We were too far from the animals + there were too many of them, and the lighting at night ain't exactly a great big help too. All in all, it was alright, but not as fascinating as my mom read from some reviews online.

A Serval (or Serwal) from the show, cute fella.
It's hard to take pics there with that lighting at distance. This was takenat 20x zoom.
Groupie (uncle out)
Again. hahaha
A KTV place called 'Talk Cock Sing Song'. Singaporeans... tsk tsk.. hahah, bravo!
Another one of 'em mudpies (We went there twice).

While walking alone on the second day, I noticed a row of construction workers (I think) having their naps at this large, spacious hall near the City Hall station.
(Ignore the ... personal items.) See all those white boxes of tomato-flavoured 'Pretz'? Got 10 of 'em for le Dorin & Sher Lynn (Dodo & Barney) upon request (they say the flavour can't be found in Malaysia - and it's good too).
I fit more! I later repacked them to the outside compartment when I realized it was so spacious out there. haha.

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Over lunch at a dim sum place on the final day, clicketty click, I thought I found a great opportunity for pictures when my subject, the teapot, was cruelly robbed from the table by a hardworking waitress. Anyway, I managed to salvage a few..

I like the cup design, though the handle's a lil small for my fat fingers. Here's when I thought I could get a nice picture (this one's crooked, see). Tried making it darker (still haven't noticed it was crooked). Straightened a bit, but notice somethin missing? T_T Ah well, artifically maneuvering the tea cup should help. Tadah~ Starting photography early, at the airport too. hehe. Pre-departure. Fei gay. Yeah-row-plains.

ON BOARD!

Oh wait, I forgot to introduce something. My new guitar knob from Singapore! haha. For Emma's lost 'tone' knob =pBooya!
lalala~
Emma, standing proud.. Man, I love her so much.. *muah*
But I hurt her, by accident. Been there quite a while, that lil wound. Too much passion when we were going at it.. >_< Alright, time to potong stim. The knob is a lil too short, so it looks ri-dick-ulous from the side.
My room after the trip. Total disaster.
Mess..
But I didn't pack anything up till really late, because..
I had a new toy! Meet the fabled "Cream Tone", who sounds just like the name suggests! Sexy!
The current assemblage; dear cream tone has found her place in my make-shift pedal board (board from my Ikean bookshelf).

Vintage Sepia?
or Old school B&W (Black&White)? Cream tone handles them eras pretty damn good =p (35o SGD *sob*)
And then there were the 101 boxes of Pretz unpacked.
hmmmm?
??
Meet Hermit (Hermie's sister) the Harmonica! hahah (man, I'm running out of names). But I have a named reserved for my eventual proper harmonica, Hermie & Hermit are both kinda like prototypes. I'll test my skill on them and if I like them and I get good at it.. I'll get a proper, sexy one =p

The reason I bought Hermit. She's in C-key, unlike her sister who's in G-key. Also, she has this pin that allows me to play the #s and bs (sharps and flats) of the full 12 toned chromatic scale, though I'm still getting used to it now. Hermit was the only 'affordable' model with this feature, at 12SGD, she really feels cheap, but she's quite nice to play with.

I'm sleepy, nitez world, may edit up a lil if I wanna tomorrow.