ending in echoes of silence...

finally started sending out my resumes to a couple of firms over the weekend. well, fingers crossed and hope i get the interviews. at the moment i am being very picky and tasteful in the firms i've applied to. i guess its more of the quality and my specific agenda than anything else. unlike 3 years ago where i just spread my net all out to see which kind soul would be so nice to hire me. i was a sponge that wanted to just absorb every single droplet of water that i can possibly absorb. but after 3 years, i've come to realise the certain dos and donts that i wish to include in my learning curve. in a way its like readjusting the steepness of the curve and go straight to the specific things i want to learn.

however, if i do not get the job or find that the place ain't suitable enough... then it might be bye-bye Singapore. i really do hope i get my first preference... it was my first preference of firms when i was applying for jobs in Singapore 3 years ago. surprisingly it still is. unfortunately they were not hiring at the time... and being so popular there is a high chance they might not be either this time, or are very picky on their applicants. sigh.

well another hidden agenda and reason why i hope to get into that company is because of its affiliation with [The Theaterworks]. then perhaps i would have the opportunity to do some stage set designing as well.

so here's a new prayer assignment for you folks!

lately i've been blasting my iPod with lots of rock music. drowning myself within this spectrum of music genre is due to my need to detached myself from the environment... be it in public transport, public areas, and at times at the work place. and perhaps to avoid the need to entertain the silence within my head that would lead to weird thoughts. the band, Foo Fighters, in particular have been my frequent listen. i've been looping their complete discography from The Color and Shapes to their recent Greatest Hits album. thats listening to 7 albums of non-stop head banging music. friggin awesome!

other strange listens would be U2. a band that i am not very fond of in the past, mainly because i hate Bono's annoying ne-ne vocals. but i am beginning to be rather respectful of "the edge's" echoey guitar riffs. it can be rather hypnotic.

aside from Rock music... i still do keep up with my usual listens. the most recent findings is Stan Getz's Bossas and Ballads: the lost sessions

i'm beginning to be able to distinguish clearly his sounds and style of play from other sax players. its a really good album. the sort you can listen early in the morning or late nights before bedtime.

finally got around to buy my ticket to the [Chick Corea] concert. i didnt manage to find anyone that would be interested or available to kawan me. ofcourse... shlim kept insisting i ask Debs to go. but i was reluctant to. don't ask me why.

yummy...

jingle bells... jingle bells...

so today's sermon in church was about treasures in heaven (matthew 6:19~24). we learned that we should not worship money and place it on an alter... instead we should spend! i'm pretty sure the recent obama-hujintao get together is about obama trying to physco china into splurging all that loads of cash hidden underneath them chinese pillows...

here are some of my current ogles...

a Vespa LX150...

or...

Leica M8 range finder... i'm not trying to turn into one them "photogs" but seriously this camera is a beau. i couldn't stop myself from fiddling with Ju's Leica.

budweiser...

it seems rather hard to find a compadre for the chickcorea in december. but nonetheless its something i must not miss. somehow i treat this as a significant milestone of my life... why? because 3 years back when i had just arrived to start my new life in this island... chickcorea was in town. sadly i was not able to go because at that time i was still trying to orientate myself around and sistic.com was the last thing on my mind. but he's back again... and i cant help but wonder if its signifies an ending of a past phase welcoming me as i transition myself to a new.

anyway, bet y'all are probably rolling your eyes right now. so i shall not elaborate any further.

today was the last bible class for the year. finally a break from the tuesday routine. it has been rather swell. i probably wouldnt had made the effort to study about the life of moses if it werent for bsf. somehow i think God wanted class to be on a Tuesday. tuesdays are my site walk days in the morning... where after that im usually all sweaty and sticky. the worst feeling ever. then its the day before my regular wednesday site meeting. which is always a nightmare. normally there would be tons of things to do and follow up prior to the meeting. i must say i was not a regular bible class goer towards these last few months. i think i missed most part of Deuteronomy. yes very ashamed. but at least i managed to catch Moses' last dying days. well unlike most days... i decided to mingle a little longer during the group mingling session and adjourned for dinner after. figured it might be the last time i'd see any of these folks or at least for the rest of the remaining year.

strangely i bumped into a very old OCF acquaintance. i remember him from my ocf days as the tough love hardcore NS cum lawyer christian. funny to discover that he dreaded his ocf days. but i can totally understand why, but coming from him was rather a surprise as well. maybe because i didnt really knew him that well to begin with. but yea although i did share some happy moments and learnt a thing or two during my OCF days... overall it sucked in general.

was video conferencing with the parents over the weekend. apart from sharing my reasons and theories of the complications of finding my "other half" and females in general. it suddenly dawn on me that for whole of 2009... i have not made a trip back to KK. the last time i was back was in christmas. and at the rate i'm in... i do not think i will be breaking that streak. this year would be the first in my decade life away from home that i did not celebrated CNY and perhaps christmas. So now the big question... what am i gonna do this christmas?!

short lived...

as i said i would. here are some photos taken of the built panels. this was taken the night before the exhibition's opening. was not able to see how the finished finished product turned out, the exhibition was only open during working hours only. by the time i headed down from office, the hall was closed and in total darkness. sad.

if you're wondering...

The moon was shining on the lake at night

The Slayer t-shirt fit the scene just right

Smeared mascara, I looked into your eyes, I saw a light

You told me stories about your chickadees

They didn't like BB guns or stupid archery

John the lifeguard, he let them use the pool all day for free

Then the conversation stopped, and I looked down at my feet

I was next to you and you were right there next to me

Then I said girl,

If you're wondering if I want you, (I want you to) I want you to

So make a move, (Make a move) 'cos I ain't got all night

The rest of the summer was the best we ever had

We watched Titanic, and it didn't make us sad

I took you to Best Buy, you took me home to meet your Mom and Dad

Your Mom cooked meatloaf even though I don't eat meat

I dug you so much, I took some for the team

Your dad was silent, his eyes were fixed on what was on TV

Then the conversation stopped, and I looked down at the ring

Your folks were next to you, and you were right there next to me

Then I said girl,

If you're wondering if I want you, (I want you to) I want you to (I want you to)

I swear it's true (I swear it's true) without you, my heart is blue

Girl,

If you're wondering if I want you, (I want you to) I want you to

So make a move, (Make a move) 'cos I ain't got all night

So much pain may come our way

There may come a day when we have nothing left to say

When the conversation stops, and we're facing our defeat

I'll be next to you and you'll be right there next to me

Then I'll say girl,

If you're wondering if I want you, (I want you to) I want you to (I want you to)

I swear it's true (I swear it's true) without you, my heart is blue

Girl,

If you're wondering if I want you (I want you to) I want you to

So make a move, (Make a move) 'cos I ain't got all night

gravity... working against me.

now that my new printer/scanner/ photocopier is finally up and running. i can finally share some of the recent stuff i was being preoccupied with. haha!

my most recent (completed) project would be the designing of exhibition space for SIA at the BEX Asia Exhibition. it was a low budget assignment with a minimal yet very "organic" brief. when i say "organic" is because we had no idea what was going to be exhibited till the very last of days just before the exhibition started.

so let me show some of the thought process...

the site or the designated space we were given was at the far right hand side of the hall smacked in the middle of the main corridor. well for me, i personally love long narrow spaces. simply because i love given the chance to create depth in the narration of the spaces. <-- i bet you all are wondering what the heck do i mean... seriously... i pun tak tahu *shrugs*

anyway, given that it was right at the end of the corridor, that automatically made it the main draw / focal point of the exhibit. and i thought, so how do i draw the viewers attention. initially i thought of using reflective materials to scream at the viewers, then i thought since singapore loves green... why not i just plant a tree ( but that would just be too tacky, and the n-parks booth was just around the corner). instead since reflective materials would probably cost a bomb, i decided to create the drama by drawing the viewers through a series of steps that would lead them to this long wall of about 2.2 meters. in a way it meant to give height to the exhibits and yet the human scale is still retained by the steps.

~ i forgot to explain what the exhibits consisted of. well basically the SIA wanted to exhibit the whole timeline of their involvement with the countries green mission. then the left over space was given to all the other regional architectural institutions to showcase their own stuff. ~

now that would explain the purpose of the wall. because i did not want to distract the main focus that this exhibit is essentially for SIA and the other stuff was just subsidiary of it. the wall becomes the main theme and backdrop of everything. the viewers would naturally know the the heighten wall is the main exhibit and surrounding it being place at random on the steps is the forest of exhibit panels. randomly placed to show that all could be just part or equal to the status of the viewers wanting to crowd around to witness the great SIA wall. haha.

now but there was a problem (apart from the budget constraint). given that we were unsure how many boards would make up the numbers for the regional institutes exhibit, i was not able to plan in advance my little random forest. and if the numbers escalated it would be too bushy a forest for the wall to be effective. so to make things less complicated, i decided to bring forward the wall. but by doing that, the steps would be totally redundant. and so i decided to use the wall as its rightful function... to block and hide and shelter the whatever that lies behind it. but to get into the space, i needed to make a fenestration. hence using the corridor as my reference i opened up the fenestration and concurrently created a sense of depth to the viewers.

because the only thing that we were able to control was the SIA exhibits, the wall then serves as the permanent exhibit and what goes behind it was the organic + transient space. its like the backstage of where all the junk lies. i had no qualms of wanting to connect the 2 spaces because in all truth both exhibits were pretty incongruous with each other. and i couldnt wait for the other institutes to give me a confirmed number.

above is detail sketches of the wall with a pelmet incorporating the T5 lights. the contractor proposed to add sandbags within the 300thk walls to make sturdy the walls without needing the additional chamfered supports that i so wanted to avoid.

i will post up the photos of the finish product shortly. i left the photos in my office PC hardisk.

Postmortem...

now that it is completed and i have seen the finished product and despite the few hiccups here and there. i am reasonably satisfied with the results.

one of the main hiccup was the position of my fenestration that was supposedly to be inline with the corridor somehow was off-set. i was scratching my head on site wondering why the whole damn thing was shifted by at least 3 meters. i tot the contractor had miscalculated and got the setting out wrong or something or perhaps the whole exhibition in itself was set out wrongly. since i couldnt get answers from the contractor as he was out for lunch, i decided to ask the organisers themselves. and as it turns out the reason why

it was off was because at the very last minute without informing anyone, they decided to add an additional stall for their own exhibit hence everything was moved down. i was so upset, even more because i could not do anything about it but to just accept its fate.

the sketch above was done after the whole thing was completed.

after further thought, there were 2 things that i could had done to make it more meaningful:

1.

i personally thought the 2m fenestration was a little too big. it revealed too much of what mystery lied behind the wall. a better size might had probably been half a meter. the viewer would have to reorientate and adjust him/herself by entering the space sideways. in a way the viewers would be forced to make an effort to get into the space behind. ofcourse it would had been politically incorrect if i had actually done that. it would have been very offensive to the other regional institutes exhibits, in particular for the Thai exhibit. Thai king would feel very insulted.

2.

creating a level change with a raised threshold at the fenestration would be an interesting way of informing the people of the transition in space and a good means of emphasizing the focal point of the exhibit.

anyhow... all is over and done with. im glad that the SIA exhibition turn out very different from the other booths which were rather tacky and IMHO too loud. as what Wenhao commented... "... among all it was the most architecturally sensible booth." nice.

As the great Carlos Scarpa (and his many exhibition design exercises) says...

"experiments in designing exhibitions make it possible to test one's own architectural language, serving as an instrument for propagating the prevailing architectonic message..." haha... my message.

happy birthday... to me.

it would definitely be a magical christmas as well if you were mine... magic mouse... caress caress... stroke stroke... click click... touch touch... ooooohhh... aaahhhhhh...

oh i love diagrams...

2 months notice...

the weekend had gone by so fast yet again. highlight for today (apart from groundbreaking ceremony of the sentosa cove house site this morning) was probably my stash of newly purchased CDs. my original intention was to search for the Jersey Boys musical soundtrack. in the end... the cd was not on sale and i ended up buying everything else. i can never turned down a good sale. pity keith jarret CDs just never ever will be on sale. why?!

was supposed to attend some dinner event at Royal China in the Marina Mandarin, instead i decided to spend the rest of the evening at home. i guess turning down the offer to meet Ben Van Berkel and Maksimilio Fuksas was never really a tough decision. hah! i'll be able to hear all that "sublime order" crap shit over the week anyway. the only thing i'm interested to settle is the exhibition gallery for this years BEX Asia at suntec. in the end to meet the budget... the final design is now so much simpler and somehow more organic in its flexibility. given that PAM and all the other regional architectural institutes just cant decide how many boards they wanna exhibit. so i the best option was to bring forward the huge wall and hide all the other stuff behind it. i hope it turns out well.

now i must decide if i should attend the party at the loof or go for bible class on tuesday. i'll decide that when the time comes.

saturday we celebrated SunHo's 6th month. for a change of scenery, we decided to do it at my place. he just cant take his eyes off the place. momzy had trouble breast feeding him because he was just too distracted to nibble on the boobies. why i say nibble? because he has grown 2 little teeths!! haha. carrying that 9kilo pilllow reminds me of my climb up to mount kk... lugging a 9kilo backpack up the Mesilao trail. tough to my weak knees.

As requested, some photos of the dive. looking forward for the next one.

sunburn...

after 3 years of procrastination... i've finally arrived into the world of the underwater! hah!

and there was a huge big puffer fish to welcome me during the last dive of the trip. it was huge!!!!

i must say... God was omnipresent during the whole trip. no hiccups and the weather was decent. not the best condition but decent enough to finish all 5 dives. the current affecting the visibility underwater but thankfully the heavy rain pours only started when we set foot on Mersing jetty. that was a relief.

so... next stop... Sipadan? Taiwan? Thailand? Indonesia? Cairns?

apparently the visibility in Taiwan seas is up to 30meters. thats damn syok!

why do you let me stay here...?

monday again and i feel like shit. i hate the feeling of unaccomplishment at the end of the day. i never ever get to finish what i had planned on doing on most days. theres just too much to do and everything seems to be moving concurrently. even though the office is filled with people, yet somehow i feel so alone. the only support i get from the bosses is stress. i guess my heart and mind has really drifted.

finally the beans is spilled. i guess the bosses just can't whole their tongue any longer. they just had to know. well my somewhat detachment from the office and work was rather obvious or so it seems. the lady boss had been observing me of late... and realise that my work progression has come to a halt. as she puts it... "car engine not able to start..." i was rather surprised at the observation and how badly she wanted to talk to me about it. but it's hard to explain what i'm feeling. there is a reason for my current state but there is no real way of sharing in vagueness. but all i could answer to her queries was that i am ofcourse making plans... much like any other human being in planet earth. plans... thats life. making plans in hopes of achieving it. the whole setting was rather uncomfortable though very amusing, i had never imagine myself in this situation ever before. and it has come to a point of being in the office for a period of time, until the bosses can sense my difference. ofcourse i have not really made a great effort of hiding it, but still i didnt know work had been affected so deeply. but looking back i guess it has... because nowadays i always end the day with the fuck that... i'm going home mentality. this is actually a very bad work attitude. but really... though i feel so sincerely guilty about it, at the same time i just can't help myself. its horrible, because i really want to give my best, but i am unable to contribute further, and my growth in the office is stunt. the direction i'm heading... is perhaps not the direction i intend to seek. and when i generally will stop giving my best when i find sometihng that's not in line with my thoughts or if i think its just not right. i hate being stagnant and been put in a situation where i cant move. the more i'm put in a corner the more i would wanna crash out. thats just human nature.

so im taking this as a sign. besides theres just no way i can go back anymore. and the bosses' observation has served as a confirmation of the plans. well atleast for the first part of it.

so unprepared.

(500) days of... S

coincidence... because fate is a myth.

thinking...

tossing and turning for the past few hours. so i decided to get up have a beer and plan my in-flight itinerary. i managed to reserve my seat, skim through the menu, and uhmm checked out the available movies. they are serving sticky date pudding on the flight! and i expressed cravings 2 days ago. awesome. and this time i think i'll just have champagne throughout. hahar.

apart from that... i have been browsing through OMA's website. i think the MAHANAKHON is undisputedly the current most interesting residential highrise. if not highrise in general. i discovered that Ole Scheeren is only 38 years old and already he's one of the directors at OMA. plus he's married to Maggie Cheung. darn lucky bastard. no matter what the critics say about his contributions in the asian architectural scene. you gotta give it to the man... he's got it all despite it all. hush my little envious friends. hahar.
sigh... i must try and sleep.

largest snake found... dead.

mid week blues...

a good session at no.5. wow i just got to know this girl who is just damn in your face. well, i must say that alcohol in some way does somehow make a person look hotter than they are. so i must maintain my prudence in judgement. she is the first that questioned on my vagueness in describing my address.

"so where do you live...?"

err somewhere central... between toa payoh and novena...

"what the fuck in central? just say where u live"

"u mean j;n rajah? balestier?... bahagia?"

okay i live off bahagia

"yalar then just say lar... you think i dunno where ah. jln rajah... jalan etc"

yeap.

"so do you facebook? are you an active or passive facebooker?"

err how do you define active?

"aiya knowing you probably take forever to add me... plus you also fail to take my HP number..."

okay... i didnt know u mobile these days? haha. whats your number?

i probably wont call u lor

damn direct... shocking.

mid week blues. i decided to voice my thoughts on my current insufficient manpower assistance to one of the directors. unfortunately i reckon the whole conversation was rather unfruitful. in the end... the conclusion was that i was on my own and i have to manage all this shit on my own. damn. the work distribution is fucking unfair. its getting so bad that i really fucking hate my collegues who are having the good life but pretending to be damn fucking stress. if i could... i would tell them that they are years ahead of experience than i am and they better fucking shut up. please stop acting busy. i really think all these talk is just hot air and bullshit. i guess all the martinis are getting the best of me. but i must say, everything seems rather enhance.

i am so glad that sunho is back. the last 2 weeks was rather dreadful. i wanna see the little boy again.

saehoon got me a new cd from korea. apparently she artist is a serious and real artist.

tennis tomorrow. however realised taht i'm moderating tomorrow. sigh. 2nd designers forum. i guess im moderating for all the sessions. tomorrows speaker... WOHA... SURBANA... and some Korean artist. i am so unprepared. and i have yet to prepare the brief for the pavilion competition. sigh.

okay i better read up now.

these are busy times...

CV updating can be such a chore. i find the whole introduction segment so difficult to write. how much awesomeness can one write about themselves. nevertheless its good motivation and rather fun.

been out of the office these couple days. and i hate having to go back into the office after hours just because. thankfully today i had a good excuse to leave the office early. went over to ZARA to pick out a jacket for ping's farewell. i dun like to be sent alone to run these sort of errands... i get tempted to shop for myself. really can't believe that he's actually leaving. but i do respect him, very brave of him to decide to further his studies in Germany. imagine a little thai boy who can barely speak english now has to try and communicate and survive in a much foreign land.

so since i have no one to share my day with. let me share my great achievements thus far to all you readers. i know you all will not be able to appreciate this but you do not have much of a choice anyway.

met up with the client yesterday before he was flying off to Beijing. after the meeting with the potential contractor for the job, we head over to Bulthaup to check out the kitchen i had specified. we had to justify to the client why on earth are we spending money on a $150k kitchen system. well, after spending almost an hour at the showroom, i reckon the wife was pretty impress by the kitchen. i must say... its innovation to the max. these germans really thought of everything for a kitchen. hope they wont scrap the proposal... it would be a very nice kitchen to display in the house. now with that hurdle done... the next step is to justify why i chose a bathtub that cost them $30k. haha. it never ends. think the next time they're back, i'll have to take them to see the specified wardrobe. given that they are currently using B&B wardrobe system, the $100k Rimadesio wardrobes should be a good upgrade. notice i'm highlighting the price tags... because until today... i still rather dumbfounded by all these. and to think... they were complaining that the grass cutter's fee of a $160 is too expensive.

So the next day, i had to run around sourcing for a cheaper grass cutter to trim the grass on site. to my horror most of the other offer was $200 and above. crazy. its times like these that i wish those bangladeshi workers carried mobile phones. and so i was left standing on site scratching my head on how to solve this grass problem. then i realised that i was surrounded by construction sites. so i had the brightest idea one could ever think of. i decided to head over to the biggest construction site that was building the condo right across from my site to negotiate and offer my proposition. i decided to take advantage of the fact that they were using my site as a car park, which in fact they had no right to do so because that would be trespassing into private property. so i told the contractor that out of goodwill i had "allowed" them to park their cars on the site, and since i had allowed that to happen i expected them to do me a favor out of "good will" in return. and so they figured that i was indeed doing them a huge favor and obligedly offered to cut the grass for free. haha! well i'll have to head down site again to check if they had done so. otherwise... i would have no choice but to exercise my rights. damn... so i just managed to help the client save $160 bucks.

after a long hiatus i decided to show up for the design committee meeting. why would anyone turn down a free lunch? i guess these meetings in a way is a breather from all the mundane routine meetings. bunch of young architects trying to inspire and change and educate the singapore population of the world of Architecture. so we had a worrying discussion on the poor attendance for this years Designers Forum series. how do increase the numbers. where is all the young aspiring architects and the students? so we reckon and most definitely due to the over priced registration fee in relation to the level to Architectural superstardom of the speakers. oh well. but i think if we minus all the adults in the committee and hopefully they would turn up less and let us run the show... next years archifest sounds like its gonna be a blast. and perhaps... our first Serpentine gallery? ahah!

then later i headed towards east at jalan sultan to check out the conference table for the new office meeting rooms. i was rather dissapointed by the suppliers office setting, further more the poor PR of the staff. i guess the only people with good human relation was the bosses which made me only wanting to speak to them, i just ignored the staff because they were such dick heads. it was so bad until i just wanted to walk out of the place.

anyway... i have so much more to blab about. but its getting late... talking is easier than typing.

life in slow motion...

i have been looping David Gray's "slow motion" more than 30 times today... beautiful song. i agree that everything in slow motion seems so unreal and the whole motion becomes such a beautiful art-form to marvel at. stupid it seems. like watching federer hit a forehand in slowmotion... makes u wish u could do the same at the same exact speed.

i tell you. one of the scary things about living alone is when you choke on something and theres no one around to save you. you could just choke and collapse there and then. not a single person would know until the foul smell of dead body begins to interrupt the neighbors. *cough cough*

was already sick for the past 2 days... and i hate getting real sick. aweful feeling especially when you just can't get yourself out of bed... but you're dying of hunger. but i forced myself to go to work. forced my way out of bed on friday morning... took me the whole morning to do it. sometimes i just don't know why i do these sort of things... just so i can check on the progress of the office expansion, sent out a few letters/ report, and to conduct a technical meeting with the contractor because they were desperate to clear some issues... even if we were not obligated to entertain such last minute cries.

the night breeze tonight is very cooling. great day to be sleeping outside under the stars. wish i had a balcony or terrace now. man... i love night cool winds.

the meeting of the lawyer went pretty okay. i must give credit to layteng. she is indeed very cute. but sad part is that she only looks good with her thick black frame glasses on. and even sadder is that she doesnt like them. i reckon it makes her look intelligent. the black frames somehow brings out her features. i liked it in a superficial way perhaps. as how Calvino would describe... with and without the glasses one is an entirely different person. a choice of who you seek to be. well i guess it went pretty okay given that we actually adjourned to have tiramisu. but shes only... 22. they come so young, innocent and fresh... so much ahead for them to discover.

movie with the girls after. Bruno. it was a sick sick movie. funny but seriously sick. haha. ah! the worst scene was when he flashed and flipped his dick in the homemade video. horror! well, i guess he had to really go all out for this one to get the sort of hype and reaction he seeks. apparently the movie has been thoroughly screened and censored. i just don;t wanna know what could be worse than what was already shown. sicko.

church tomorrow. 9 or 11? haha. night!

happy birthday...

it has been a grueling 3 weeks. fingers crossed the office renovation will soon be completed. of course then i realised that its only part 1. part 2 has yet to start... and office retro fitting is a much tougher task. but lets not think about it for now.

now... you would think that after 3 years in the field, by now i would had already completed a project. well indeed i have done many designs and proposals etc. but all of them are merely on paper.

so this small ID job will mark the completion of my first built work. pretty exciting innit? well initially, i had hoped my first completed job would had been the ID works for the Urbana penthouse. unfortunately that didnt materialize. the client decided to just sell off the place as it is. he managed to sell it for a decent 10 mil. the renovation work would had cost him around half a million... and he thought that was expensive.

i must say, and it is true that Architects are late bloomers or should i say it takes years before we can see the fruits from our labours.

think about it, a doctor gets to save a life in a matter of seconds, a lawyer can complete a trial in a matter of weeks or days, a accountant would complete an audit in say 3 months, a structural engineer gets to see his superstructure frame completed in 6 months atleast for a high rise building, heck a professional runner can complete his task in a matter of seconds, anyway, well... you get my drift.

let me give you the breakdown of how long it will take before an architect gets to see light at the end of the tunnel:

1 year... spent in finding the right client. client's rarely come to you.

0.5 year... to find the right site

0.5 year to convince self that its the right site

1 year... to study and analyze the site

2 years spent on designing

1 year to obtain the authority approvals

1 year to sort out all the strucutre, mechanical and electrical system

1 year to get the cost right

another 1 year to convince the client that the cost is right

1 year to find the right contractor

0.5 year to negotiate with the contractor on the agreeable price

1 year for the contractor to study and understand the designs

5 years for the contractor to built it ( with constant squabbling with the Architect as of what should be the right way to built it)

1 year spent on rectifying the defects

1 year arguing with the client insisting that this was the design that he approved

0.5 year trying to justify the money spent or more like explaining why the final cost was beyond the stipulated budget

before finally handing over the building back to the client.

and an eternity to be bothered by the clients incessant complaints.

so thats 20++ years to finally have a building completed. its no wonder all architects only become famous in their 50s. sigh.

haha... i know this is an exaggeration... but still... you get my point.

menghitung hari...2

menghitung hari...

post national day. forced myself to the office to check on the contractor's work. vinyl flooring is up. most of the cabinetry framework is up. and the ceiling guy was puttying the ceiling/ partition board. i just can't wait for all this to be over and done with.

saturday was the start of the new tennis lesson cycle. the coach has put up a notch on the training. till today my hand is feeling the aches. getting ready for the big game in september. apparently my backhand is my form of weapon. so i need to brush up on my forehand skills. i have been very skeptical about tennis coaches. took me long time to actually find one that is good. most coaches i've seen around are plain rip-offs. but i dun blame them. coaches for beginner and amateur level does not require any skills. as long as they can hit the ball back to the player then its good enough. heck they dun even need to run for any ball. not a bad option to earn some extra pocket money. but my coach... is the coach among the coaches. damn right he is. he's abit worried because his name is on the line for the tournament as well. haha.

we celebrated sunho's belated 100th day celebration. initially the plan was to have an outdoor event. but everyone didnt think it would be a good idea given the recent hazy days. so we had steam boat instead. woot! i've not done such serious super-marketing in a long while. but pushing the trolly around trying to squeeze my way among the crowd was rather exciting. all the food... delicious.

sunday was singapore's national day and the premier of the singapore idol. i was surprise to see BenChow taking part in the contest. he's got a good voice... but i must agree his audition was slightly OTT. but the cast explained why he was missing out of action from Jazz@SB for such a long time. sad. i amazed myself being able to sit through the whole charity shield match. goes to show i was probably very bored and there was nothing much to do given i only had 3 options to choose from; soccer match, mahjong, continually eating. so obviously i chose the one that required the least amount of activity. hah!

beautiful monday morning it was. sadly it only will last for a day. and soon its back to work at the office. well, counting down my days now before i eventually enter a new phase. the sermon on sunday really confirmed my thoughts. although i am still in doubt of my decision and the execution of the plans made. there are sacrifices that have to be made but also things to be gained as well. oh well, we'll see how the year ends.

passing of the blues... rainy days & mondays.

So use it and prove it

Remove this whirling sadness

I'm losing, I'm bluesing

But who can save me from madness

So save me I'm waiting

I'm needing, hear me pleading

And soothe me, improve me

I'm grieving, I'm barely believing now