Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
Hello, professor!
Damn, I never did realize how much I could actually miss her.
Prof walked into the office yesterday. (I work in a business facility in the basement of my alma mater’s campus.)
I heard her before I actually got to see her (because she and my co-worker boss – also an ex-student – exchanged greetings). I whirled around upon hearing that all too familiar voice, and it took me about five seconds before I actually recognized her.
Gosh, does she look different!
It’s about a year since I took her course in my final semester. She taught Asia Pacific Business, which concentrates on the latest business developments and trends in Asia – in particular, the recent boom in integrated resorts in Macau and Singapore. A really tough course, but rather interesting.
Demanding as she was, I do sense a fair amount of motherly-like love and concern from her. Especially during the 4 day, 3 night class trip to Macau when my heart condition acted up suddenly and I had to be flown back to Singapore as a precautionary measure. Troublesome as it was, she always ensured that there was someone with me. Plus, she constantly asked me how I was feeling, which was really appreciated.
I can still vividly recall having to sign a pseudo-indemnity ‘form’ upon my departure back to Singapore. (I flew back on my own eventually because I didn’t wanted to trouble the TAs or her.)
There was no actual indemnity form for such a case, so she had a hand-write one on the spot. In the middle of the streets of Macau no less, while the TAs and myself stood around and laughed at the situation.
Even after the final exams ended, she met my project group members and myself for a one-hour long chat where she asked us about our future plans, and even invited us to join her on the subsequent BSMs she was organizing.
I haven’t seen her since then … until yesterday.
She is still as open as she used to be – always available to hang out with her students and talk nineteen to the dozen. She stood around our (my co-worker boss and me) cubicles and chatted with us for almost fifteen minutes, updating us on her recent happenings and asking us about ours. Prior to her departure, she invited us for lunch one day so that we could all catch up.
It felt like last year all over again. A strange, warm and fuzzy feeling … minus the project deadlines and stress.
Strangely, I don’t recall the rest of my coursemates feeling the same way as I do about Prof. During that semester, it was complaints galore – from gender bias, students not knowing her requirements, occasionally contradicting herself, tough projects and yadda yadda.
I admit, I was one of those students who went along with the ‘not knowing her requirements’ complaint, because she does have pretty high expectations which she doesn’t really communicate fully. (Which come to think of it – is good for us. It challenges us to do the best we can since after all, we won’t be spoon-fed once we leave school to work, don’t we?)
During that semester, I remembered deeming Asia Pacific Business as one of my most ‘dangerous’ courses because my grades could swing anywhere. I can work my arse off on a project and still get less than a ‘B’. Frustrating as the grades aspect was, I cannot deny that it was one of the more interesting courses I’ve taken.
Since graduating, I kind of missed her.
Well, it’s kind of easy when you’re no longer a student – people would say. But even as a student in her course back then, my impressions of her were at least neutral.
She is a professor that is extremely passionate when she speaks, and you can tell she really knows her stuff. It helped a lot that she organized loads of industry talks, which wasn’t easy as it required loads of logistics and um, persuasion. (It takes a lot to get the CEO of some bigshot company to come down to speak to a bunch of students!)
Yet, she managed to pull it off. Unfortunately, without much credit from her students. But still.
Not to mention the logistics for the field trip – ensuring all the students got their flights, booking of hotel rooms, arranging tours and talks with the various integrated resorts in Macau. That, on top of her attempts at psyching the students up for the trip in the weeks preceding it.
Plus, I miss how she addresses her students as ‘peeps’ and ‘folks’ during class time.
Kudos to the (possibly the most misunderstood) professor.
And I look forward to the next time we get to meet. I can’t wait to hold an animated discussion about Resorts World Sentosa (which opened last month) with her.
Dreams that made me go W-T-F.
My imagination seems to be going on constant overdrive mid-sleep the past few nights, and end up waking the next morning feeling as if I’ve been teleported to some wacky land overnight.
Rewind two nights ago.
Grace and I were holidaying in Hong Kong. (Well, this vacation did happen, but it was way back in January last year.) We were at Tung Chung, and we wanted to head to Ngong Ping. The only way to get there was through an undersea bridge/walkway because Ngong Ping was several hundred feet below sea level.
Now, this totally does not make sense. Because in reality, Ngong Ping is a highland area and the way to get there is via a cable car.
Now, you see why I’m so bewildered.
It doesn’t stop there. Grace and I proceeded to Ngong Ping via the undersea walkway when a glass window suddenly flew open (now, undersea walkways don’t have windows that can open, do they?) and the entire walkway began filling up with water very quickly.
So, we quickly detoured and ran up flight after flight of stairs struggling to head back to the ground level of Tung Chung. We emerged drenched from bottom down, but okay.
Then I woke up, thinking “W-T-F?”
Rewind to last night.
I was given this tiny device. Think a toy aeroplane which you can sit on. (Not in. On. Apparently, you sit on top of it with your legs dangling over the wings.) There is also this black lever which controls the direction the plane flies.
So, I sat on it, pressed some button and off I went. I flew around buildings, I chased birds, and basically made everyone on ground level look up at me in admiration. (It was low-altitude flying, by the way. Like, maximum 100 metres above street level?)
Then, I heard a whistle blow. I looked down and saw this policeman chasing after me on the road and catching up. (Look now, since when can a policeman on foot out-run a plane?!)
Eventually, I was shouted at for flying without a pilot’s license.
Then, I was awoken by my ringing alarm clock. And when I smacked it shut and yelled “WHAT THE HECK?” – the exasperation wasn’t actually directed at the alarm clock for the first time.
Honestly, can I have normal dreams tonight, pleeeease?
Oh, hello!
Hello guys, after a prolonged hiatus from blogging and the web scene in general, I’m back … along with a move to my Brendalogy.net domain!
I felt I’ve somewhat outgrown Little-wonder.net. After all, I registered that domain when I was a wee fourteen year old kiddo. I’ve spent a good nine years there, but it’s time to move on to something new.
Brendalogy.net is not exactly new. As of 2010, it would be four years old.
All my blog entries posted before 2010 have been archived offline, away from public view. I’ve decided that some of them entries, especially those written between 2001-2005 out of teenage angst should never see the light of day again.
Feel free to poke around the domain. The photography site is partially up, as I am still in the process of migrating existing photos over, on top of rediting them all over again. Tedious stuff, but I’m happy doing it and that’s what matters.
Everything’s practically been hand-drawn from scratch. I’ve spent two days on the illustrations and layout designs alone and needless to say, I am exceptionally pleased with the overall result.
Last but not least, please update your links, people! People who have subscribed to my feed needn’t do anything, because I’ve already done the necessary redirection for you.
What are you waiting for? Say hello! (;
NOTE: Internet Explorer Bugs
If anyone can help me with these, I’ll love you forever.
(1) Social media icons not showing properly on post pages in IE. Plugin is ‘SexyBookmarks’. Activating it also led to Javascript and CSS errors on both IE and Firefox. I’ve abandoned the plugin for now.
(2) RESOLVED! – Contact form (here) showing strangely in IE.
(3) NEW! – :focus and :hover classes added to inputs and textareas don’t show in IE.
Here I am debugging at 4 in the morning and I am coming this close to wanting to murder Bill Gates for inventing this crap of a browser. Hurhur.
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