Friday, August 29, 2008
OnBoard8.50am:
"Gopi, so do I go with you now?"
"... Ok, hmm... Get your harness, come with me."
9.30am:
Reached the main deck of the Angola (Oil Tanker) after climbing 5 storeys of steps. The view from the top was awesome, standing on a structure that costs at least 1 billion dollars while enjoying the view certainly was very enjoyable. Gopi led me into a T.E.U (twenty foot equivalent unit) for the morning meeting with the Owners (aka the boss of the ship). I sat down together with 8 other people surrounding this very long table, their discussions were all about the day's progress and the problems they encountered. There was a Chinese old man sitting beside the Europeans, he had this very unique character, simply amazing how he leads the meeting, his tone filled with confidence and power, was quite motivating for me.
10.00am:
After the meeting, Gopi brought me around the ship to inspect on the scaffolds, took us about 15 minutes just to walk from the forward to the aft of the ship and 5 minutes to walk from port side to starboard side, it was indeed a mega structure. This oil tanker came here to get itself converted into a FPSO (Floating-Production-Storage-Offloading).
2.00pm:
After lunch, I was slacking back in the office, reading Indecent Proposal till Khai Hung's mentor came and brought us to the Seadrill Oil rig. We took a lift up to the main deck and the place was wet and noisy, ear plugs were a must wear almost everywhere on the rig. It was until they showed me the accommodation section where I discovered a heaven, in hell. When the main door of the accommodation section shut, the noises disappeared and what was left was a long speck less clean corridor, a world very similar to a high class hospital. We spotted a coffee machine with a jug of coffee in it, and as students, we drank it! Felt really good and Khai Hung too 4 sachets back home... Oh, we went to their gym room as well and tried out their equipment!
artificious ' 11:41 pm
Monday, August 25, 2008
5am - The worst sound ever starts beeping away, my damn alarm clock. Certainly, very much as usual, I slammed it shut.
5.30am - Mummy came rushing into my room waking me up, did I then realize that I was about to take a bath, brush my teeth, change, pack my bag and have breakfast in just half an hour. I really hate early mornings like this, though I love the cool air but hey, I'd rather have more sleep. Luckily, I managed to catch my 6.09am bus but the chase didn't end just yet, I still have to catch my friends who would be leaving Boon Lay at 6.30am.
6.35am - Finally reached Boon Lay!! Found my friends already queueing for 249 and the queue was freaking long, so long I just couldn't stop staring. After getting up the bus, I realized how much I missed my 151, the bus that I always take to school. I'd be a spoilt son of a bitch if I were to describe why.
Alright, I'm a god damn lazy pig, loath studying, love playing and certainly, hate working. When I stepped out of that bus and looked at JPL, it wasn't very colourful, everyone with the same clothes, same colour, same sex. (excluding the girls from my course) Then as we walked closer to the gate, the place started playing music! Music... which sounded like last night's China national anthem. I thought, 'This place really looks like a communist society.' As we sat in the canteen waiting for the person in charge, the song still amazingly kept playing, then on this very moody Monday morning, I spotted a sexy pretty lady walking in, wearing all black. I never lost sight of her till she went up the stairs, seriously, I thought, in such a place? Well that really did boost my morale just a little.
After the P.I.C came and took us to a room where we could really settle down, a siren started and he gave us this look and said, "Lets go out for exercise." I stared at him with my mouth wide open, like what the??? He took us out to the balcony facing the main road where the guards and traffic police were and simply told us this, "Follow the guards." We waited for about 3 minutes then another song starts to play then I see all the workers, including the traffic policemen who were standing in the middle of the road doing stretching, very very gay stretching. I was absolutely shocked at the moment, didn't know if I should laugh or be simply disturbed. I would've used my phone to capture the moment but its a rule to not take pictures and videos in a shipyard, I think that is one of their major reasons as well...
We had all those briefings on safety and the shipyard then we hoped onto a lorry(which I have not done in decades) and went to collect our uniform and boots. To think of it, its been forever since I last sat with classmates on a lorry. 11.30am, lunch... Food was very average and yet we still had to pay them ourselves! Then we waited for our division leaders to bring us to our respective areas, the girls had the best job, the office job where they need not wear heavy boots or stinky uniform. Waited for that in charge for more than half an hour, then he points to us the location of his office, it was freaking far, very demoralizing.
After reaching the office, we settled down in a room and the guy gave us a thick book and told us to browse through it. Really? Seriously? Yea pretty much that, and it was absolutely boring. After awhile he introduced us to Mr. Liu who is the overall in charge of the HP section, then finally, someone not so cheena came in, a university student whose having a 20 over week attachment there whom fully understands my pain. He was very nice, brought us around the place to take a look at rigs and ships and workers using a very dirty toilet.
4.15pm - FINISH WORK! This day felt as if it lasted forever, making me wonder about many things, which I think I had the F-Face the whole day. The sensation when I was in the bus about to reach Boon Lay shopping centre was so good, the feeling was just like in sec 2 after Adventure Quest training where we first got a glimpse of civilisation.
artificious ' 6:56 pm
Monday, August 11, 2008
Olympics 2008 Women's Individual Foil
Just witnessed an extraordinary jaw dropping competition.
The final Gold medal round between Korea and Italy was simply breath taking.
When Maria (the Italian) got a point lower than the Korean and there was only about a minute left, she took that amount of time and scored two more points! The tenacity in her eyes, her skills, absolutely powerful.
artificious ' 11:48 pm
Sunday, August 10, 2008
My National Day
without the need to watch NDP.
Woke up at around 10am then went with parents to Bukit Timah for a run. Took me 38mins to finish the entire trail, 8 mins more than my sec 3 timing. After the insane sweat out session, went to have prata at Al Ahza's which was very yummy.
After which we went to Woodlands to visit my Grandmother, my cousin Shawn and his dad were already there having lunch. Sat there for a few hours watching the Beijing Olympics, the girl's beach volleyball was definitely entertaining, china totally owned switzerland's ass.
Around 4.30pm, we headed home, just in time for me to catch the last 15mins of the men's road cycling competition. It was pretty intense but the last 1km sprint was definitely the best of all. The Spanish guy came in first, followed by my favourite Italian.
6pm, headed to Singapore Swimming Club to have dinner with two of my mum's friends. I ordered a steak with chocolate sundae as desert, the taste was awesome.
9pm, went to the bar house and played pool with my dad, and somehow I loved hitting in black balls. Later that night, my aunt and uncle came to join us and I had a chance to play with my uncle, he was pretty good. Well I was satisfied though, at least I didn't lose all night in pool.
11pm, Daddy gave me the heads up for my first mug of Tiger beer. The taste was bitter, but somehow satisfying. Genevieve entertained me via messages most of the night, hope she gets well from her sickness. 11.30pm, my second mug, and after I was done with that, my face was as red as a cherry and my dad kept saying that I suck at drinking... Hey man, I'm 17, what ya expect??? But I really did enjoy the night.
artificious ' 1:16 am
