ったく…

たまたまに
季節使わぬ
俳句書け!

Droideka

The Samsung Galaxy S. Hailed as one of the best android phones around. With a processor out to kill.

When the time came to renew my plan, I was initially thinking of getting a Blackberry, but eventually I was... convinced to get the Galaxy S instead after hearing that blackberry accessories are some of the most pricey around, since the price plans cost about the same anyway.

But it kind of slipped my mind that for the same monthly figures the purchase price of the iPhone 3GS would be 50 bucks cheaper than the Galaxy S.

ANYWAY...

So here I am, with my first ever Android phone. So far I'm happy with the whole experience.

The lag was minimal, and happened solely during loading times (sometimes even while loading messages), and none for the animation and transitions.

A certain web review pointed out a few 'bugs', one of those being the contact list showing both contacts from SIM and phone after the SIM contacts transfer, but I found out all you need to do is go to the settings, and uncheck some checkboxes :)

One rather serious 'bug', whose occurence I can't replicate, unfortunately, was that the SMS text box sometimes "remembers" the intended recipient even after I've switched to a separate SMS thread, so I ended up sending a message to the wrong person. Since this error wasn't reproducible it might not have been a bug, but instead the product of my own first-time-user folly.

Thank God it wasn't a message to my girlfriend.

After frequent 'trips' to the Android Market, here are some of the apps I've downloaded so far that I'm completely happy with.

Paper Toss. OK maybe I just wanted to feel like an iPhone user at that particular moment... anyway, this popular app works just as well with the Galaxy S, with zero lag.

BatteryTime Lite. One-stop app for all the info you need on what exactly is going on with your battery now, since the user interface of the Galaxy doesn't present me with a way to find out even the percentage of my battery life I have left.

The brilliant part is that it can run as an ongoing application so the battery life is ever present on my status bar. Then again this might have consumed a little more of my battery in the process, but I never bothered to find out :)

Facebook for Android. Nuff' said.

Smooth Calendar. True to it's name, this is one smooth app. It shows as a widget on the main screen. Compared to Samsung's very own Daily Briefing widget, this baby occupies less space and pulls a lot more information from my calendar. Less is more.

Sticky Note. How I missed the days of ol' school Sony Ericsson where I was actually allowed to post notes on my home screen. With this app I can do just that. A small post-it carrying the title as an icon on my home screen, maximising to show the contents of the note upon a tap.

Best is, I can post multiple notes at the same time. Useful!

Scientific Calculator. You need this when you're dating a Maths Major. Or so I thought :)

Yahoo! Mail for Android. I can now manage my campus fellowship's official email account on the go. And the UI is not too bad!

The Straits Times. Works and loads a lot better than the Channel NewsAsia app I tried downloading before this.

SG Buses. My Iris clone army :D Allows bookmarking of bus stops and buses. Asking Iris no longer seems a chore.

Jsandbox. Japanese input program. Comments on the Android Market says it's useless and it needs kanji input. Turns out it's both useful and can input kanji. All this app needs is for an instruction manual to come with it, because I only figured out how to use it at the very moment before I gave up.

Thrilled that I can finally type messages in Japanese!

Jam 的抱抱

萧苟A M駦 1:26 起 OMG.

TGIGF

祂做了人做不到的事。

Chio slip-ons

The looooong wait at Science CBLC these days due to the supersized lecture notes prepared by lecturers who paste high-res pictures like no-one's business.

And my 2-page tutorial is finally out.

During which I grew bored and looked online for slip-ons to feed my fantasies, and indeed I have found some of note :)

the Supra Cuban Black. It's the bling, seriously.

DVS El Gringo. Smooth.

Passing Phenomenon

Levis' shoes FTW

Some Levis' sale at Tampines Mall.

Impre 1st runner-up

NY Chronicles Reoprter: "So why did you guys choose to incorporate 'I Will Survive' and 'Nobody' into your medley?"

Evan: "You want the technical answer?"

All I want in the midst of this mess

is to spend time on what matters.

Cornered

Been in a mood swing these few days, between pressure and comfort, and then from extreme stress to exhilaration.

I guess, after calling off jam session after jam session, finally clearing 6 songs in one single night of jamming did its trick :D

Still, adrift the sea of concepts and assignments, I wonder if I can ever surface. And the 50-page SS reading does NOT help!

First time

第一次新年不能吃肉干 :(

第一次过情人节 :)

You know you're a postmodernist when

You know you're a postmodernist when you see this message on the copy machine

and you think,

"You didactic piece of shit."

Festive mood

There's no escaping the New Year mood. Not if you dine at Engin Canteen these few days.

There's of course Valentine's Day too!

Also at Engin...

REIS, in the form of L.I.M. (Less is More), got into Impresario 2010 Finals! I should be keeping our group number tag in my wallet for quite some time... :D

Head Games

I fondly recall my crazy TJC Online Forum days when I actually had the luxury of time to do lame shit like this.

That's most of our batch of Forum moderators, by the way.

Before it's Ready

我们教会对于「会友当中谁和谁在一起」这方面的观察力似乎很强。这话是听妳说的。

我倒是在猜想，妳当时说这番话时，心里想的是什么。尤其是如今，当弟兄姐妹说已开始察觉到妳和我之间的…情谊。

我选择冷静，选择避免自己胡思乱想。但今天还是忽然觉得「旁观者清」这句话蛮好听的。

但我绝不会在时机成熟之前惊动…「那个字」。

Equation

Somehow I've equated simple to boring. And boring to unappealing, and many other things.

Given that, I might not have the chance to experience simplicity for quite some time.

When you know you're living in danger of losing that special something or someone you know that all you have to do is to

get your game back together.

isaiah lives in the constant fear of

one day seeing the biggest & fattest house lizard he'll ever encounter.

The chalet where we had Bible Study Camp merely fed that phobia till it got about as fat as that lizard in his mental picture.

2nd chance at a huge price

I guess that means I'll have to take Organic Chem again next semester. In every other way, things are better than the previous Semesters, so next Sem if I can finally nail Organic, things will take a good turn.

I mean a good turn divided by 2.

Somehow because of this shit that happened, I'm less anxious at clearing my 2000s by the end of year 2 -- it has now become impossible anyway. All I'm having questions about is where God is leading everything in relation to, erm, matters of the heart.

My confidence at taking things further suffered a hull breach when CM2121 gave me the _|_. For that split second, questions upon questions about my supposed future career came upon me and for once I fully realised the importance of having a future which I can then lead someone into.

I'm improving, albeit too slowly. Too slowly. I suddenly have the urge to punish myself by delaying gratification until the end of the next Sem, when I can finally chalk up better grades to... prove myself? Prove my worthiness? Worthiness of what? By God's standards I'm not worthy of anything and everything I've been given had been grace. This pursuit of mine in question is going to be so much more of a grace from God.

But I guess, in spite of the little struggle I've just reportedly been through, I'm not the waiting kind. I foresee I'll be fine in the few days to come, when we'll next meet. What immediately follows will be crucial. Whether this tiny series of events will be a foretaste of things to come next Semester, I don't wanna know. All I know is that I might not want to do uncalculated things like ripping off my own heart in the middle of a Semester, again.

Home Home

I totally get what Kelvin said about not wanting to shop in SG again. For some reason, stuff's always cheaper outside Singapore, be it US or Batam!

Still, going to 2 neighbouring countries within this short week (on church assignments for both) made me stop and think about how much I've taken the clean and orderly streets of Singapore (and the traffic lights!!) for granted. National Education can't do shit, seriously, while an overseas trip or two was all it took to make me treasure my home country and the level of creature comfort and religious freedom that we enjoy. Now I can finally truly say, there's no place I'd rather be.

Still, it's good training for next summer, when I'll be out teaching music to kids in the plains of Mongolia, if Steph & gang's plans come to fruition.

Since I last blogged

I've

• Taken my exams. Urgh.
• Braved JLPT2 after mugging for 2 days.
• Participated in church camp and now feel more spiritually revitalised than ever (and finally grew tired of prawns)
• Gone for my first short mission trip with my church to Batam and having my life changed by a S$5 polo tee.
• Gotten sore fingers from playing Bass.

... and I'll be

• Doing posters for Campus Fellowship activities the next semester
• Carolling and spreading the Good News at Dhoby Ghaut on, of all days, Dec 22
• (while trying to keep the BAD news out of my mind)
• Spending the most unromantic New Year's eve ever. With my BAND!

The next level for our band is so near yet so far, especially in times like this when the Ben & Jerry's Open Mic programme is being suspended and suddenly we realised that for now, we've lost our source of regular gigs. We've just gotta keep at doing what we love, and take active steps to improve. For me, "Improvement" in a very real sense might only be possible after Emerge, when I'll contemplate leaving VOICES.