Constructive Deconstruction

Buy back a piece of my past

My blog used to be called Cuppa Coffee Lovers. I lost the domain at some point about 2 years ago because I didn’t feel like renewing it which caused it to be bought over by someone else. After that it’s moved several times…excalibur-cyberspace…xsmatter/blog and now here.

I did a search on it a few moments go just to see how that piece of my past has changed.

And now.
It’s mine again.
muahhaha.

www.cuppacoffeelovers.com (it’s not pointing to anywhere though.)

UPDATE : The site is now live. Jenn, myself and hopefully Jas will turn it into a Coffee Blog! Do you like coffee? Would you like to join the group? Tell me!

Book Giveaway over at XSMatter

If some of you guys read this blog but not xsmatter, do surf on over to HERE

I’m going to giveaway a copy of
"God’s Blogs: Life from God’s Perspective" by Lanny Donoho

I figure, the blogosphere needs to have some fun…especially the local one. Haha

So join! And help me ok? Tell your friends about it via you MSN or your blogs?

Thanks~!

Why are you so friggin fillial?

It’s getting really frustrating for me. It seems to me like i’m doing a lot of things on my own. It’s not I mind. It’s just that when I started out on all the various projects, it was under a rather naive assumption that people would commit. But they don’t…or rather they show commitment in words rather than in action.

And now i’m left stranded with plans I cannot execute because while everyone is studying for exams, i’m trying to tie up all the other ends. Trying to do all that while having that nagging thought screaming, "You should be studying now." is a very draining process.

I’m beginning to think that most people are family oriented. They respect family obligations so much that they’ll do most of what they do because their parents demand that of them. In fact, I just spoke to a very old primary schoolmate of mine and asked him, "Why are you in computer engineering?" to which he replied that it was his mother that wanted him to do it.

Even when it comes to why a lot of people want work or start a venture but end up studying and burying themselves in textbooks and past year papers all year round, the general answer I get is, "Oh, i have to show something to my parents."

For the first time, I’m thinking that the Asian culture stifles us. There’s too much loyalty and honour. It’s one thing to want to grow up and take care of your parents. It’s a whole other thing to live for your parents.

I’m starting a new web development project with a schoolmate of mine who seems to be on the wavelength as me. We both don’t like how things are done in school, and we look beyond school. Hopefully, i’m right about him. And hopefully over the holidays we’ll plant the seeds to creating something that will rival the likes of some big names in the web application scene. (Oh, and we both are the main drivers for our project module.)

Everything can’t be a hobby. It’s a got to be a mission. A goal. Something you chase relentlessly till your mouth runs dry, your body goes numb and the voice in your head goes, "What the fuck?! Don’t give up on me now!"

Concern

I am running into a personnel problem….I’m concerned about how to approach this.

Exciting weekend ahead

I’ll be heading out for the Nexus Conference 2007 in a few hours….Hopefully i’ll have the tenacity to blog live over there. Expect pictures at the very least.

Everything will be done via xsmatter.com so support and go there =)

Oh, one more thing…i’ll be dropping all my friends an email regarding XSMatter’s "Bloggers Rule The World" Giveaway. So if you don’t get it, please email me at ridzuan.ashim{at}xsmatter.com because I might have sent it to some old address or maybe it ended up in your spam folder…

=)

Peace out

TT#3: Things I’d like to buy…

Thirteen Things I’d like to buy right now 1…A MacBook Pro in Black      Do I really have to explain this one? 2…A Sony T100 Camera in Black      I need a camera and not only does this fit the functional profile, it’s also really very pretty. haha 3…An IPhone      Another Apple Accessory. Apple stuff needs no explanation. 4…2 x 1GB RAM Chips      I’m on 512MB RAM. And it’s all used as soon as i’m done booting up. Bleagh. 5…A pre-order package of Command & Conquer 3      Have you seen the screenshots and all? Damn. Beauty. 6…A Free Flow Starbucks Card      Ok. Fine. There’s no such thing. But couldn’t they make one just for me? I’ll pay..ermm…$50 a month? 7…A new pair of shoes      This is something I so want to buy…The shoes I’m wearing are like years old…And it took me so long to get that one simply because I didn’t like any other shoe. i think I only wear nike. And even then none of the present designs appeal to me right now. double bleagh. 8…A new bag      Preferably one that’s good for backpacking? Recommendations? 9…A pair of powered Oakley shades      I’ve always wanted to wear shades…but since I’ve never worn and probably will never wear contacts, I need one that’s well…custom made? 10…A set of solutions to this semester’s exam        Also another thing that doesn’t exist(at least not until next semester). 11…A 500-piece jigsaw puzzle       I’ve realised that I don’t have the patience to fix a 1000 piece puzzle. It just takes too long and the satisfaction doesn’t measure up. 500 is just nice. =) 12…A pair of non-expiring return plane tickets to anywhere        Why a pair? So that I can hopefully use the other ticket to hook up with a girl or something? "Hey babe, wanna go with me?" And if that fails…that’s two trips for me I guess. Haha 13…A pair of movie tickets to any show.        Probably about the only thing I can afford on this list, I’d love to watch something… anything. I haven’t stepped in the cineplex for a long long time. Was supposed to join a friend later this evening but i scheduled a meeting instead(work always comes first I guess) Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Myself in Pictures

Haiku: Tired Feelings

When tired feelings come
the heart starts to shiver hard
and the body sleeps

Hey guys….i’m going run a blogging competition to giveaway a book in a few weeks time. check out the entry here

Got any good books to recommend?

Why did I become an undergraduate?

With all the talk about mybloglog i’ve finally incorporated it into the blog. I’m not sure if it’s going to last long but right now, it seems like a pretty cool thing. I especially like the backend panel and how they allow you to create a community around your blog.

Anyway, it’s the weekend and i felt like dropping a note on my blog to escape my impending deadlines for a bit…

School is really getting on my nerves. I mean it when I say that school is taking up too much of my time. How do most people survive university here in Singapore? It’s just so…stifling. I want so much to build things with my coursemates…to think up of something and then go through the whole process of brainstorming, designing, implementing and debugging. Instead I’m stuck with copying and pasting codes off lecture notes just so that the project can output the right stuff. Half the time, I don’t even know what’s happening. I just know that it works.

This brings my entire purpose of being in university into question. Why am I wasting my time and money being in a place where I don’t want to be in? I feel so much like doing what Steve Jobs did…dropping out of uni but crashing lectures and tutorials that he thought were relevent….I thought that that was an excellent path…it makes so much sense.

Why are you in university?