From Japan!

Yesterday till this morning 3am was super rush for me, so I really dint have the chance to post the news that I was going to Japan. haha.. Well, here I am now in Toyoko-Inn in Nagoya, Japan, to update you guys! :D

Their keyboard here hor, not very easy to use ah. Although it is still a QWERTY keyboard, I am definitely having difficulty locating all of the punctuation keys as their positions are very different. Till now I still cannot find the apostrophe key, so that is why I keep avoiding that when my usual style is not. *lol~!*

Anyway, I guess that is all for now. Really tired after a whole day of travelling. 4am reach airport, 6am flew, 2pm reach Tokyo, wait for domestic transfer till 7pm and touch down at Nagoya at 8+. Just had dinner actually. haha..

Time to head upstairs (I am in the internet cafe FOC downstairs now) to bath and sleep already. Tomorrow still gotta wake up early at 6am. Update again! :D

Learn Jap The Cool Way

With so much thanks to my bestie, now I found the ultimate web resource to convert articles full of unknown kanji to readable hiragana, and another one called Popjisyo that provides you with the meaning, and can store the Jap words and stuff to give you a quiz later! *WOW~!*

Totally smart, freezingly cool, insanely awesome. :D

Not to mention the added fact that if you do this in office, your colleagues will be so impressed with you surfing Japanese sites! :P (Or at least I think so. *lol~!*)

Ultimate Music Geek

The guy who made this music used sounds from Windows XP only. Now that's ultimate geekiness. *lol~*

A Little Grammar

Are you among the folks who have no/faint idea of what's a verb, adjective, adverb, or preposition? If you find yourself often confused or even intimidated by them, then this post is just for you (and me of course). :)

While doing my studies of the Japanese language, I realised something important. My reasonably OK command of English came from constant reading and writing, which was built up through the years since young. If I'm to learn Japanese this way, it's going to take that long amount of time! :S

To learn a new language effectively, it is important to go through all the grammar fundamentals. First you have to expand your vocabulary of nouns, verbs and adjectives, then to preposition and conjunctions so that you can string them up together to build sentences. With enough practice, you will be able to construct whole paragraphs, and not to mention holding a reasonable conversation in that language.

This used to be so hard when I barely know what the words meant in English! In this post, I'm going to do myself (and all of you who have been suffering like me) a favour, to demystify some of the common language fundamental words! XD

Noun
A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea.

Pronoun
A pronoun can replace a noun or another pronoun. You use pronouns like "he," "which," "none," and "you" to make your sentences less cumbersome and less repetitive.

Verb
A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and express actions, events, or states of being.

Adjective
An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words.

Adverb
An adverb can modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a phrase, or a clause. An adverb indicates manner, time, place, cause, or degree and answers questions such as "how," "when," "where," "how much".

Preposition
A preposition links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence.

Conjunction
You can use a conjunction to link words, phrases, and clauses.

For a whole list of topics, visit University of Ottawa's Writing Centre >> HyperGrammer. :)

A Need To Straighten Out

I think I'm in a dire need to organise my life. Getting too busy recently to the point I'm afraid of losing track. In view of the coming months, I think it’s only going to get busier. :D

Firstly, I joined a coding competition, code::XtremeApps::2008! It'll be a 24hrs coding marathon which will be held from 19-20 July, and I'm totally psyched about it. :D As preparation, coding on Flex and AIR has to be scheduled in for the next 3 months, as they are totally out of my job scope.

Secondly, my company has offered a program where they will subsidise us with SGD500 O_O!! for any course or skill that we want to pick up! It was a tug-of-war between Japanese language course and guitar course, but at the end of the day, guitar won. :) I've always yearned to be able to play a musical instrument (especially now that I'm serving in a music related ministry in church), so this couldn't happen at a better time. :D

Next thing is that I'm finally serving in the Sunday services as well! Today was the first day, and I felt pretty zombie just dragging myself off bed so early in the morning. To be exact, it was 0645hrs, which was much earlier than the usual time that I wake up on my work days. Nonetheless, the joy of serving and being in God's anointing atmosphere cannot be compared. :)

As a next move to a closer walk with God, I've also purposed in my heart to attend online Christian courses. Unfortunately because of my busy schedule, I've been a stagnant member for a month already. Really time to get started.

And I guess the last thing will be my Jap language studies on MRT. *lol~*

Sooo many things one lorrrrr. I think I really need to make out a timetable to straighten things out.

One of the dangers you face when you have so many things at hand is the possibility of being overwhelmed, and end up not doing anything. Another possibility is too much time might be focused on some till others are totally neglected. A timetable should help me to prioritise and schedule them properly.

Now the next challenge is keeping to it. *MUAHAHAHAHA*

Jap In This Blog?

Just in case you were wondering why the quietness in this blog over the past few days, the reason is here! :D

A little update on my jap learning; it has been real fun with minimum amount of commitment. In fact, the only time I committed was those spent travelling to and fro work! Currently I'm at lesson 13 of 30 in my little jap book. haha.. Progress progress!!

I am thinking of posting some jap snippets here and there regularly in this blog, partly for me to practice, and maybe who knows you can learn something too? ;)

Oh gosh, my blog is going to become a junk yard full of the stuff that I squeeze in my life. XD

Mumbai Dah!! India!!!

Simply ♥ this commercial! haha.. Very often I'll find myself saying the lines from this one just to humour my friends. *lol~*

Little did I know that it was done by my company too! :D It even came in tops in the Viewer's Choice 2007 local category! (This was half-a-month-old news btw. :P)

See the report here.

In the meanwhile, enjoy this "Mumbai Dah!!" commercial! :P

Power Of Petition

It's easy to be influenced in an advertising company. :D

Here's two of my company's work which won the Gold and Silver Lion Awards respectively in the Cannes 2007. Enjoy the powerful message. :)

Gold Lion Award Cannes 2007


Silver Lion Award Cannes 2007