* 12.22am may 16th 2005 *

my 21st bday! i'm not going to say much as i'm abit busy at the moment [i have tonnes of things to say and it's a shame that when i look back at this in the future i'll most likely forget about it]. anyway, i posted because i just wanted to post what my parents sent to me in a form of an online b'day card.

Happy 21st Birthday to our dearest son,
ALIF
9 plus 1 Wishes for you :
Joy
Hope
Happiness
Good health
Strength
Peace of mind
Success in all undertakings
Wealth
May all your dreams come true!!

ALL OUR LOVE...MUMMY & DADDY

* hehe *

haha. after so long of not updating my blog and here i am going to write something so freakin short. =P [lets just say that i'm busy shall we?]

i did a CS Survey and this is what i got.

I am 17% addicted to Counterstrike.
http://seanism.com/addiction/cs.php

i say it's utter BS. i'm definitely more addicted to CS than that.

* rejoice *

since last night i feel much better. this is the reason why.

i thank god for 2 things.
1) telling david early on in the design stages to think of another idea and try to covert air power into mechanical power. after reviewing that cart i decided that it will be a backup plan only to realise 2 nights ago that it is a very wise choice.
2) Yin Leng for telling me to try using the backup plan and improve it.

basically david's idea was really good. he did most of the design and i remembered that i suggested him to move the valve from facing the tophalf of the gear to facing the bottomhalf of the gear, which was a good move indeed as even my lecturer, Dr. Colin Burvill, commented so. Jon Hua who i thought contributed little thought of a very good startup of the car and it was effective.

on flat surface we did 8m at least. today the track was on a bumpy tiled floor and the most we did was 2.71m [our requirement was 10m]. we wanted to use 6 balloons but apparently we wasted 3 mins just getting the car ready. so we had to use 4 and it wasn't too shabby. it's a shame though that the lecturers could not see the real performance of the car, but what matters was that the car moved!

the official fastest time for 10m was a 2 wheel shaft-cum-car of 3.47s. however after everyone left this dart-like car made like 2.68s in 10m!!! that's amazing! it's a shame that the lecturers weren't there to see it!

all in all i felt really good. i've learnt a valuable lesson from this whole project and i pray hard that i do not repeat this mistake in the future.

i shall post up the car's pic in the near future if possible.

* blow *

today i had my group meeting hoping for the project to work. as expected the cart still did not move. i told them that i have no ideas left and i don't mind handing it up like this. david then said that he thinks we should at least hand up a car that moves. somehow this ticked me off and i burst out my anger. david started argueing back and he revealed that i have some character issue and i am rude to them everytime i meet them and he is not the only one who thinks so. this hit me hard.

i then asked him when exactly was i rude and he including jon hwa gave a couple of examples which were true. i realised that yes, i was rather rude then and i asked them for forgiveness. i then explained why i was rude then.

the reason why i was rude then was because i felt very stressed when i'm with them. everytime we are together i just feel that i am carrying the burden of the whole design project since they did not contributed a single thing towards the design part of the balloon cart. i felt that the whole cart was my thinking and it felt really difficult for me. it somehow angered me alot hence everytime they did not do something i wanted them to do, i started feeling angry deep inside. i guess somehow it was let out indirectly by me being rude.

2 things resulted from this anger within. first was that they also felt really stressed. this is part of why i'm feeling the guilt right now. second was that i believe this anger actually blocked some of their suggestions, hence applying more pressure towards myself.

i feel amazingly bad right now because i've always strived to be polite, kind and good mannered because that is how i like to be. but this 'rude' issue that was revealed to me today hit me hard. i try soo damn hard and yet this happens. i just don't know how to face them in the future anymore and i'll be so scared when i feel angry next time because the 'outburst' might happen again. i just don't know how to overcome this. i don't know whether this is normal or not but what i know is that i've hurt 2 guys and have put my project in jeopardy because of this, and i feel real bad about it.

the saddest thing of all is that this issue brought to my attention that i am a horrible leader. i suck at dividing duties and i suck at organising. i fuckin' suck in these simple things i do in order to strive in life. i've always tried to do these things best because last time i always thought that i suck at everything. and now it seems that i still do abit. I HATE THIS PART OF ME. this issue is the whole reason why i had that breakdown in the starting of my college years and the whole reason why my social and family life suck outside highschool. it's because i think this way. that's why dealing this is a very VERY big deal for me. i thought i have got over with this but why is it still coming and haunting me back. WHY!

the only good thing that happened from today's group meeting was that this is the first time that i felt that we are a group and we do things together. i've never felt so 'team' with them until today.

but the bottom line is i still feel like shit. i don't know when i will feel better agian but i hope it will be soon.

* Dare to dream but dare not to fail? *

2 things my mom desribed me as, and both turned out soo true.

1) i'm a tidy yet dirty person
- proven from the state of my apartment. at times i can get fussy in terms of the placement of things. i dunno why but there are things that just HAVE to be in that particular spot. this explains my tidyness. however i do vacum my place like once per semester. this can be seen by the buildup of dust at the corners of the room. this explains my dirtyness.

2) a certain kind of risk taker
- proven by 2 things.

a) chor tai ti. when i play this game it shows this behaviour VERY clearly. my mom noticed that i'm the kind of player who if i win it will be a great win [like putting down all my cards with opposing players still having a handful of cards left] but if i loose, i loose like shit [like having the most cards].

b) my current design project. i'm supposed to build a balloon cart and the idea is quite innovative yet tedious to pull off. currently the situation looks grim with the car not moving and it's due on thurs. however today my friend asked about my cart and they believe it won't move by a milestone and yet i insist the design can be done and it can move that mile. i guess if i pull this off it's one heck of a car.