Almost time to head home

Another update, I doubt I will get this finished in time to send off before I arrive in Australia but here go... after all it's only 1 am. (Sat 22 Jan)

I have three full days left in Singapore, it's surprising that time has gone by so quickly, and not at all surprising what I've managed to do. I manage to get the poster in time, and I didn't manage to track down the med students friends of mine (2 of them). It's hard to get hold of a Singaporean at the best of times, or maybe they're just hiding from me... *shrugs*

As for the poster, I thought it was to be presented on Monday, so Johann was working on it until about 6:30 am Sunday, I woke up hours later continued with it and went over to Queensway at night where it was to be printed. I continued work while seated at McDonalds as I waiting for Johann to show up.

He made some more changes when he arrived an hour later. We had a final version ready to print at 8:45 pm or so, it was supposed to take half an hour to print, and the place closes at 9 pm...

Soon after I placed the order, one of the workers there said "A1?" at which point a few people started moving around getting ready for it, a bit of a worry, a little while later they came to me asking if I can collect the poster tomorrow as they were having some trouble with the printers.

They wanted to do it by noon, but a few minutes later they said it was okay, they got it working again, kind of.. I hear murmuring that I should return tomorrow, but in the end they got it printed, it was strange seeing the whole shopping centre shut expect for these four guys scurrying around getting my poster printed. It did end up taking half an hour and once it was done I found the whole thing had a strange green tint, but given how late it was, I didn't really care, it was done, I had my poster and things were going to be okay. The next day at the conference I found out I got the dates wrong, I actually had a spare day.

Johann's poster was to be presented on Thursday, so true to form we were working at uni till 8, when we ran off to get a taxi to Queensway. We got there and continued working in McDonalds and we had some strange issues with acrobat on his laptop. We transfered his powerpoint file to my mac, I opened it up converted it to a pdf and passed it back to him to check before taking it over to be printed.. Ah computers...

We did learn from our previous experience and we got to the printers a full 25 minutes before the place was closed.. (10 pm on a weekday). It came out more or less correctly that time.


[Actual submission date: 2005-02-14]

Greetings from Singapore

Hi guys,

How are you doing? I'm well, I'm at I2R, the lab I did my internship at in Singapore, using a spare desk and network connection. =) Someday I'll try to get by without an Internet connection, I've also connected from McDonald's and at SunTec, the main shopping centre here.

It was amusing how I got in the office this morning, the receptionist recognized me from my previous visits and told me not to bother signing the visitor's book. He also gave me this week's key code to get into the offices, so I don't need to tailgate people into.

Johann was in KL, Malaysia, earlier today and was heading off to see more of that country, I decided not to join him as I've been to KL before and I have work to do. That is why of course I've been chatting online and reading the news for the last two days...

I'm presenting my poster at the conference on Monday, a poster I have yet to make on software I've yet to finish writing, but this is how I work normally worryingly enough. It's particularly bad when I have a joint project with Johann as I think he's a little worse. When I was on exchange here I had a group presentation with Nisha (a cute little US exchange student), and Johann, the poor thing spent three very late nights with us trying to get the presentation done. Three nights as we were lucky enough not to present it on the first two classes, we were still changing the slides a minutes before we got up to present, this with a girl who likes to be prepared. Once I get this email done I'll start working again.

The weather here has been surprisingly mild, in that I feel only vaguely uncomfortable standing outside, whereas last time it was hot and humid enough that I would not run if I wasn't going to be in an air-conditioned room straight after.

Other things I have been doing included some shopping, visiting Malaysia and eating. =) The food has been good expect for the lemon chicken I had at uni. That stall used to be extremely nice, but the cook changed, *sigh* such a disappointment, I will have to look for it at another place. The problem is the old cook's idea of lemon chicken is quite different to what everyone else seems to think it is.

There are some funny things about Singapore that I only remembered after getting back, one of them is their extreme fondness of plastic bags, we already have a large collection in the corner of our room (we're staying at a friend's place).

In Malaysia we did some more shopping, eating, playing around in a waterfall and getting a haircut. It was nice getting a head massage and I ended up getting spiky hair, that lasted until I had a shower, I felt like seeing what it looks like, I have a photo somewhere, but I think it looks a little messy. With the waterfall Johann was somewhat more adventurous, taking the full force of it until it pushed him out of the way, he said it was somewhat painful being there, but he had fun. =)

You might've noticed that I like writing. =) Have you guys been going to the events in the Sydney Festival? It's one thing I miss about not being home.

Cheers,
Paulo