My first mobile phone

It was only in University that I bought my first mobile phone. It was a gray Siemens candybar phone with an antenna sticking out at the top corner. They have since exited the mobile phone market and I has a pretty good idea why: their customer service was disastrous!

I had to send in my phone for repairs one day as I dropped it and the plastic screen cracked. Unfortunately, their customer service centre was in some Kallang industrial estate and after examining my phone, they claimed that there were more problems with it and I needed to pay more money to repair it! To add insult to injury, when I said I just wanted to take my phone back, I found that the plastic casing was damaged as it was apparently forced open without using the proper tools…

Needless to say, I sent in a “strongly worded” complaint letter and I managed to get the repairs done for free. Think they have much to learn in terms of customer service…

My first digicam

I went on a Europe tour during my Uni days and I specially went to buy a digital camera because the tour was expensive and I didn’t want my photos to be screwed up. Bought a FujiFilm FinePix 1440i (or something like that) and 2 16 MB SmartMedia cards that cost me more than $100. Each!

Those were the days that digicams were still unheard of and I was the only one in the tour group wielding one. Quite a few of them were puzzled when they saw me holding the camera away from my face to use the LCD screen instead of using the optical viewfinder.

Milo spoils easily

In my Uni days when I had to go to the lab to work on my Honours Year Project, I had what I thought was a great idea and decided to bring along a thermos flask of milo that I had prepared at home since the labs were always very cold and it was great to have a hot drink.

It was then that I discovered that Milo turns sour very quickly even when you keep it in a vacuum thermos flask…

Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve

So far, I’ve only been to the Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve once, and that was during a field trip for one of the Cross-Faculty modules in University!

I wasn’t particularly impressed because I don’t really think I’m really a nature outdoorsy kind of guy, or maybe it’s just because I’ve had more than my fair share of flora and fauna during my army days…

Loss of Speed

I was a school sprinter during my Primary and Secondary School days, however I went into a long hiatus due to injuries and disinterest in running circles around the track.

I was dismayed when I went for sprint relay selections in Uni and I found that I had lost my speed… However, I can run much longer distances nowadays. Perhaps there was a tradeoff?…

Jpg Program Problem

Back in University we were all supposed to work on this JPEG encoder/decoder program that could compress an image using a JPEG algorithm that we had to write ourselves.

I normally do not need help with my programs, but this very one time, no matter how much time I spent, I just couldn’t get it right. I tried till it was just minutes before the deadline and I had no choice but to get some serious help from LJ.

Thanks LJ! Never forgot that save…

Skolar!

Went to attend a company talk in University and applied for the scholarship without really thinking I would get it as I didn’t think my results were stellar to begin with.

To my surprise, I was called up for an interview and was subsequently awarded the scholarship! That was a pleasant surprise as it meant I could pay my way through Uni on my own as well as get some pocket money! 🙂