How Do Ants Communicate

     The other day when I was in the bathroom, I saw some ants on the door's surface. I saw this one ant walked across the door's surface then at the bottom part of the door, I saw another ant. Its very interesting to see how ants walk. They walk quite fast for such a small creature.

     So, the two ants met and their antennae touched each other. It lasted a couple of seconds then they continued walking. I was quite fascinated by ants so I googled them and these was what I got.

     Ants communicate with each other using pheromones, sounds and touch. The pheromones act as a chemical signal. The paired antennae provide information about direction and intensity of scent. They leave a pheromone trails on the ground surface that they walked through so that other ants may follow the trails. If they found food, they will bring the food back to the colony and along the way they will add the pheromone trails to indicate that the trail has food. When the food finished, the ants will stop following the trail and the scent will slowly disappear. 

     Ants are quite smart creature because for example if a route to food is blocked by an obstacle, they will leave the route and search a new route. If an ant is successful, it leaves a new trail marking the shortest route on its return. Successful trails are followed by more ants, identifying better route and gradually found the best routes.

     The pheromones that ants emit are used for more purpose than just making trails. A crushed ant will emit an alarm pheromones that sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and attracts more ants to help it. Several ant species use 'propoganda pheromones' to fight with enemy ants. Propoganda pheromone is a pheromone to can cause enemy to get confused and make them fight among themselves. Source from wikipedia.
    

Singapore Night Festival

     On 23rd of August 2013 my friend and I went to Singapore Night Festival. To be honest, we didn't quite sure where the festival was. So we walked around and asked some people about the festival. But I noticed that not many people know that there was a festival in Singapore, maybe we asked the wrong people about it. Anyway, after a very long walk, we saw many people gathering in front of SMU. The festival was in Bras Basah...

     It was very crowded in the festival. There were music bands, performance, clowns, acrobatics, etc. My friend and I went around the festival. I heard that there was horror movie in the Substation Theater. My friend was very eager to watch the horror movie, so we went to Substation Theater. The theater was rather difficult to find as not many people know the place. Eventually we reached the theater and was disappointed. The theater was full. There was no way that we could watch the movie. So we gave up on watching the horror movie.

     Beside the theater, there was a room where we could draw anything on the wall using chalk or ink. My friend and I decided to give it a try and we drew lots of things. It was very fun. After that, we went to Singapore National Museum. In there we saw lots of exhibition about the history of Singapore. The museum's structure was very nice and awesome. I really like it. It was already 11 pm and we decided to go home. It was a fun day.

Saturday 17th of August 2013

     Today I went to see my sister who live in Sterling road. My sister go to MDIS for her bachelor degree. She is one year younger than me but she is taller than me. Her name is Claudya. She is good at cooking and at home she often cooked with my mom in the kitchen. 

     Today we went to supermarket and bought lots of things such as carrots, tomatoes, chickens, fruits and eggs. I know its a lot but I bought a month worth of groceries so that I don't have to buy anything anymore for the next few weeks. After we were done with the shopping, suddenly it started to rain. So we ran into the mrt station before the rain got heavy.
    
     We reached the mrt station and it was crowded inside the train. So my sister and I have to squeeze ourselves in. We finally got into the train and it took us about 15 minutes to reach my place. After finally reaching my place, I noticed that it was also raining here. Unfortunately we only have one umbrella. So it was hard to get home without getting wet. Its a  good thing that my hostel is quite near to the mrt station. After reaching my hostel, we put the groceries into the refrigerator and took some rest for a while.
    
     We wanted to watch a movie, so I took her to a nearby cinema. We watched R.I.P.D and it was very entertaining. Its about two dead police whose mission is to catch/kill dead people who disguise themselves as  human being on Earth. The movie lasted for about 2 hours and after that we returned to the hostel. After dinner she went back to her dorm in Sterling road. Today turned out to be quite a fun day. ^^

Firework!

     This was taken many weeks ago in Marina Bay Sands when my parents were still in Singapore with me. My mom wanted to go to Marina Bay Sand, so my dad and I went along with her, not knowing that there will be some kind of event in there. We went to Marina by taxi as my father don't really like using MRT. We walked around the mall and I noticed that there were lots of people holding camera. 

     Turns out that that day was the national day of Singapore. My mom sort of knew and that was the reason why she wanted to go to Marina Bay Sands. She said that there will be fireworks display in Marina. As we were waiting for the fireworks display, we looked around to see what other event was happening around there. Few hours later, the sun set and soon it was dark. Suddenly I heard a loud noise and the night sky was soon filled with fireworks. 

     The firework display lasted for about half an hour. I took many shots and video the fireworks. Some of the firework's shape was quite unique. Not only about the firework, there was also a choir singing the national anthem of Singapore which is " Majulah Singapura/Onward Singapore " It was very pretty and was an amazing experience.

FOOD

     This is my first time cooking. I don't usually cook at home but now that I am far away from home, I have to do this kind of things. Actually, its quite fun. :) We get to choose the ingredients ourselves and we get to explore about the food that we will be eating every dinner.

     I cooked with my roommate. We fried the eggs, sausages and the nuggets. As for the carrots, I boiled them. My roommate is very nice and helpful. She know lots of thing about cooking and she taught me how to cook several food. Although my cooking was not perfect, its edible and quite tasty, lol. I think rather than go buy food every dinner, its better to cook at home. It's cheaper and more hygienic! But of course at the end we have to wash the plates and pans ourselves. 

     My favorite food is sushi. I love eating sushi very much. But eating at a Japanese restaurant can be quite expensive and since my parents are not here with me, I can't afford to have such luxury. Actually making a sushi is not very hard, but in order to make sushi I must have the ingredients such as fresh salmon, tuna, octopus, dried seaweed, and the equipment such as bamboo rolling mat, finger sushi mold and pressed sushi mold. Purchasing all of them can be quite expensive and as an art student I still have others more important stuff to buy. But someday I would like to purchase the equipments and make my own home-made sushi :)