hard at work - or as close as possible to that...

Aided in no small part by finally being hit by the fact that the final draft of the ht is due in just over two months from now, and a useful jolt to get cracking during my recent ht consultation, i'd have to say that i don't recall being as hardworking as i've been in the past two weeks ever since probably the first ever sem here (i.e. before i started getting real involved in cf stuff - you can draw whatever connections you'd like, they're probably not true anyways), yes the fabled sem of a string of As stained by one B- for HY1101E of all things...

I'm not exactly the most enthusiastic of readers, but owing to the aforementioned prep i've had to plunge headfirst into book after book for lit review purposes, at the rate of close to one a day in fact. Yes, a book a day, a feat last accomplished when i read through the book of Jude, with 3 and 2 John before that. And if we don't count the Bible, then we're looking at Bookworm books here. Yuppers, you see where i am going here? So in short, i don't really do books, which makes the close-to-a-book-a-day thingy that much more miraculous, by God's grace really...

Yup and thankfully, i'm starting to really like what i'm (supposed to have been) writing about. It hits home quite a bit - to the end that i actually felt a bit emotional when i was reading in one book about the forced eviction of elderly folk from a low-cost residential hotel which some of them had frequented for as long as 60 years to make way for relentless corporate America - real yucks, that was. Anyways, it makes the writing of these 10000-12000 words (including footnotes - aargh!!!) less of a chore. That being said, i'd much rather be writing the acknowledgements page hehe...

Well anyways, today after consultation i went down to the library to borrow more books to (aargh!) read (side note: i'm now holding 12 books - a personal record) and when i pulled out one of them from the shelf, i took a major step back when i saw the cover photo - suffice to say it's not a book i'd be parading around with the front cover facing outwards when i walk, and i'll probably hide it behind another book when i read it too - ask me if you want to see what's on the cover - so paiseh man...

While thankfully distractions have been less of an issue for me in the past week especially, i did succumb to some worthless youtube watching - for some reason i remembered that American Gladiators is being relaunched - one of the must-see shows for me last time in primary school - i remember it was Gladiators at 4pm and then WWF at 5pm on Channel 5. But anyways i wanted to see what it's like now - so i did - for two whole worthless hours. I know to my young eyes it already was bordering on tacky when i saw it on TV all those years ago, but now the new season has definitely outdone itself - see it for yourself - my goodness - some of the gladiators do so amuse me.

Nevertheless, i still remember when i saw it on tv and i was like "oh i can do that". But then i tried some of those things in army and i was sorta persuaded otherwise. Now it's become even more intriguing though cos for some of the events, instead of a mattress to cushion their fall, there's a big pool of water - and they've to swim under a lake of fire (i kid you not) in the final event as well. Quite fun.

Hmm anyways it would be quite interesting to see what a Singapore Gladiators might be like - off the top of my head i'm thinking of gladiator names like lau lee, ah meng, pai kia, MDA senior management...

No Djoke, the Fed got beat...

self-control

This morning after hy class in the morning, which by the way easily takes the cake for hy class with the most CFers/people i know taking it), i had to go over to science for a breadth class, which in contrast, takes the cake for biggest class taken where i know almost no one.

Since i'm not taking this class with anyone, once i got to the lt i found myself an empty seat and sat down (duh). Then this guy seated two seats to the left (to the left) of me asked sheepishly if i could move down one seat to the right (to the right) as it was reserved. At that point i was already a bit flustered from the overwhelming attendance of the previous class, so while i complied with his request i couldn't help but remark to him that if you want to reserve seats you can at least try and make them actually look like they are reserved.

Then, his dear friend came by and after a short conversation with him informed me that now the whole row was reserved and so asked if i could move somewhere else. I was trying to exercise some self-control so i spared her the irritated eye-roll and sarcastic reply and so instead just more or less repeated what i had told her friend about making the seats at least look reserved if she wanted to do so. So i then moved to the row immediately behind.

By this time i already was quite pissed and to make matters worse the girl started talking with her hitherto phantom friends who finally decided to shed their invisibility cloaks and sit down at the row i had earlier been forcibly evicted from. I was not annoyed so much at the talking per se but more at her annoying voice. If i were into meditation, by that time i would probably have been in the lotus pose, floating high in the sky by that time in an attempt to channel my anger into less violent actions.

So, just when i thought the worst was over, two of her dear friends. not five minutes into the lecture proper, said their abrupt goodbyes and left the lt, leaving two of the seats in the row now empty. I was appalled to say the least - the pissed teacher in me would have tapped on the shoulder of the girl, demanded to have her parents' number, and then called and scolded them for not teaching their daughter proper courtesy (and of course scolded the annoying-voice girl too - who by the way at the end of lecture was asking her other friends in a super-whiny voice "will you miss me?" repreatedly - in retrospect i'm glad i didn't decide to give her my honest answer right there and then). But well that would not have been any better methinks, so instead i've decided to just channel all of my pent-up negativity into this post... I just hope though that i don't kena such things again or i may just blow my top...

In more positive news, thankfully things regarding ht are now much clearer after consultation and i'm less inclined to predict total disaster for this sem. Have a lot of reading to do though, which i'm looking forward to as much as i am to hearing "dong dong dong qiang" the next time i step into Cold Storage...

last(ish)

So school has started again - and it's the last semester, so to that end today was the last first day of school i'll ever have (well, at nus at least - there are many more to come actually...), the first of a whole host of lasts at nus (since i'm one for such nonsense thingies) - last first lecture, last mid-sem break, last having to deal with the wretched cors etc...

Moving into pgp again went about without any hitches thankfully - think things would be far more of a hassle for me if i had to travel to and fro everyday [of course, i've only a three day week (which i thought was pretty good until i saw some other people's scheds but nvm) but i'd be in school on the free days anyways, or risk totally wasting away the hours at home]. I can only imagine how screwed up things may be next (academic) year at nie, but we'll get this over and done first eh...

Of course now that school has started, there's all the stuff i've been putting off reading staring me in the face, and today i finally got down to looking at them - thankfully when push came to shove stuff managed to get done, and to that end, i managed to plow through two of the initial nine books that i've gotten from the lib. Which makes for (only) seven more to go... Plus innumerable newspaper articles... Bleah. Holiday!

Anyways, went for a sec 4 class gathering the other day - the first one i've been to since i was still in JC methinks - so hadn't seen some of the guys for a real long time - reminded me of how much i really appreciate my time in barker, something that i've sorta forgotten recently. One thing that i was especially (pleasantly) surprised about was that we actually started off dinner by saying grace, something that as my classmate Weiliang pointed out later, we'd never have imagined would happen looking at the class those close to ten (oh gosh has it been that long already?) years ago. It's great to see how the Lord has been working in the lives of many of my classmates since then (eh, and i guess myself included heh =p)

Yay for the Australian Open... And how 'bout them Tar Heels too =)

Oh, and check this out - cool stuff =p

525,600 or some odd minutes ago...

you may know i'm one for remembering random stuff and to that end one such random piece of stuff is that it was exactly a year ago (yup, and almost to the minute too, in fact) that i arrived back here from exchange. One year since the end of one of the best times i've spent in my close-to-quarter-century (eek! - and i say that both cos of the age and cos Bingo just made a prolonged gagging sound which made me think he was barfing - false alarm thankfully) of life so far.

Hmm my last couple of days really don't seem too long ago when i think of it - the time spent at Urbana and the valuable lessons learnt from there, the 14-hour bus ride back to Chapel Hill from St. Louis whilst suffering the unpleasant after-effects of eating 16 White Castle hamburgers in two sittings within a five or so hour period (kinda like how Bingo probably feels now), the last minute picture-taking and what not on the Hill itself, then the looong flight back here, featuring the lady in front of me during the Chicago-HK leg of the flight surprised to see me taking a flight alone cos she thought i was all of 13 years old (i kid you not). And since coming back boy has it been one heck of a ride eh...

Ah well - memories are meant to be cherished and all, but i guess not to be obsessed over - though personally speaking i can't see how the next semester or even year ahead could match up to the five months in total spent there - we'll see how things go nevertheless... [And anyways, while the USD continues to perform as masterfully as it has as of late, hopefully a trip back looms in the near future (or at least before it strengthens again) - so i guess, it's until then =)]

(new) journey to the east

I wasn't too keen on making the mopping up of the product of Bingo's bout of diarrhoea be the highlight of the first day of the new year, and the weather was accomodating enough and i had time enough to cycle down to ecp (um ok actually i've like almost all of my supposed initial ht readings left to do) and then explore part of the new eastern S'pore park connector thingy that has recently opened up - went up to Changi Village and back again just to have a look see...

The interesting thing for me is that this new connector runs parallel to my old usual cycling route, which is basically along the road hugging the perimeter fence of Changi Airport. While on the one hand this new route is much safer (where one runs far less a risk of kena langga by a speeding car), better lit and even has strategically-located shelters every km or so; it somehow strikes me as too sanitized in a way, perhaps making things too easy - it feels like one has accomplished something when using the old route and successfully making one's way to Changi Village and back, but now any average cyclist could make the journey as long as he/she has enough patience + energy to do so. And i guess that's why i've my reservations about the new route - there are too many people traveling between ecp and Changi Village now (granted it was new year's day today) - the fan of solitude that i am now has one less quiet place to retreat to... But i guess this also opens up safer possibilities for future night cycling expeditions so it's not all bad...

And while we're talking about cycling - today i encountered far too many people who are practically strolling hand-in-hand on the cycling path, making cyclists like me swerve constantly from side to side. How inconsiderate - i'd half a mind to stop and scold them there and then but ah i guess that wouldn't be very nice - for now i settle for giving annoyed glares, which of course doesn't really work cos my annoyed glares don't get seen by them since when i give them either their back is to me or my back is to them... However, i draw the line when it comes to little children on training bikes who happily work way across the bike lanes blissfully unaware of the annoyed cyclists trying to avoid banging into them. Of course, it's not really their fault, they are children after all (that doesn't mean i've had a change of heart and like children now) but their parents ought to do more... To make me a bit more satisfied however i try to screech my brakes as loudly as possible whenever one of these annoying children cross my path, so as to alert their parents and hopefully milk at least a slight chide of their children from them - eh dunno if that's mean, but boy does it feel good to do that :)