window closed, window opened

(Fm: MINDEF)
Congratulations. You have cleared your IPPT for your last IPPT window and your new IPPT window has been opened. Keep up the good work.

Amidst all that has been happening over the past week or so, i almost forgot that i had taken my ippt until i got this text earlier today. Hah. Well anyways, after the very limited prep (token runs, climbing up the 143 steep steps to my place every weekday) that i was able to do, due to both busyness and of course, laziness, i'm glad that things managed to pan out enough for me to be able to clear it - if but barely. I suppose i relied upon sheer motivation to not have to kena remedial training (which would entail going back to an army camp for two-ish hours three times a week). So well, that's another year down, and a new year of telling myself to start exercising earlier so that i can take the next one at an earlier date so won't have to do a last-min rush again but prob ending up doing the last-min rush next year. I suppose if there's anything good about turning twenty-five, it's that it brings one to a slightly slacker standard for passing IPPT (Cat X to Cat Y - one pullup less, four cm less, that sorta thing).

Am watching sky news coverage of the attacks in Mumbai (only because CNN is showing A Tribute to Heroes and BBC World some IT program). Interesting that the correspondent on site at the Taj Hotel isn't even missing a beat with each of the successive grenade blasts going on behind her - i can only imagine how long it's been going on. Such is the fairly unique nature of this particular series of attacks (i.e. ongoing over a sustained period) that i wonder how much these news networks ought to divulge live on air about what the police/military intends to do - surely, although they keep on saying that there's no electricity etc inside the buildings, there is a possibility that somehow the hostage-takers may be able to figure out what the next move of the police/military is and act accordingly. Of course, there also were people trapped in their rooms who somehow came in contact with some networks via their mobiles and were interviewed live literally just as they were huddled in darkness in their rooms hiding from the hostage-takers - at the least i hope they did not divulge their room number. Already, i read that one British yachting tycoon who has been confirmed dead had earlier been interviewed by the BBC, where he had said something to the extent of them moving from the restaurant to the ballroom to take shelter from the hostage-takers. I can only hope that there's no correlation between the two.

Oh well, hope all this ends very soon...

a bumpy end

Well, the elusive moment has almost arrived - this is the last week of nie stuff for this sem, and i've made my last journey to the far west (of if you prefer, M'sia) for the year. All that's left to do is a handful of web thingies, and that's it. And not a moment too soon, that's for sure, although admittedly, after months on end of seeing nie people day after day, it seems weird to not have to see them (at least not in a school context) for at least a good month.

Anyways, not everything for this sem has ended on a good note (though come to think of it considering my many gripes about what has happened, i suppose it's already a surprise that it hasn't ended off even worse). There's this one particular not-too-useful class that i've not exactly been very enthusiastic about since day one. My sentiments are shared by just about everyone else in the class. We have bones to pick not just with the class itself, but also, and perhaps more critically so with the tutor as well. And as a result of this veritable reservoir of antagonism, to put it mildly things have not been pretty, with enough drama to rival the most over-the-top of Korean serials. Admittedly, i've been contributing to this atmosphere, though after one especially significant blow-up i realized that well, i basically needed to be more Christ-like.

So after the exercise of significant self-control over the course of the next couple of weeks, it came to the last lesson, whereby we were supposed to receive feedback on one of the assessment components that we had done a couple of weeks before. All that while i think we all were thinking that we should have been the ones giving much-needed feedback to the tutor, and not the other way around. Although come to think of it, history would lead me to assume that even if we were to do that, nothing would change on the tutor's part anyways.

But well back to the point, before the feedback exercise we were supposed to fill up a feedback form "on the course, not on the tutor", as was made explicitly clear to us countless times. So well, in my desire to do my part to make sure that future generations would not have to go through the same @#$% class (although again from history, chances are that little, if anything, would have changed - that's nie's ear-to-the-ground for you), i was quite brutally honest with my views on the class, while trying to not offend anyone in the process.

Unfortunately, in the process of making my views clear on paper, it reminded me of all the suppressed annoyance i'd had towards the class over all those weeks. So by the time the feedback process came, i apparently was quite riled up, and so i became somewhat dismissive and couldn't-care-less towards the tutor. Or at least that was what many of the others pointed out to me afters (though they did that generally in a more in a congratulatory tone than a reflective and sober one - such is the terok state of this class that we've had to tahan over the weeks). But, as i said, that came after the feedback session - during which i actually was already trying to withhold myself from being overly blunt. So it was on that disgruntled note that i ended that bit of nie. Hmm - am not too pleased with that, but i also figure that if not enough is done to alert this tutor to the harsh realities of the class, it'll just be horrid for future generations. And i shall spin it in that way in my mind so as to not beat myself up over it any further...

The skies begin to clear

I did promise i'll ramble on more about the elections at a later date - at the least to serve as a log of sorts on some of my many (and hopefully substantial) thoughts. Well that isn't going to happen today. Brain isn't functioning on too high a level today. In fact, it has pretty much dumbed down ever since the last of the biggies for this sem went in on mon. Since then it has been a strange, but nevertheless blissful state of periodically thinking to myself: "hmm what work is there to do?" and then immediately answering myself: "nothing!" But of course, as i remember Lear once remarking to his Cordelia (that's about the only line i remember from A level lit, apart from the flies and wanton boys one), "nothing will come of nothing", so in keeping the dear king's words in mind, i shall speak again...

I suppose that i should relish this opportunity to sit back and in fact do nothing - after all i don't see much other chances open in the near future for me to do just that - nothing. Well, maybe not exactly nothing. Since the good ol' b'day is coming up, it means that so is this year's ippt, which i have to somehow find the wherewithal within me to clear. And by "clear" i mean no more than just that - not fail. No lofty visions of awards and reward $ are in my head. After last year's fiasco, in which i accidentally ran the wrong way and thus screwed up even passing, let alone my expected $100, i'm not gonna be as optimistic this time. Anyways, nie's unparalleled ability to suck up all my potential exercise time (and then some) has meant that i've not really been able to do much pre-ippt prep apart from the odd prematurely-aborted run now and then. So i just hope that the weather on that day will be favorable enough, as if it does rain, then methinks there would go my only chance of taking ippt before the b'day, which would mean much unavoidable inconvenience for me...

The other, far more exciting thing coming up is that i finally got down to booking something for the dec break. The more i thought about it, the less i could see myself staying here for the entire one month off, and furthermore chances are this would be my last chance in a while to take a good break out of here. So after months of entertaining ideas in my head, i finally had enough of a clear mind following the near end of nie's torment for the sem to decide on flights. Now lies the more marfan task of slotting the details in, and then booking internal transport/lodging etc... Reminds me why i don't like to plan things. But well, if the alternative is not going anywhere, this is a hassle i'm willing to undergo...

talking junk

The other day on the way back from a run at the botanics i chanced upon a poster ad at the bus stop for Burger King - they were for something called a BK Stacker. At the moment it had been an awfully long time since i had last eaten and it already was sevenish, which meant time for dinner. For a moment there i actually thought of stopping by the BK at PS on the way back to buy one. Good thing that by the time i got to PS and stood outside the BK there, i took another look at the poster featuring the Stacker situated in a prominent position right outside the restaurant, and thought "nah..." and went home instead.

Just to clarify what a BK Stacker is - it comes in three variants: the double, triple and quad stacker, these fancy monikers referring to the number of patties the burger has. And to complement each patty, the burger basically features a one to one ratio between patties, slices of cheese, and strips of bacon [which (though this is obvious, nevertheless deserves spelling out) meant that a quad stacker would fit between the bun halves four patties, four slices of cheese and four strips of bacon. I remember a time when A&W offered something called a Big Papa burger, which was proudly billed as the first burger in S'pore with three patties, and that i was highly intrigued that such an item could exist. Fast forward a decade or so and BK has made mincemeat (pun intended) out of the Big Papa.

I remember the Stacker being offered at the BK on the UNC campus and me trying it once - as big of an appetite as i have, i settled on a double - and felt absolutely and positively icky afters. Way too much burger (of too low a quality) there for me to take. And imagine if i were to feel that way after a double, how about a quad? And for that matter, how do people even open their mouths big enough to take a full bite out of one of them without dislocating their lower jawbone from its socket (as snakes apparently do when swallowing large prey whole)? That being said, unlike the Big Papa in S'pore, the appearance of this monstrosity of a burger there came as no surprise - the obesity endemic there is just beyond belief). And without a doubt, it is (relatively) low cost, low nutritional value, high fat, high sodium, high calorie (the quad apparently is worth all of a thousand calories), and of course, stomach-filling food like the Stacker that is literally feeding this problem.

I also have to make the disclaimer that i'm hardly an anti-fast food crusader - while i have resolved never to eat McD's ever again unless under gunpoint, i thoroughly enjoyed a thouroughly unhealthy burger/fried chicken etc whenever i had the opportunity to while in the States (cos there they have real good quality stuff there). I once ate twelve burgers (albeit mini fist-sized ones) in one sitting while at a dingy old White Castle. And for me the burgers at Sutton's on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill rank with the atas, oddly-named ieat superburger from Astons here as the best i've ever eaten. And i wouldn't hesitate to eat more of them, although the key of course is moderation. Yup so if to that end i'm hypocritical, then guilty as charged am i.

What does trouble me is that grossly oversized burgers have made their way to mainstream, heavily advertised fast food menus, which means that people here too will now have a higher tendency to sink their teeth into these thingies on a more regular basis. Not to be outdone by BK here, i saw an ad outside a McD's here today promoting their 'Mega Mac', which is nothing more than a Big Mac on steroids if you ask me (two extra patties). Is there really so much beef in the world that we can allocate so much of it to go into crap products like that? Of all the excuses for more methane-belching cows being farmed in this world, this is just about the worst one... If things continue along this vein, who's to say that we don't follow the footsteps (or make that footplods) of the US in time to come, not only in terms of obesity, but poor diet-related stuff like strokes, hypertension, cardiac arrests and the like... The whole just screams of excess - excess that we can pretty much do without when we put things into context and bear in mind the severe hunger problems that we've to deal with today...

bit bit more

The worst of this sem at nie is thankfully over. Wednesday was when two of the biggest remaining thingies for the sem were handed in, and now all that lies between now and a couldn't-be-more-welcomed break is a handful of smaller thingies of minimal consequence. Ok, not really of minimal consequence, but it sure feels that way after the load that came off my back on wed. But still, the biggest thing left before school ends for me is the usual pre-b'day ippt that i somehow have to find the capability within me to clear.

As is ever so typical for pieces of work that i've to do, i started doing the work later than i'd have wanted to, got heavily distracted over the process of doing it, and thus overshot my target for finishing it. I had intended to finish everything by tuesday night, so i could have an early night and wake up bright and early the next morning to catch the election results before leaving for school as late as possible to print the stuff and then go for class at 1:30pm. However, over the course of the days leading up to wednesday i had gotten distracted by several things, among them playing more mindless facebook games and surfing numerous sites for reports from the campaign trail.

So the net result of all of this was that i only went to sleep at around 4am early wed morning, and still not having finished my work by then (and that came as no surprise, considering how many times i switched the tv on to CNN etc to see how things were going). Woke up again two hours later, though the first thing i did was turn on the tv again, rather than finish up the last bits of my work. The next five to six hours or so were spent valiantly attempting to multi-task, something that i am notoriously bad at doing (observe me trying to pray while playing guitar, for example) - shifting between doing the last bits of the two big pieces of work and checking out the sometime bizarre (they 'beamed' people into the studio, a la Star Trek; after which they appeared as holograms, even though they were in a totally different location, like Princess Leia - and lost focus from the actual elections at times as a result) coverage of election night. But well thankfully things came together in the end (where both things are concerned), and i left for nie just before 12.

Think all that last-min work plus the making sense of the election results exercised the little grey cells a bit too much though, cos my brain was honestly not working properly for the rest of the day, save for the presentation, by God's grace.

Well, anyways, hopefully i won't be resorting to these tactics again any time soon, which methinks is likely - hard to think of an event that can distract me as much as giant political events (hmm but that may not be the case after all, now that i've discovered that i can view whole episodes of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report online, to add on to the snl skits). Methinks am getting too old to pull these half-nighters anymore (all-nighters are all but impossible). Already, it feels weird to not have anything much to monitor on the various websites and telly coverages (there just seems to be a lot of people crying when i catch the latter).

Anyways, will talk more about the actual results another time. I ought to go to sleep. Got one teeny class tomorrow -which means another round of spending more time travelling to and from nie than actually being there. *thinks positive thoughts*