Short Attention Span

I had a 2 hours lecture yesterday. The lecturer wanted to end the lecture 1/2 an hour earlier so he did not give any breaks during the lecture. After the lecture, my friend told me that his mind wandered off after the 1st hour as there was too much to digest.

This is very common as all Singaporean males has suffered some degree of brain damage during their 2.5 years of national service. Our concentration span is not as long as it used to be and we hardly get 'into the zone' as often nowadays. To make matters worse, the span gets shorter when there is a lot of other stuffs going through your mind, distracting you no matter what you are doing.

That is what I am going through now. I am taking more breaks in between studies than I did last year. I simply cannot focus entirely on 1 issue. My mind will wander off to other issues that are in need to take care of too. During, the lecture, my mind was completely on other issues, I tried to pay attention as it was an interesting topic but somehow I just could not increase my attention span.

On another topic, I watched 'She's the man' last week during 1 of my breaks. I love the movie even though it gotten a 6.7 rating in imdb. It is no secret that I have a rather unique taste in movies that I watch. I usually take note of the good points instead of the bad points even if the movie sucks. Guess it is because I do not have any expectation while I watch a movie.

Anyway, 'She's the man' is 1 of the movies that has a lot of great songs. I gotten my hands on the soundtrack, however, several songs are excluded from the soundtrack. I had to acquire through other sources. Some of the songs are few months old(maybe longer). These are the things that help a non-radio listener like me to get in touch with great music. 1 other thing, Amanda Bynes is awesome!!!
posted by Estan @ 8:47:00 PM (GMT+08:00). 1 comments

Pray For Me

Do you have a period when you feel nothing is going right or smoothly in whatever you do? Well, mine is now. Nothing has been going right or should I say smoothly since my semester starts. All the signs pointed out that I am currently going through a bad patch. Here are the list of things I remembered:

Reformatted my laptop on the 1st day of semester(OS corrupted, possible cause - virus) after I had just formatted 1 week ago.
Subscribed a telephone line at my room. There was a problem with the connection as I could not make outgoing calls although, it works at my housemates room. The management took more than a week to fix it.
Changed of internet service provider at my rental apartment. Currently, still a bit unstable.
My laptop crashed several times during the change of internet service provider. I suspected there was something wrong with the hardware and bring my laptop for servicing.
I was whacked by a hardcore Manu fan when I was watching Manu vs Arsenal match in the pub. All my friends were seated closely to me but only I was the 'lucky' 1.
I collected my laptop from the service centre. I was recommended to do a recovery for my laptop which I did. However, my recovery disc seemed to be corrupted, it created an error to my recovery image inside my harddisk, thus the recovery process was unsuccessful.
I contacted the service centre, the staff who took my 1st call, claim my case was the 1st of its kind that they encountered and told me to hold while he went to consult his supervisor. I waited more than 10 mins and decided to hang up and called again. This time, another staff took my call, and provided a solution for me straight away. The solution was to send me another recovery disc out of good will as my laptop is still under warranty.
The recovery disc arrived 2 days ago, however the disc was not able to bootup. The disc was actually the application and driver disc rather than the recovery image disc! I contacted the service centre again. The staff was surprised as he stated that the recovery package was supposed to have 2 discs, 1 recovery image disc, and 1 application and driver disc. They will send another package to me.

The above are the items that I am able to recall at the moment. There are more but I do not have the luxury to wait till I remember. Due to all these problems, I am not able to concentrate fully on my studies. I have a lot of school work that is behind schedules. I have 1 favor though, for friends and families who visit my blog, please pray for me, pray that things/events go more smoothly for me. I would very much appreciate it. It would be great if you are willing to comment your problems too so that I won't feel so depress/lonely... =P.
posted by Estan @ 11:21:00 PM (GMT+08:00). 2 comments

Whacked By Hardcore Manu Fan

I went to watch Manu vs Arsenal with my friends yesterday night. We were watching Liverpool vs Bolton before that. During the 1st half of the Manu vs Arsenal match, when Ronney hit the goal post, a hardcore Manu fan(African or Indian) sitting behind me thought it had gone in.

He jumped up from his seat and swung his arms vigorously. That manoeuvre ended with his fist hitting the top of my head. I was in pain for about 10 seconds and felt numbness after that. He gave a half-hearted apology and quickly went back to continue watching the game. I was so pissed for the remainding 1st half of the game.

During half time, I turned back and confronted him. This time, there was more sincerity in his apology. He also wanted to buy me a beer but I declined. At that moment, I felt that a drink was not enough to pay back 10 seconds of pain on my skull.

After the confrontation, 1 of his friends changed seats with him and I was able to concentrate on the game without worrying getting hit. However, during Manu's 1st goal(by Ronney), an Asia guy sitting behind an empty chair on my right side, jumped up to celebrate the goal. His action hit the empty chair infront of him and it fell towards my direction.

Fortunately, there are spacing in between tables & chairs for people to walk through, that spacing kept the chair within 15cm of hitting me. From my experience, the majority of Manu fan are like their players -> rough. Liverpool fan are way more discipline which is the same as their players.
posted by Estan @ 9:03:00 AM (GMT+08:00). 2 comments

Grand Prix Summary

I have been very busy finishing up my assignments and reports for the passed few days as well as today so I will not go into details of my Grand Prix expericences. I have not been able to work 100% due to mainly 3 reasons. 1st is my 3 semesters project which I finally found the kit I needed. 2nd is the internet problems at my place, still unstable, unable to use online resources and finally, 4 days of F1 Grand Prix.

The 1st day of Grand Prix which was last Thursday, for some unknown reason I forgot to bring my camera. We recce about 1/2 of the place and went home. On the 2nd day, with my camera, we recce the remaining 1/2 of the place, took some photos and watch the F1 drivers doing their practice run.

3rd day was the qualifying round of the F1 drivers in the afternoon. On the 4th day, the place was extremely crowded, all the hotspots were packed with spectators and we were only able to get a place slightly better than the rest.

I uploaded the photos, the link is on the right. I used a voice recorder to record the race on the 4th day as well. The quality is quite good, can hear the sound coming from the F1 cars. Those interested can download too. N.B. You will hear some conversations between my friends and I. N.B. The server that I uploaded the audio file to will only keep the file for a few days. I will re-upload again when I am free. Another option is to leave a comment to inform me.
posted by Estan @ 1:09:00 AM (GMT+08:00). 0 comments