Saturday, November 10, 2007
前几天，在地铁车厢里，看到这段小插曲。
小孩A与母亲A，小孩B与母亲B一起上车。车里挤满了人。只剩一张空位。小孩B坐了上去。
不久，对面出现了另一个座位。小孩A的母亲叫小孩A去坐。小孩A不肯。小孩B的母亲坐了上去。站在小孩B的面前，小孩A望着他。默默的。
不久，小孩B的母亲隔邻又出现一个座位。母亲唤B 过去坐。B过去了，A跟着去了。站在小孩B的面前，小孩A望着他。默默的。
不久，A 小声地问母亲B：“阿姨，可以让我坐吗？”
小孩A坐上了阿姨的位子。兴奋地欢呼：“耶！我终于可以跟B一起坐了！”
地铁车厢里依旧很多人。
A 开始魂不守舍。小小的个子站了起来，穿过车厢中间站着的大人，抬起头，望着上头的车站告示牌，倒数着到乌节地铁站的站数。这时，传来母亲A的声音：“叫你坐，你不坐。坐上了，你又跑来跑去。”
A 回去坐，坐在B的旁边。默默的。
不久，A 小小的个子又站了起来，又穿过车厢中间站着的大人，抬起头，望着上头的车站告示牌，倒数着到乌节地铁站的站数。看得出他有点不安，但又不知不安什么。
来来回回的几次，终于到了乌节站。这时，母亲B牵起小孩B，说：“跟A说再见。”
站在小孩B的面前，小孩A望着他。两个小孩望着彼此，轻轻地说：“再见。”
门关上了。关掉了一个小孩与另一个小孩的世界。
A 回到母亲坐着的身边，默默的。
不久，传来A的抽泣声。
“怎么啦？”母亲问。
“我很想B。”
“傻孩子，我们又不和B住在一起，总要说再见的。”
“不过，我很想他。”
“傻瓜，下次你有新朋友，就不会再想B了。”
“那，我不要新朋友。” （抽泣声加大了一点）
“嗯，新朋友久了，就是旧朋友了啊。”
“不是，B 才是旧朋友。新朋友怎么久，还是比B新的新朋友。”
“你看，大家都在笑你。笑你这个傻瓜。”
A不再说话。两行泪水润湿了脸颊。
一个年纪小小的朋友，竟在门关上的霎那间深深感受到了人生的无奈，并发表了看似“傻瓜”却最最真诚的感叹。
那一刻，我不禁在想，是麻木了的不傻，还是被称傻瓜的真傻。
(亲爱的旧朋友，有个傻瓜在这里等你。默默的。）
| a simple day. 1:29 AM
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Wednesday, January 03, 2007
This last NUS semester break was all about project, driving and singing for me.
I'm confirmed taking part in Thames Valley University/London College of Music's Performance Awards in Chinese Music Assessment on 14th January (next Sun). I will be going for Grade 5 (equivalent to GCE 'O' Levels) and Zhang Fan has set a standard for me (its my target anyway), that to get a Pass is not a problem, I should get at least a Merit and Distinction is within my means. I need to sing only 2 songs in front of an audience and I have decided to sing my usual 'Piano' and '如果你还爱我'.
It should be a great experience as I will also get to hear how Grade 8 (equivalent to 'A' Levels) standard of singing is like and should I ever go for a second assessment, this will be the level that I hope to go for at least (the next level after this is Diploma). On a side note, Zhang Fan mentioned that 洪俊扬 will be taking Grade 8 that day too. He had a Distinction for Grade 5 before this.
My mid term talk is set to be held on 18th January (Thurs), 4.45pm to 5.30pm. Progress had been made and I'm glad I managed to push myself for it (its the holidays after all). My only worries are that what I have done may be too elementary or not sufficient and this is where I need my supervisor to look through it and give me pointers. I'm still waiting for his reply and it is only then that I can go on to do the necessary adjustments, my presentation slides and start to type it out proper too.
Theres also Latex, the type setting software to worry about. Though I had managed to make it work on my laptop, I still need to learn how to use it the way I need it to as I proceed to type out my project. On the other hand, once I get used to Latex, I'm sure it will be a very useful tool for me to type those Maths materials or worksheets in future.
Having to submit our project on 2nd March, with final presentation and interview in late March, the rush is sure to set in soon enough, even with only 3 Maths modules: Game Theory, Partial Differential Equations and Discrete Optimisation this semester. I finally have a Thurs-is-free-day timetable after missing out on it for so many semesters, along with 7pm to 10pm lectures on Mon and Wed. Talk about being a part time student.
My results are never fantastic but I'm certainly very happy with last semester's, as I have achieved more than what I had hoped for and my efforts paid off well. I was so glad that I did not fall into the PR1301 'curse' as competition was just so stiff, and AODE was simply a miracle. Having attained my second best CAP (in a semester) in my 4th year meant quite a bit to me, esp when last semester was my worst and made me feel so lost and desperate. With less pressure in maintaining my CAP now (not that I will put in less effort, of course), I only wish to enjoy my final semester to the fullest.
Photo courtesy of Xin Yao: another TXY, Siew Ping was the female lead actor
Photo courtesy of Xin Yao: with male lead actor, Rei I was a busker in a tunnel at Clarke Quay for a day as I played this role for Xin Yao's final year project film production. My part didnt take too long to shoot, though I missed a few chords on the guitar in the process. Haha. Having to record their theme song '爱不到', written by Yun Ying, it was a song which allowed me to learn how to control my highest notes within my nasal and not let it 'burst out' (this is my unprofessional way of describing it so I dont expect anyone to understand it fully, haha), even though it may sound like an easy song at first glance.
Being their van driver for a few days as well, it reminded me of the days where the first vehicle that I drove to practise and hone my skills after getting my licence was my Dad's ex-company's mini van. It was harder to manoeuvre (the steering wheel was stiff and I'm still amazed by the fact that it will not return to its original position after you turn it and let go) than the one that I drove for this production, and the worst part was there was no air-con so there was no need to style your hair at all cos it will simply be 'blown away' in minutes. Haha.
It didnt take too long for me to get used to driving a van again but as it was much bigger, I had to be more careful with my blindspots. It was slightly more troublesome to gauge where my parking lot was when reversing too. This driving experience also made me understand CTE even better as an expressway, and driving from Punggol to NTU and vice versa can be long and boring, when you restrict yourself to within 60 and 70km/h.
Organised by Little Grass, the first day of chalet at Sentosa actually fell on the day where Singapore had her heaviest rainfall for decades. It was quite a challenge when I had to drive in the heavy rain and find my way to the chalet in the evening, having not reached there by car before but its easy to familiarise yourself with Sentosa's roads after a few times.
We ended up spending the first day with Little Grass' Mum and Haoyi at VivoCity for dinner and playing mahjong in the chalet. Fortunately, the skies was clear the next day and we went to try out the Luge.
It was fun no doubt but I have to say that by the third time that I was going for the ride, I was going down at full speed even at the turns and I can safely declare that I will not pay to play the Luge again, simply cos it does not provide thrill and fun to me anymore. Of course, this will not apply to everyone and I'm sure many people, esp the youngsters will still enjoy this after many tries.
Its about time that we change our way of thinking when carving out and managing our tourism industry. Natural landscapes have their everlasting charms and as long they are well maintained, they will usually be able to attract tourists on a long term basis. That is why you have Ngong Ping 360 on Lantau Island, where the operating company is not only willing to invest money but also overcome engineering difficulties in building a cable car sysem on this hilly island. Personally, even though I have been to Lantau Island for quite a few times, I'm still willing to pay to see the breathtaking scenery and it will always be my mode of transport to get to the Big Buddha (you will know why if you have ever tried taking the 50 mins bus journey there before).
Its a pity that we dont have this (forget about Bt Timah Hill..the closest that we have should be Sungei Buloh Nature Park) and thus, I feel that whenever we invest in a tourist attraction, its either you do one which can offer long term attractiveness (the best example would have been Disneyland, before Hong Kong's is starting to prove otherwise) or if you know that you are doing one which can draw in tourists for a limited period of time only, make sure this tourist attraction can provide the space and creativity to maintain its attractiveness. Most importantly, one must not spare efforts to keep this attraction going, esp when it comes to making your own people, as well as tourists come back for more. How many tourist attractions can rely solely on foreign visitors for revenue? How many first time tourists can we bring in over a long period of time to keep our tourism industry booming?
Hong Kong's Ocean Park has probably been around for 10+, 20 years and it contains all the usual stuff that Singapore has, from a mini zoo, mini aquarium, animal shows to cable car and an amusement park. Surely it will lose its charm after so many years and no one will be surprised if it falls flat to the ground when Mickey Mouse enters for a piece of the pie. However, it was not to be and in fact, Mickey Mouse had to work harder to get the size of the pie that he wanted.
I can see that Ocean Park is not one which will just rest on its laurels and wait for tourists to come. It upgrades its rides and is now even undergoing a major facelift. It celebrates events and festivals with its people, with one that I know of being Halloween. Indeed, it has become an icon of Hong Kong cos it grew up with its people and adults have wonderful childhood memories there.
When will Singapore have a unique tourist attraction of its own which can last for so long (forget about 'national' attractions like the zoo or botanical gardens, which will not be closed down no matter what)? The closest that we have now is probably Underwater World, as most of the attractions that we grew up with are gone, like Haw Par Villa and Fantasy Island.
Looking at the Luge, from how I see it, theres nothing much we can do with it once it loses its charm except say, making more challenging routes?
Why follow so many other countries in building a gigantic Ferris Wheel? What new things can you do with it? If you want to see Singapore from high up, there are already many places available, like Little Grass' house. Haha.
When I saw on TV that Taipei 101 building was bursting with fireworks in a most spectacular manner during their New Year Countdown, I was thinking: will we be contented with having fireworks at Marina Bay and National Stadium forever? Why not make our Esplanade burst with fireworks from its 'thorns' too?
This was also why I preferred Kerzner's proposal for Sentosa IR cos I see more room for creativity in their usage of artificial intelligence. You can play around more with it. In fact, theres another thing that they can provide which Singapore has not really been successful in doing: an establishment designed by a world renowned architect (in this case, Frank Gehry), which is enough to attract people from all over the world to come and admire the establishment as a piece of art. I dont think the Esplanade has been too successful in this sense. Of course, Genting's is just as attractive since right from the start, they followed Singapore's requirement well in proposing a family oriented resort and it will be interesting to see if Warner Bros Movie World can do more wonders than Disneyland in Singapore.
For me, I just think that its time we do something out of the box, make it unique, and make it last. No more build one-cannot work-close down-build another please.(I understand that Hong Kong may not be the most convincing of all examples and it is only cos of my personal experience in Hong Kong and limited knowledge of other countries that I'm doing so)Well, thats that.After the Luge, we went Underwater World to experience the Fish Reflexology (at a price, of course) and I must say, it sure tickled. Haha. This was followed by BBQ with Little Grass' Grandma, Mum, her cousin and boyfriend. We inherited the unfinished food from their family gathering's BBQ the week before and it was probably the first time that we ever ended a BBQ with no leftovers.
I guess I can safely declare that this is the most attractive part of me..
Photo courtesy of Xin Yao: the night where we had the luxury of sitting in the middle of Orchard Road萨达姆被处死了。原来他跟我同月同日生，但这并不重要。时机太敏感、审判过程是否太仓促、他是否得到应有的人权：众说纷纭。略知他的暴行，罪不容诛，也知道这位一代枭雄曾经是美国的朋友。被讨伐多年，还是倒不了。在反恐的旗帜下，他才成了阶下囚。想不到他死了，还是有人支持他。有国家甚至会为他下半旗哀悼。难怪阿扁还是倒不了。你倒你的，我有我的能耐。你比你的手势，我耍我的嘴皮子。你有你的百万人，我还是有我的支持者。我继续跟着游戏规则玩，赖着不走，奈何了我？爱与恨，有时不是绝对的。因为错，并不是每个人会看见，是盲目也好，愚昧也好。局外人也不一定是对的。话说回来，拉姆斯菲尔德应该觉得他的撤职值得了吧。反正，烂摊子正等着他的前主子继续收拾。
| a simple day. 2:49 PM
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Tuesday, January 02, 2007
沉默
为了找一找当日我们坐在马路上的照片，我刻意地寻找XY的博客站。照片没找着，却无意地阅了一则让我驻足了至少半小时的文章。在目前赶着为开学筹备讲义的我来说，半小时是奢侈的。然而，我却无法不这么做。
写给父亲的信。在他看不到以后……
多少时候，我们有多么多的话与想法想让身边至亲了解，却往往为了免去不必要的争执，选择沉默。沉默，在还活着的时候是一种矛盾。上帝赋予人类一双眼睛，一双耳朵，一张口，在有灵魂操动的时候，撇开眼观四方、耳听八方，或许就是要让我们借还健在的机会，多学会沟通与了解，从而减少剩下躯体后的遗憾。然而，人是矛盾的。我们总选择叛逆地背其道而行，还自视聪明地认定沉默是金。
XY 的文章让我感触很深，让我看到了拾金的机会往后很多，又何必急于在世。
| a simple day. 2:46 PM
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Tuesday, December 05, 2006
"Mummy, its OVER!"
25th and 29th Nov, 1st and 3rd Dec marked the end of my most hectic semester ever, so much so that I suddenly found myself not too used to not having to worry about what test to study or tutorial to work on yesterday. This also means that I just need to countdown to 3 more Maths exams in my last semester + submission of Honours project during mid of March and I will officially graduate on 2nd May, cos its my last paper! Haha.
Complementary Medicine and Health is the module which I hope to score, but extremely competitive despite the large corhort of about 400, so hopefully I didnt make too many mistakes in MCQ and my essay answers arent too lousy either. Well, it was the last time that I would ever get to write more words than numbers and symbols in an NUS exam. Haha.
Advanced ODE was surprisingly do-able, where there were actually 2 repeated and exact questions from past year papers. For once, my doing of past year papers proved most worthwhile.
Model Building in Operations Research was quite do-able too, except that the lecturer kept his promise that this paper will be harder than previous ones and he practically exhausted the whole of his lecture notes to set his questions, but at least I know I can do them. Its just a matter of how right I am. I was cursing myself when I saw the question from midterm test appearing again, which I didnt know how to do back then, so I just tried working it out again on the spot and hopefully, I'm not too wrong.
Complex Analysis II was expectedly difficult and the only paper which I could not do all the questions, but I should be glad that he repeated some questions too and I had the answers on my helpsheet. Helpsheets do help.
Still, this Dec is all about doing Honours project and trying to complete it if possible, cos my mid term talk will be held during 3rd week of Jan, whichs not too far away. My examiner is actually the lecturer for Advanced ODE this semester, so while he is a pretty approachable person, I hope he wont pin me with too many tricky questions during my presentation. My MusicForest 5 month beginner vocal course has also ended on 11th Nov, with a test which consisted of singing half a song and testing of very basic music theory. The singing part was fine but music theory wasnt too good for me, though it would not be reflected in my score cos Zhang Fan was very loose with his marks. Intermediate course starts this Sat and hopefully, we will get to learn more about singing techniques this time round.
Zhang Fan had introduced this pop vocal assessment by London College of Music to us (not surprising he would do that if you know that hes the Chief Assessor for this assessment), where all you have to do is to perform a few songs in front of an audience, the judges will assess and then award you Pass, Merit or Distinction for the grade that you are going for. Its exactly like piano grading, where you can go from Grade 1-8, to Diploma and even Master's level.
I'm pretty interested in it, though I cant take it this time round cos it clashed with exams. It feels good to get an official qualification to certify and know your level of singing. The best part about it is that its the first time that they are doing away with the testing of music theory, and thus the switch to singing of songs in front of an audience cos previously, the assessment was done one to one with the judges.
Oh, this is something which I must mention. The second highest scorers for this year's PSLE came from 2 schools, Northland Pri Sch (my alma mater!) and Tampines North Pri Sch (Its Principal is my Primary 6 Maths teacher! In fact, I had interviewed her to write an article for 校园版 before when both she and my Sec 2 Science teacher won the Outstanding Science Teacher Award in 2000). Wow, I felt really proud as an old boy when I saw the lovely coincidence. :o)
| a simple day. 10:12 PM
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Sunday, October 15, 2006
On Mon, I managed to finish reading up on materials for introductory talk and get an idea about what I want to do and say; then faced my laptop for 4 good days (about 6-7 hours a day) to do up the Powerpoint slides, which was tiring but fun and motivating. S16 3rd floor is quite a good place to do work with your laptop.
If you think input Chinese characters is troublesome, Maths symbols and equations are just as tiring. Haha.
I have emailed my slides to my supervisor, so hope he will be satisfied with what I'm going to present and wont ask questions during the talk itself!
With only 2 days to study for AODE test, I cant wait for Tues to be over.
Play the slides and have a look if you are interested. :o)
--
It is a regret that as my schooling days are about to end (lets not include NIE), I never had the chance to enjoy the process of studying something which I feel passionate about and really excel in it. If I ever have the chance to pursue Masters, I will want to make sure that this happens, as I get to know what I'm capable of.
On the other hand, I'm thankful for the opportunities to engage in Chinese, Maths and English all these years (though at very different depths), where I get to broaden my knowledge about these three contrasting fields and pick up different skills from there.
| a simple day. 2:00 AM
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Tuesday, October 10, 2006
School (read: No) Life
This is going to be brief, well, at least compared to my usual length. Haha.
The title speaks for itself and this has been my life since school started, esp for the past 3 weeks. 3 tests in 3 consecutive days and project dateline for Complementary Medicine & Health last week made me stay home almost everyday for the whole term break the week before.
You know I'm not kidding if I tell you even Littlegrass felt that I'm spending too little time with her, when I'm virtually spending all my leisure time with her. Hehe. 3 tuition days per week for the whole of Sept (though its finally over now as PSLE has ended) and vocal lessons every Sat took up the rest of my time (the 5 months beginner course is also going to end on 4th Nov with a test).
I've decided to allocate time now to blog cos the Advanced Ordinary Differential Equations test has just been postponed today from this Fri to next Tues, which means I dont need to rush to study for it now. I can now spend Mon to Thurs this week preparing for my Honours Project Introductory Talk (after not touching it at all since meeting my supervisor for the first time during end of Aug!) and thereafter studying for AODE test.
What this means is that next Tues, 17th Oct: 8am-9am AODE test; 5.30pm-6pm Introductory Talk (feel free to attend, haha, though my presentation is going to be about 15 mins only). What a day its going to be. Its only after next Tues that, like what I described to my Maths classmates, the nagging 'tumour' in my brain will then finally disappear and I can relax and sleep without any 'burden', after having to keep myself on my toes handling the never-ending tests, tutorial presentations and project stuff for so long.
Oh the exact project title is finally settled too: "A Mathematical Arms Race Model of Cross-Strait Relations". Yippee. I really like this topic, way interesting than any of my Maths modules. The North Korea Nuclear Test came just in time to play an important role in my preliminary introduction during my presentation (on a serious note, I'm definitely against it!).
Its been Honours Project Introductory Talk fever since 3 weeks ago, from grabbing the best time slots, attending which talks (mainly to get the easy attendance marks), can wear jeans or not during our presentation, to deciding on using Powerpoint, transparencies or even whiteboard and how to type Maths symbols and equations in Powerpoint etc.
I'm taking only 4 modules this semester with Complementary Medicine being a 'slack' module with no tutorials and Model Building in Operations Research a module which will cancel tutorials as and when the lecturer feels like it (I feel very unsafe and uncertain about it as theres lack of practice and I just dont know what he expects from us), but I find myself having to spend so much time studying so much harder than ever before and I'm really amazed that I can actually make myself study every single day. This is on top of my day-and-night timetable this semester: 8am-10am lectures on Tues and Fri, 7pm-10pm lecture on Wed every week.
On the other hand, this will not reflect proportionately in my mid-term results and its always a case where the good ones fight for their As while the rest of us collect, well, the rest. Sigh.
海蝶音乐森林 Vocal Class (Beginner), with 张泛老师
My 2.5 months worth of hair turned from this..
At VivoCity:
..to a button mushroom! Haha.
Littlegrass' new dress is very nice!
| a simple day. 7:38 PM
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Saturday, October 07, 2006
是个不喜欢争论的人。这个“本性”，进了辩论队后更真正被证实下来。
这个很可笑。因为自己常常被辩才一流的人吸引，而从小，都不时有人认为我“伶牙俐齿”。
很讨厌吵。吵闹都不喜欢了，更别说是争吵。但我周围却常有人喜欢大声说话。有时怀疑，到底是谁聋了耳。
很多事，其实可以很亲切地慢慢说；很多时候，其实可以小小声地好好说。“辩论”的美妙实不在“辩”，“争论”的成功更不在“争”。然而，可悲的是，人类音韵习性中不太接受单音节词，导致难能可贵的“论”字不能单独运行，以致“争辩”往往成了赢家。
在这样的环境下呆久了，更珍惜那些愿与我放缓节奏之人。
今天，ZW 的一句：“听说你要在学校成立记者队，还有兴趣吗？我们这里可以怎么帮你？”
我好感动。感动的不是事情本身，而是那份心意。
有时，只要一点点的真诚，就可以让人很感动的。
大声说话，又或笑里藏刀，又何必呢？
| a simple day. 8:18 PM
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