before the clock strikes 12 and the calendar turns 2010

it's been a pretty dream first half of the year, originally starting off with working temporarily at a company which i thought i'd be able to work till june, until the economy took a turn for the worse and my boss decided to do away with me. well, never mind that, i thought, as it was just in time for my very first reservist to (of all places) south africa! it was a place which i'd probably go only once in my lifetime and that was the best chance to go.

then came my 21st b'day, and shortly after a nice 7day adventure to tw with 5 other ns friends. it was after that trip that i realise that travelling with friends can be very fun (and annoying/troublesome at times) too, especially when you've got the right (and wrong) company. but well, everyone has their own agenda during a holiday.

then h1n1 struck the world just as i was in tw, and after i came back, the supposed plan to go to jp with my godsiblings & godparents fell through after my godma decided to postpone the trip, but anyway my dad, mum and i went ahead in june. i managed to practice my long rusty japanese, and it was a pretty fruitful trip with all the merchandise brought back. a pity though that i understood jp more only after i took a js module in my very first sem in uni.

then came august and start of school after 2 years away from books. i've come to understand that uni isn't all about studying, and in fact i regret a little in my attitude towards my first sem. it was mostly just shuttling between school and home 4 days a week, attending lectures and tutorials with the same small circle of friends, occasionally meeting up with ahs classmates who were also around nus. it was a pretty mundane life, and now i think i ought to explore the other sides of university life.

also, through that 13 weeks, i've become more short-fused whenever i come across a tutorial question that i can't solve, or a buggy C program which i've been working on for hours. nonetheless, C programming has been one of my more favourite modules (apart from japanese studies) because whenever you get a program working (after many hours of debugging), you get a sense of accomplishment which isn't as great as solving a math or physics tutorial problem.

the results this sem were alright, though not fantastic at all. in fact, i have to work much harder this coming year. but then again, i ought to tell myself results isn't everything. if there comes a day i need to drop the other one, let it be so...

oh well, may 2010 be a smooth sailing year ahead for me, and may everyone feel content with what they have.

happy new year!

PS: shall try to come up with something within the next few hours before i retire for the night. watch this space.

it's already 31st dec??

wow. coming to the end of another year. if i were to describe 2009, it's somewhat like a downhill slide. from an exciting first half of the year to a pretty boring and mundane 2nd half.

sometime during x'mas i thought of penning down my resolutions for next year, but then again i got distracted with other stuff and forgotten about them.

with module preference exercise and successfully switching one of my tutorial slots, it means there's no bidding for me to do this sem! time to wait out for tutorial registration.

2 options

it looks like the module preference exercise did its wonders.

but i'm actually left with two options, either one is just as troublesome.

let me put off the thinking till tomorrow?

-----------------------------------------

when stubborness overrides logic, one will end up doing very silly things. like dipping one's hands into oil-based paint and frantically trying to wash it off with water after that.

the x'mas tree monster

if you have been wondering what i've done to my x'mas tree, the answer lies above.

can you make out its eyes, nose, and mouth?

x'mas surprise & boxing day carelessness

received a call yesterday saying that my k-on comic has arrived!rushed down to kino this morning to collect it. considering the original price of the manga if you were to buy it in jp, minus the 20% discount kino is offering until tomorrow, plus the shipping fee, the S$15 price tag seems justifiable for something that costs 820yen excluding tax.

knocked my kneecap against a metallic doorframe at home this morning. my carelessness means that my right knee is in pain now. sometimes i wonder if long legs are a disadvantage?

x'mas eve/storm in a teacup 2009 edition/guess what happened to the tree

it always seems that the climax of any holiday builds up to the eve of that holiday, and on the day itself, there isn't much significance of it!

apart from people who'd be going to church early tomorrow morning, the x'mas spirit would probably decline rapidly after tonight! (even though there's the 12 days of x'mas which we don't really observe here)

tried to create a pattern '9' with the evaporated milk in my tea just now, but wasn't successful. i think it failed the moment i poured the tea the wrong way: clockwise rather than anticlockwise.storm in a teacup, 2009 edition.
the 2005 edition of the storm in a teacup is here.

after the traditional x'mas eve dinner outside, returned home and suddenly had a brilliant idea with the tree:can anyone guess what i've done to the tree? (a hint lies at the top of the tree)

family gatherings for the next few evenings. as one grows older, one wonders if there's still any meaning in passing around x'mas presents, especially among relatives, or is it just 'going through the motion'?

last minute shoppers/last minute sales

unlike previous years, where most major department stores will close early on x'mas eve to let their employees off for some quality time with their families, this year was starkly different. ikea's one such example.

instead of half day operations, shops are all vying for the consumer dollar this year and EXTENDING their shopping hours instead!

2nd last customer of the day

sometimes when technology fails, it brings about more inefficiency rather than good.

just like what happened at the singtel shop last night.

and it was totally nonsensical when the service staff said the estimated waiting time was 3 hours when it was already 7.50pm and they close at 10pm... although it would be professional (and expected) of them to serve all customers before they closed for the day, wouldn't it be sensible for them to give a better (more sensible) estimate?

in the end, the system failed to send me an sms. fortunately i went over to check just as they were preparing to bring down the shutters and managed to get another queue number.

finally, the 3 hour 'wait' at home didn't go to waste:a phone that resembles an iphone, costs much less than an iphone, has a big touchscreen like the iphone, but was sorely lacking wifi capabilities, which was a pity.

but, even after saying all these, i'm not the owner of this phone! haha.

the 2 santarinas

after 2 santarinas popped by about an hour ago, i can finally change out of my clothes and into my pyjamas!thanks xyu & sis! the one with chocolate cream is yummy.

though there was little anxiety when i accessed the school network this morning, the anxiety turned into impatience as i tried many times to login. somehow, i managed to get in within 5mins, unlike some other coursemates who tried accessing it for 1 hour but yet can't get their results.

the prediction was pretty spot on. although i never expected one of the result. and then reality hit me. with what i predicted (and what the actual results are), i am actually hanging by a thread. which means there's much to catch up next sem: 19 days and counting!

an msn convo with a friend this morning who was interested to know how i fared:
him: wads yr cap
me: (my cap). anw, i thought cap is a very sensitive qn to ask
him: y sensitive? we r different fac i dun ask yr cap ask yr grades are like irrelevant

he has a point there.

although my mum always says that my drawing is horrible despite attending art lessons for quite a number of years, my 'ang-kong-kiah' drawing is still of some standard k! (though i admit, i used to draw people like ice-cream stick figures)

early greetings!

golden time lover

this is the kind of song that gives me the 'emo' feel, like want to do something, but not enough effort to do it. although it can't compare to the heavy rock of david tao's 黑色柳丁, a song which led me to buy two of his albums back in secondary school.

and it's thanks to someone who recommended this anime to me for my birthday this year, otherwise i won't even be listening to this now. the accompanying animation really goes well with the pace and feel of the song.

oh well, enjoy:



PS: i changed the blog template, because 1) it's nearing the start of another year, and time to have a new look, and 2) my previous template couldn't accomodate the width of the video.

if only we could keep the cool december that way

yet another rainy night, and a cool breeze blowing into the room. it's been a pratically air-con-less month! if only this kind of weather keeps up, the power bill will come down.

tomorrow morning i'll probably wake up (at close to 11am) knowing the first thing to do is to turn on my laptop and access not to restaurant city on fb, but rather, nusweb. mum asked me to make a prediction. i'd say it's not like it used to be, after all, the bell curve is king.

3 weeks left. gotta finish up all the home improvement stuff i've been doing, soon and fast. but meanwhile, i'm kinda hooked on fullmetal alchemist... and waiting for this book to arrive at kino in the next 2 weeks or so:
i thought it was released in japan for a few weeks already, turns out that it was published in japan only 3 days ago! (the counter staff must be thinking that i smoked her)

it was a pity i missed out on this, thanks to the exams back in november:

the trees at orchard

it was wise to take public transport this evening.

along the street

made of ferrero rocher?

outside paragoninside takashimaya

ion orchard

the guy driving this car (circled bottom left) must be very suay to have his vehicle stall right in the middle of the busy intersection outside shaw house/tangs/wheelock place/ion orchard.

i don't mind taking a stroll down orchard again before x'mas. but with someone else perhaps?

a week to x'mas

finally got the x'mas tree up, but year on year, the deco seems to get fewer and fewer. not much effort put into it anyway, and we've been reusing the deco for a few years already.a new addition to the tree though:
some m1 soft toy that my dad picked up from the void deck. apparently someone disowned it, but it looks cute!

meanwhile, i've been occupying myself with all 36 episodes of this anime that have been aired so far:
i covered all of them in 4 evenings. and so looking forward to the next one. the story's getting very interesting!

home improvement

while a couple of people i know have gone/are in the middle of/are going to spend their december holiday overseas, in the past week after exams ended i've been doing some home improvement works (and sneezing while i rummage through my old sec sch/jc worksheets and notes and finally decide to rip apart a couple of them to clear my shelves of new uni notes/tutorials/assignments/textbooks)

among these improvement works, one of the most notable has been to frame up a couple of photos i've taken on my overseas trips this year, by making good use of the stack of free A4 photo paper that was given to me along with my newly acquired printer back in september:these are hung near the front door. a pity the wall has a lot of marks from previous stuff that was stuck to the wall with stickytape and ripping off the paint when i try to remove them.

and last saturday when i went to ikea to buy more photoframes i didn't realise i bought a size bigger than A4 until i reached home. but no matter, that just means i can squeeze an A4 sized photo together with a few other 4R photos along with it!

the first of five creations to come:this frame consists of a series of photos taken in kyoto.

the mini tree that's sitting on my table is growing sideways because it's trying its best to get close to the sunlight as possible. the window is just to the left of this photo:
and a few days ago:it was just as what xyu's sis had said: the food king in restaurant city grants u a dish or an ingredient. i clicked on the dish, BUT THEN, i was so excited that i navigated away from that page immediately after selecting the dish that i forgot to save the game first. and in the end, the dish was no where to be found in my menu...

cycling + 2012

as soon as i stepped into ecp this morning, i saw two acquaintances from NS running the stanchart marathon. then, about a few minutes later, a friend of a friend in the faculty spotted me. lols.

i was hesitant on participating in the marathon this year, because 1) there's no time to train for it, since it is the weekend right after exams, and 2) the sponsor is new balance, not adidas, and according to the same guy whom i met this morning, the race pack this year was disappointing, though he seemed to have enjoyed his run. anyway, the finisher tee design looks damn ugly this year also.

oh well, rather than spending my leg power on such a nice sunday morning (cloudy, no rain, no sun, perfect weather!) running 42km, i cycled ??km from ecp to tampines with gib qw and yf, the whole process took 2.5 hrs. quite an impressive time considering we had a long 15min break along the airport coastal road?

saw this gigantic mushroom a stone's throw away from our resting point:

after returning our bikes at sunplaza we had lunch at BK, where xyu joined us. probably took up the seats there for a little too long, we were there for nearly 1.5 hrs. then yf had to ride his bicycle home before it got too late, and qw suggested watching 2012 but xyu has already watched it, so only left we 3 guys to buy tickets.

2012 is well... a very idealised and modern version of noah's ark. no wonder people viewed it as a pro-China movie, no wonder people said it was too exaggerated. i mean, how could the protagonist and his family manage to survive again and again? the day the world ended must really be his lucky day. and i bet he could become the next transporter. his limo doesn't crack one bit while driving through his earthquake-devastated hometown. wonder if that limo's just as good as a 007 car? perhaps.

and finally, the movie seems to concur with a scientific view that the entire world's land mass used to center around Africa and all humans originated from there. so in case the world seems to have ended, survivors can resettle there, and start the cycle all over again...

back then...

was clearing out some of my old school stuff when i came across this:wow. back then i had much neater handwriting (and this was taken from a sec3 exam script)

recently there was some talk about turning sg into a 'green' city. let's see what a totally green city would look like:
eh, maybe they overdid the grass and left out the flowers? this instantly reminds me of shangri-la:

o x'mas tree, o x'mas tree...

this will be the tree for this year? at least it's real pine...

courtesy of IKEA and $6.90 from my pocket. well it's sitting nicely next to my monitor screen now.

Happy Flight

didn't expect a random movie poster i saw in narita back in june to be a movie showing in sg now...

first outing to the orchard shopping belt after 2 months today. and i managed to catch this movie! (thanks to xyu + sis + friend who didn't mind watching too)

somerset station looks so much different. what used to be an open air carpark is now a gigantic shopping mall.

oh, so the exams are over already?

stepped out of the hall today feeling just like any other day. there's no exceptional jubilation knowing that this cycle is going to repeat for a couple more times. and perhaps i've been taking it pretty easily for the past week before my last paper.

for now, time to celebrate, relax, and then... one month to prep for the next round of the vicious cycle?

just before dusk

within minutes, rain pelted down and the sky turned dark.one of the reasons why i like my front room: i can see planes land.

new life, old com

reformatted yet another of my older computers sitting at home. now it runs much faster, but after installing all the service packs and updates, it's just slightly faster than before i cleared out the entire hard disk.

with that done, i ought to be intensively mugging for the last paper for the next 3 days?

finally!

my laptop has sprung back to life!

that most interesting module done...

so, i stayed on throughout the 2 hour mcq paper this evening, even though i had finished early. but the questions were tricky, and i changed a couple of answers when going through the 50 mcqs a 2nd time.

there were a few qns where i simply forgot the facts, and another one or two that was weirdly phrased, but i tried my best anyway...

after the paper, met my research paper project groupmate to view the research paper we've done and got a decent grade for. hopefully this final exam results will bring a respectable result for me.

left the MPSH, and headed over to the library to return 6 japan-related books which i'd borrowed for the past... 1 month? i guess that more or less marks the end of my foray into japanese studies in nus. though it was just 4 months, it was a good 4 months!

now, one last paper to go. and it's next thursday. relax, or not to relax? that's the question.

PS: when i've got the time, might probably throw up some stuff i've learnt from js1101e here.
PPS: reviving my laptop now. it seems to be taking longer than the other time i did it.

half done.

while some people in the faculty celebrate the end of their exams today, others just started their first paper, while i'm somewhere in between...

got a whole book of readings to re-read for JS paper tomorrow. though the paper results were pretty decent, the MCQs tomorrow will be tricky i'm sure. Not that watching a recording of sunday's japan hour just now during dinner will help though!

attempt #1 at reviving my laptop will begin tomorrow night after my JS paper. this will be the 2nd time i reformat it since it came into my possession four months ago.

me and my itchy fingers wasted me 3 hours...

hai... after successfully upgrading the OS on my laptop, i tried installing a driver for my graphics card which probably wasn't compatible and now i've got a desktop screen without the taskbar, which means i can't even shut down my comp. ctrl+alt+del doesn't work either.

which simply means, the 3 hours i spent this afternoon gone to waste.

i shall try reformatting the laptop after my papers this thurs. for now i'd better concentrate on the consecutive CS, MA and JS papers. perhaps someone's hinting to me that i should keep my hands off the comp until i'm really done with the semester.

the disc finally at my doorstep...

was pleasantly surprised when i received an sms this morning:

oh, wasn't it supposed to be singpost to deliver my disc? apparently not! it's by DHL!

the courier arrived at exactly 2pm! (i was just about to switch off the radio after listening to the top 20 chart on 933 when the courier personally called me to say he was at my doorstep, i wonder why he didn't just ring the bell)

the courier wasn't dressed in DHL uniform... i wonder if it's because it's a sunday today? the package was very simple: 2 CDs, one flimsy instruction booklet:

quickly backed-up all my school files, then got down to installing the OS...

after 1h30min (longer than i had expected, probably because the files had to be transferred over):

finally! exactly one month after it was released. it appears that many other people have been waiting impatiently for their discs as much as i have! http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7install/thread/75ae5435-5119-4069-8a70-b1f499ca5a1f

now, it's back to chiong-ing for CS1101c, MA1505 and JS1101e before a week-long breather and then the last paper.

one rainy afternoon...

19nov, 1pm:the clouds amused me for a while, since they were being blown so fast across the sky.
and meanwhile, i had to entertain this furry creature who was trying to cuddle up to me. i wonder if all dogs are scared of thunder?

i'm so sorry, leonid meteor shower...

if not for the cold, i'd probably have not disappointed qw xyu and company tonight...

having just revised (halfway, then got distracted) gravity for pc1431, was kind of interested in looking at some astronomical stuff. but then my body doesn't agree with me leh... "sneeze!"

and then again i was reminded that this year's the international year of astronomy! think i mentioned this before: http://geoffthepretender.blogspot.com/2009/07/whats-next.html, and Sora no Manimani comes to mind again. That's one anime series that i've watched halfway and didn't bother watching the rest of it, yet.

Time to sleep soon?

a couple of thoughts

a few days ago someone posted on facebook: 'happy 1st year ORD!'. then i remembered.

in this past year, i've already gone for one ict in SA and clocked a silver for ippt.

here's hoping for an ict-free and ippt silver year ahead!

recently the weather's turned cold, and i've caught a cold again. this is i think the 2nd or 3rd time since mid semester that i've fallen sick. well, better sick now than during the finals i suppose...

10% settled!

just a few minutes ago:

have you ever seen a day with so many forum posts before??

posted 3 more posts after i returned from this morning's final electrical lab. i guess that seals the fate of 10% of my js1101e module then!

Now's the time to get revving for the 4 papers first: physics, math, computing, japanese studies. since i've got a 6 day break in between js and electrical engine, i might as well leave that revision to later. after all, i just took a 2nd mid term test too...

i actually probably don't know more than what i think i don't know...

last minute bombardment

the js forum closes today at 5pm and everyone's frantically trying to post new topics in it! (me inclusive)

tomorrow will be the last day of sem. ending it off with a lab. otherwise i could have started mugging for finals now.

a reason why i love windows 7

thanks to my trusty 21" samsung LCD monitor which i hauled home almost a year ago at the sitex fair, and also to the windows snap function in windows 7, i could open two word documents side by side to copy and paste over without having to alt+tab and manually resize windows, so mafan! this was the first time i really did work on my desktop rather than laptop.

after 11 weeks, a rejected research paper proposal, a trusty online dropbox (which cut down the number of physical meetings we had), the final product of my js group project is out!

it's been a week already! where's the upgrade disc for my laptop!!

PS: this year's sitex is right in the middle of my exams... boo... why don't they just hold it a weekend later?

i'm still waiting!!!

it's past the weekend already and still no sign of the disc. sigh...

13 weeks is coming to an end. it's just barely 2 weeks to my first paper (which happens to be on a saturday)

8 9 10

gotta wake up at 8

gotta get out of the house by 9

gotta reach school by 10.

it's another monday. and the last monday of the semester. can't believe time flies in uni.

and isn't it a little late in the semester for a 'mid-term' test now? they should rename it a 'end-term' test right?

feel like banging my head against the wall...

i can't believe that with a sudden inspiration i could solve a cs tutorial question which i was mulling over (and venting my frustration on my laptop keyboard) for 2 hours since yesterday, within 5 minutes.

argh! what a waste of time. and now i've still got another question to tackle, and an ultimate take home lab of sorts.

in the end, the windows7 upgrade CD hasn't arrived at my doorstep yet, so i guess i'll have to wait a couple more days. i can't seem to track its whereabouts on the singpost website nor the lenovo one. darn it.

it's coming!

this popped up in my mailbox just a couple of minutes ago.

yay!

watch this space for screenshots in a couple of days time.

on a separate note, there wasn't enough time to do the 2nd task of the last sit in lab. or maybe i'm just very blockhead, can't work out the logic quickly. oh well. till next sem, programming again in cs1102c!

another weekend gone

though this weekend was relatively freer, i'm still working till 2am tonight.

anyway, the season finale for f1 was pretty uneventful, but nonetheless i still watched the race from start to end, using the time in between to sort out all my notes and tutorials for the past 10 weeks.

i realised i've used so much paper. (despite printing on both sides)

it's one week closer to exams. i ought to be pressing the panic button by now?

pet phrases

a couple of pet phrases from my lecturers:

"Engineering is about making integlligent assumptions..." (oh really?)

"Let me show you something ah..." (yah, we've seen it a lot of times already)

"You shouldn't memorise this equation." (if we don't memorise the equation, where got time to derive it in an exam?)

forest fire?

about half an hour ago a couple of fire engine sirens were heard passing by my house. now that i look outside my window, i realise the air is quite hazy and has that burnt smell. probably a forest fire nearby...

i'm still waiting for THAT cd to arrive...

finally, something different on the status webpage...

i'm hoping it'll arrive at my doorstep sometime later this week.

once again, I.Cannot.Stand.Lagginess.

Internet connection is getting on my nerves nowadays...

95th min: liverpool 2 - 0 man U

heard someone shouting 'GOALL!!!' from my study room just 10 mins ago. tuned into my tv and saw that liverpool scored a 2nd goal just before the end of the match. i guess this result will save benitez's job for now.

finally completed all 4 tasks for this week's takehome lab. 4 tasks in 4 days. that's very inefficient. since the labs are done, i'll probably not have to step into com1 basement this week.

programming can be very fun when you do it leisurely. but when you're constrained by time, that's a totally different story...

ps: started playing restaurant city on fb and getting addicted to it.

ever since cs1101c... (spare the keyboard)

i realise that i type much faster now after my fingers get their due exercise every week during sitin labs and takehome labs.

and because of this tendency to type faster (and also expect my computer to process faster), from time to time my keyboard will have to tahan my wrath (when a programming code goes wrong and it takes ages to debug it). fortunately mine's a thinkpad. hopefully it will live up to its robustness.

although sometimes, when i look at other people's laptops, i wonder to myself: why did i get myself such a dull looking one in the first place?

ps: i'm still eagerly waiting for my windows 7 upgrade to arrive for my laptop... the order status still displays "pending payment"... zzz.

js1101e: end of lecture, time to 'go'?

edit:the last slide for the most recent lecture. it was a pretty 'duh' joke, cos the 'Go' referred to the movie which we didn't manage to watch finish the previous week, but due to high demand (we all groaned when the lecturer said:"I think you might have to borrow the video from the library), the lecturer said she'll try to free up some time in her lecture to show us the remaining 15mins. in the end she finished the lecture on time so she promised us we'll get to view the ending next week.

i enjoy the lecture every week (with a humorous japanese lecturer), but i keep putting off the stuff i need to do for the module...

did a whole load of programming today. the final sitin lab is coming up in 2 weeks.

4 weeks to end of semester, reading week, and exams. starting to feel as though i don't know as much as i'm supposed to know...