Mein Leben

Stream of thoughts while overdosed on coffee

2008-08-18T03:36:00.003+08:00

Well, i can't say for certain if I'm overdosed on coffee but I sure can't sleep tonight.

It might be due to my screwed-up biological clock after night cycling or due to the fact that I woke up at 3pm today after the cycling.

My dad always tell me that the balcony is a nice place to sleep, so after being sleepless for an hour I decided to sleep there with my sleeping bag.

It felt nice and windy for a start, but soon the balcony was a bad sleeping place to be at. 'Cos the noise from the traffic (bus, car, trucks, motorbikes la...), handphone ringtones, weird TV noises start to manifest, sometimes directly from the source's direction and sometimes the noise bounced off from the wall next to me leading to think it came from my room (which is next to the wall)

After an hour of struggle, I decided I should stuff myself with food, hopefully to induce sleep (parasympathetic stimulation? lol). So 1 lao po bing, 3 pineapple tarts and 2 mouthfuls of green tea went down the throat. Hopefully I can sleep by 4am, which is 20 mins from now...

Gotta wake up at 830am to practice songs man!

Inspiration & Randy Pausch

2008-07-26T23:02:00.002+08:00

BBC RSS feeds are always providing me with the best headlines of each day and today was exceptionally splendid.

The late Prof Randy Pausch from Carnegie Mellon gave his last lecture and boy it was really inspirational.

He talks about his childhood dreams, obstacles and his fun-filled academic life. Now i'm not really good with words, but you need to watch it to experience this inspiring video instead of this boring synopsis.

And here it is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Enjoy!

_______________________________

Now let me digress to a little chat with my fellow teacher aides.
MF was talking about how the social circle drastically shrinks after undergrad years and why FYP is named as it is.

=> Find Your Partner project.

Cos you ain't gonna have large pools of friends to meet or bump into anymore
The only females you'll see most of the time are those in your lab, if there's any (sorry Physics, lol)
And gosh, you're like ... 25 (for guys... 21 for girls).

Which brings me to the next point/conjecture.... does that explain for the single researchers that I've recently heard about?

Maybe one should consider getting married/attached before embarking for post-grad. lol

When my dad mops the floor...

2008-07-05T14:10:00.002+08:00

When he does it, it's not because he suddenly wants to contribute to the household chore manpower... but we came up with a hypothesis to explain this behaviour.

I just woke up not long ago as I type this post and my dad's mopping inspired this post greatly, of course.

I was sitting on the sofa half awake and I notice why the floor was so wet. Upon seeing me, my dad exhaled loudly through his mouth (pretty usual sighting, maybe to signify it was a tough job) while grabbing a mop and a pail of water.

The floor looked more like there was a water pipe burst rather than someone mopped it. As I walked around, I almost slipped. My dad looked impatient, " *TSK* You know it's wet right? ".
Me : " Eh, u could have made the mop drier before using it right? "
Dad: " You know it's slippery right, then you should have been more careful."

It's somewhat twisted logic to me, cos mum and I squeeze the mop moderately dry before use. Just think of his mop like a dripping mop... Then he proceeds to... mop our HDB common corridor *gasps* That's a freakin dirty place that our lazy block cleaners hardly wash.

Dad carries on with his rant, " U know the floor is so dirty. At night I can see cockroaches, lizards running around. Sometimes I dun feel like sitting on the sofa u know. Last night I also kena bitten by mosquito when I was sleeping. ". To my knowledge, one can safely eat from the floor in my house and we can't breed so many species!

Mosquitoes have very little causal connection with 'dirty' floors and my mum rang me outside the house telling me dad said that mosquitoes came from the air-con duct last night! lol

Oh well, as you can see, when dad mops the floor, as we hypothesized, he is troubled and pissed.

No idea about what's going on though.

He just left the house polite yet grumpy. lol.

Mission-loaded

2008-06-21T21:12:00.003+08:00

After a tiny argument with my mum on my spendings, I've come to a conclusion that practicality needs to take a higher priority in my life again, so I can spend $ on it on things with good value for money.

Sometimes I'm just hoping I can fast-forward my life a little (or have a windfall, nah i don't bet) so that I can start applying for good stipends for my post-grad studies.

Then comes another ticking time-bomb. " Your dad and I are not working, you know. Your dad hardly has business nowadays... ". Hence you can see how important a good stipend is. The stipend will feed my whole family!

I must have been a nonsensical son buying that 500GB HDD cos it's sitting there unactivated. Lol. But i guess backing up my data and misc stuff with that thing is pretty useful. I have also tried justifying my trip to Pulau Besar as a great get-away cos I wanna chill out with the coral reefs for 3D2N.

So what should I do now?

Let's start with daily expenses now...

1. Food

NUS offers good food at really low prices and ich bin dankbar dafür. To make it even better, I should start working out a cheap but nutritious meal plan. Blame it on my metabolic rate but I really need a lot of food per day so I shall try to keep it at ... $6/day.

Tea can be made in the office. Biscuits can be requested to be bought and claimed.

2. Transport

Well, I can't cycle to school everyday can I ? Lol.

Next, the materialistic and gastronomical needs.

Well, I just talked about food, but what about good food? How should I limit it? Maybe just good hawker fare at the moment... no fine-dining whatsoever.

Materials.... I'm not v materialistic as you can see. Don't really need any new tech toy unless something breaks down. Choy.

How do I pump up my income?

1. Spam tuition websites.
2. Moonlight
3. Maybe increase the kid's tuition rates? Just $30 more but well, can have a happier meal.

Alright. I sound like a pauper now, which I can potentially be one.
Press on.

Empty office and alternative channeling of diligence

2008-06-20T15:13:00.006+08:00

The office is really empty now. I think there could only be 3 or 4 people sitting in this ~400 sq m office. Really quiet and bored. The rest of my group have left early so there's really nothing much to do except read journals again and... now calculating my expenses.

Here's a snapshot of what I spent in these 20 days of June.

The first is what I spent including the big ticket items which my mum has been nagging about:

As you can see, my spendings were rather humble except for weekends and farecard top-up days.

Stats: Avg = $25.9 +/- 15.5 ; Median = $5.9.

SD doesn't really make sense for this dataset, just for fun :)

Now let's extract away the expensive things that I bought...
Avg = $11.2 +/- 13.6
Median = $5.9

Next month's goal : Spend $6 per day :)

Wonderful Sat on Ubin!

2008-06-17T10:29:00.021+08:00

Now this post will be complete with pictures for once cos I just uploaded them from my camera and just before i get lazy, i shall utilise them well.

I went with lyon, xiuyun, adam, his mum and uncle (who came here from Tianjin for a 2 week holiday) and we went straight to chek jawa upon touchdown at ubin cos the tide was nearing the lowest. Low tide means lots of stuff to see! But the corals still remain very elusive cos the water wasn't very clear and low.

As we reached chek jawa, we had to park our bikes outside otherwise people might just cycle it on the boardwalk and jam up the place i suppose.

Lyon spotted the 4 or 5-storey high lookout tower and I think I heard his classical comment "Awesome" echoing in his mind lol. Here are some pictures from the tower :

Adam's mum posing by the sea-ward direction (taken on another day)

Fiddler Crabs
Spot the birds and the pink pigeon!
The pink pigeon takes off

Some weird fly that digs into sand

Now it's making a deeper tunnel. Looks like it can challenge the crabs.

Monster Hornet, ready to blast off.

I thought it looked splendid while flying.

Fishies lurking beneath the bridge

Idyllic Lake

Staring at a weird ship, only one was doing it though.

Citycab Bum Boat Driver

BYE! :)

Are you passionate about your work? Are you cheaper than an assay kit?

2008-06-16T22:30:00.007+08:00

Last week I think Dr Ong asked me if I ever felt like giving up during the course of my studies and the answer was definitely yes. And then today I had a chat with my colleague who emphasized the importance of having passion for what one researches on. If passion is lacking, then it's not worth it. An interesting example was a church friend of his who's working at XXXXXX and doing sideline as a stock broker as well. A Ph.D holder too.

So, once again just when I think I'm moving in the direction I desire, I pause for a while to ponder how to take the next few steps of my life. "Don't compare salaries", that's one important thing to bear in mind. For amount of brain juice we put in, I think we don't measure on par with the commercial sectors but we are paid to find questions to interesting questions in life (rather than working on profits) and I still hope it'll serve as the basic motivation in my future career.

Ok update : just found an interesting article on Life Scientist salaries. And I think we are really cheaper than assay kits which can easily cost a few thousand bucks to purchase.

And here are some comments by those who have gone through it... :

Those who suffered:
"We live in a world where 25 year old hedge fund analysts are paid six/seven figure sums for stuff they say is not "rocket science". At 25 I was working 14 hr days in a lab making $17,000 to get my PhD. Talented scientists and people like *********** have let themselves be exploited by the system, working for next-to-nothing for the greater "noble cause". Let me tell you, nobody cares about the Post-doc that worked on the Science or Nature paper.

I went to a top business school and am now working as a Biotechnology analyst at an investment bank. I still love the science and will always be a scientist, but not at the expense of being exploited by the system. "

"I think we need to move past the silly notion that ?passion? should drive the scientist forward. Passion doesn?t pay the bills. This is particularly true when you live in an ?ownership society? such as ours. Letting ?passion? lead every decision that you make could well lead the scientist to the wrong side of the poverty line. These are EXCUSES offered by principle investigators and the higher-ups at the NIH that contributed to the glut of post-docs. They have benefited handsomely from the logjam of post-docs that has resulted by creating high-tech sweat shops. This situation has ruined many a promising career ? when financial reality bumped up against ?passion.? It?s past time to start talking about parity ? if we don?t start we will find that our brain trust has done what I was forced to do ? abandon science for business and a decent income."

Those who loved it:
"I did postdoc for several years and now teach in private university. I thought a postdoc was the worst (job if we call it). Now, I think assistant professor is the worst. But, still happy. Why?
Financially, I am not getting paid what I am worth. However, there are big rewards that students that I taught come back and say thank you years later. My wife working in the biotech industry is getting paid more than twice. I still cherish what I am doing.
In my conclusion, it is a personal choice and preference, driven by education. I never had chances to think about other choices during my education. I do confess that I sometimes long for other professions, but for different reason from finances. My wife, on the other hand, wants to trade all financial compensation for college job.
It's hard to understand both sides at the same time."

Sometimes it would have been better if we didn't progressed so much, I think plucking coconuts for a living is much more fun than sitting in an office. We have to now wake up early, squeeze into the train, get infected by someone sick in the train or infect someone yourself (guilty), run after bus, sit down in office and tap my fingers on the keyboard, eat lunch, work, squeeze into homebound train, speak to your family for less than an hour, sleep and repeat. Maybe I should start planning an emergency exit plan someday.

On Sedentary Lifestyle and Occupational Health

2008-06-13T11:04:00.002+08:00

Well, i'm working in an occupational health department and I think it's pretty relevant to our lives cos as what it is ... we spend most of our time at office. Some even up to 10 or 12 hours. ouch.

Yamapee is quitting officially today and I just read her blog on unhealthy sedentary life. How true! One of my colleague is trying to work out a healthy lifestyle in the department by getting volunteers to climb stairs and making the stairway more enticing and attractive to climb. Pretty nice idea. The stairway is pretty stuffy and quiet *echo*, i wonder how it'll change in July. (Update : They just installed fluorescent tubes in addition to the natural sunlight. So it's quite snow bright now. :) )

After a day's work, we'll probably spend some time eating dinner and watching TV/surfing net/MSN. After that we'll sleep for another 7 hours or so. Some even shorter (which seems to be prevalent *gasps*)

So how much can one exercise/walk in a day? :)

Some call NUS the University of Stairs, which I think could be pretty good in getting our quads and calf muscles working! Of which I think the mega flight of stairs at the Sheares side of Biz takes top place.

An update of my life

2008-06-10T15:45:00.003+08:00

Hello you!

It's been about 1 month plus since I started working at COFM (which stands for Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine) and it's a very pleasant place to work I muss say.

Whenever I go for lunch breaks and all, I'll bump into friends and they'll ask the same questions like, " Eh u come back for what? "

My answer would be " Oh, i'm working in the lab. "

It would be followed with certainty by " Where ? Which lab? "

I would say, " COFM. Ok it's a really long name to explain to you. It's called Community, Occupational and Family Medicine. "

*sympathetic look*

Basically now I'm planning a project with 2 poly interns and piecing up all the logistics and experimental details. The study is on the 24-hr rhythm of salivary antioxidants and we need your saliva. Interested? SMS or MSN me. :)

Other than that I'm trying hard to piece another jigsaw puzzle called the review paper which I think I'm a little too noob to be writing it. Seriously doubt I can finish before term starts. heh.

I wonder if I can cycle to work one day, my mum is utterly frightful that I'll die on my way to work or back home. But why cycle? Cos I don't like to get caught in a traffic gridlock when i'm on a bus. In the case of the latter, I can weave through the poor stuck cars easier than a motorbike and get to my destination quicker. It's also good workout before and after work!

Recently I've also contemplated on changing my 6 months old wheels for a slicker pair of touring bike wheels. This means that I can increase my traveling speed from 25-30km/h to 40km/h or even more! But it'll be quite a waste of a good pair of tires too.

My friend who's in Germany now didn't manage to get the Wise Guys CD so I've tried emailing dear Frau Verry if she can lend me hers (if she has). I haven't gotten round to confirm all the Germany modules with the UniHD lecturers. Some don't reply me at all..... but some do. We'll see. How about YOU ? :)

Ok that should be all for today. 2 hours till knockoff and bus-squeezing.

Der letzte Tag vierter Semesters

2008-04-20T00:14:00.003+08:00

Hallo. Die Zeit vergeht wirklich wie im Flug. 3 mehr Wochen werde ich mein viertes Semester absolviert und mit meinem Praktikum bei COFM anfangen. Gestern war ich überrascht, dass Herr Chan mir einen schönen, begeisternd Zettel geschrieben. Ich bin dankbar dafür, weil ich glaube, dass der Zettel eine große Anerkennung ist.

Gestern war auch ein besonderer Unterricht, weil es für vielen den letzten Deutsch Unterricht bei CLS wäre. Viele Kommilitonen verbringen im nächsten Semester ihren Europa Austausch, deswegen werden viele Freunde abwesend, die ich auf Deutsch unterhalten kann.

Bei Arts Canteen gestern war auch eine Mischung von der Nostalgie des Deutsch Unterrichts and Sehnsucht nach Deutschland und in die Schweiz. Manche haben die Vergangenheit ins Gedächtnis geruft, wie unsere Deutsch Unterrichten war.

Von "Kinder ohne Vorkenntnis" bis zum Survivor of German for Academic Purposes. Ich glaube, wir können auf dies stolz sein!

Höffentlich kann ich nächtes Semester German 5 besuchen und unsere Kommilitonen noch mal treffen. Bis Bald! :)

Der Seemann, der hat kein Zuhaus.

2008-04-06T21:39:00.005+08:00

Hallo meine lieblings,

Heute empfehle ich euch eines lustiges Lied mit Englischen Uebersetzung!
Hope my translations are correct and hope ya enjoy it :)

Schau mal an!

Musik & Text: Daniel "Dän" Dickopf
Leadstimme: Ferenc

Liebling, ich muss es dir sagen,
Darling, I need to tell you about it

und fällt es mir auch noch so schwer:
and it's still hard for me:

Es packt mich schon seit ein paar Tagen
Since a few days back, it has gotten into me

die Sehnsucht nach Stürmen und Meer.
The yearning to go forth to the storms and sea.

Liebling, ich hab dir versprochen,
Darling, I've promised you

noch lange bei dir zu verweilen.
to stay around you for a little longer

Doch bald wär mein Herz hier zerbrochen.
But soon here my heart would be broken

Mein Schiff ruft! Ich muss mich beeilen.
My ship beckons! I have to go.

Ich würd ja so gern bei dir bleiben,
I would love to stay here with you,

doch der Wind ruft mich mit Macht hinaus.
But the wind calls out with force.

Wenn die Zeit reicht, dann werd ich dir schreiben,
When the time is right, I'll write to you

doch ein Seemann, der hat kein Zuhaus,
Oh a sailor that has no home

ja, ein Seemann, der hat kein Zuhaus.
Ya a sailor that has no home

Liebling, in all diesen Jahren
Darling, in all these years

gehörte mein Leben dem Boot.
my life belonged to this boat.

Spür ich nicht den Wind in den Haaren,
When I don't feel the wind in my hair (audience laughs cos he has no (little) hair? lol)

dann fühl ich mich fast so wie tot.
then I'll feel like I'm dead

Zum vollkommnen irdischen Glücke
Even with perfect worldly luck

wirst du mir trotzdem stets fehlen.
you would always be missing from me.

Doch ich will an Bord auf die Brücke.
However I want to be on board, on the bridge

Wir sind zwei gebeutelte Seelen.
We are two troubled souls.

Ich würd ja so gern bei dir bleiben...

Mein Job ist für mich eine Ehre,
My job is for me, a great priviledge.

Verpflichtung und mein Lebenswerk.
My duty and my life's work.

Wer sonst bringt die Rhein-Autofähre
Who else drives the "Rhein (A river) Ferry"

von Niederdollendorf nach Godesberg?
From Niederdollendorf to Gobesberg?

Ich würd ja so gern bei dir bleiben...

Mein Zimmer ist so heißt, dass ich nicht schlafen kann

2008-02-23T03:08:00.002+08:00

It's been around for a few days. Sometimes it's irritating. But I can't turn on the air-con, just in case i wake my parents up or heat them up with the condenser's 'exhaust' (coincidentally, their room gets the condenser's 'steam' when the air-con is running)

Worüber ärgere ich mich?

2008-02-06T13:38:00.000+08:00

Darüber! ---->

Das ärgert mich sehr sehr sehr, weil ihre Englisch nicht gut als unsere ist!
Warum kritisieren sie über unsere Englisch? Ich weiß nicht, aber das ist total dumm!
Es gibt zwei Hauptformen der Englisch Sprache : Americanisches und Großbritannisches Englisch
Wissen sie dass, Singapurer normaleweisse Singapurisches Englisch (mit ein bisschen Großbritannisches Englisch Intonation) sprechen?

Dumm.

Fahrrad Überdosis

2008-02-02T17:24:00.000+08:00

Hallo mein lieblingleser,

Ich bin mit meinem Fahrrad zu viel gefahren. So now I'm beginning to feel day-long sores on my thighs and knees. But! My speed and stamina has risen considerably, of which today it only took me about 20 mins to reach ECP! (Now that's faster than if I were to take the MRT and bus)

My grand plan alongside with the big park connector plan is to be able to cycle to work next time using park connectors or safer routes. It's definitely much more economical and healthier!

Some statistics (not really stats):

Bought bike : 9th Jan 2008
Mileage as of today : 346.6km
Top Speed : 41.1km/h (it was on a downhill slope, so well, maybe it's cheating hahaha)

Ok, enuff of self-indulging. Hahaha. Tschuess.

Der erste Post des Jahr 2008!

2008-01-18T00:08:00.000+08:00

Hallo meine Freunde!

Später werde ich meinen Deutschen Unterrichten anfangen, also wird es schön, dass der erste Post auf Deutsch ist? Heh.

Dieses Semester ist sehr 'slack'. Die meisten Unterrichten fangen um 4 Uhr an, deshalb es fühlt noch wie Ferien. Ich bin gerade mit mein Fahrrad an der Uni gefahren. Es war so schnell, dass es schwer zu bremsen war.

Im diesem Semester könnte der Deutsche Unterricht den letzten des Jahres sein, weil im Semester 08/09 leider ich keine Zeit habe. Die Zukunft wird nicht so sicher sein als ich alter und alter sein. Als ich alter bin, muss ich viele Entscheidung treffen. Es sieht ein bisschen schwer aus.

Okie. I'm watching some war film between Americans and Germans on RTM2. lol.
Tschuess.

Nachrichten!

2007-12-25T22:46:00.000+08:00

Just saw on the news that Bisphenol A might be released from N*lgen* bottles and as such it might pose health risks to consumers.

Was ist Bisphenol A ?

->It is a monomer of some polycarbonate materials that might be released upon hydrolysis of the polycarbonate.

What's the big deal ?

Bisphenol A can activate estrogen receptors in your body, leading to similar effects that estrogen elicits. (Will i grow boobs?)

Well, I think as long as I didn't use too much hot water in my bottle back in NS, the hydrolysis rate (thus amt leached out) would be quite minimal. I do change my water everyday~!

Anyway, ever since I lost that bottle of mine, I never bothered to get another expensive bottle just to lose it. I use green tea bottles everyday. Heh.

If you're interested in the effects of bisphenol A exposure, you can click here.

All in all, it has been a tiring holiday especially with wisdom tooth(ache), i feel another coming soon also. Scheiße! lol

Der Urlaub

2007-12-22T00:28:00.000+08:00

Mein Urlaub ist fast vorbei. Ungefähr 20 Tage und beginnt noch ein Semester. Zur zeit, dieser Urlaub war zu beschäftigt und ermüdend. Nach dem Exam habe ich gearbeitet und Sweat! camp teilgenommen. Nach Sweat! Camp habe ich gerade bis heute gearbeitet. Außdem, in letzter Zeit war ich ein paar Male krank. Jetzt habe ich Zahnschmerzen, weil meinen Weisheitszahn (Wisdom Tooth) sich die Welt sehen will (lol anyhow smoke).

Ok. Lately I've been really shagged and tired. As they say in Chinese, jin bi li jing and ji lao cheng ji.
So various forms of mild ailments have popped up with the most recent and incredible addition of a wisdom tooth eruption. Sigh. Hope it buries itself back like the rest. Come out for a while and hide again. HAhaha.

Tschuess.

2 more weeks to exams

2007-11-11T01:22:00.000+08:00

Actually it feels like exams already, everyday i'm battling more and more work, problematic lab work. Next week I need to hand in a 50% lab report, have 20% metabolism test and german semester test. I think I'll just chill from thurs night to friday night. Really need a goooooooood break. HAhahahaa.

I remembered in sec 2, someone asked the teacher why condoms are flavoured. The teacher never replied.

Today I've learnt several revolutionary uses of flavoured condoms. Firstly, as it has flavour, it is possible for one to have aromatherapy with it. Next, one can catch a cockroach with it as it has nice flavours, thus it is possible to entrap the cockroach within the latex sheath and disposing it cleanly by tying a knot at the condom's end.

And so the mystery persists. HAHahhaa.

1.5 Jahre vorbei.

2007-11-04T01:28:00.000+08:00

Eben habe ich mit Grace unterhaltet, dann habe ich plotzlich gefunden, dass 1.5 Jahre wirklich vorbei gegangen ist. Sie sagte, dass sie 1.5 Jahre mehr zu studieren. Das ist wirklich kurz. Wir fangen unseres Uni Leben als Freshmen an, heute sind wir in der Mittel unseres Uni-Lebens. Ein paar Jahr später, vielleicht sie heiraten wird.

Some say we're postponing our life by 3 to 4 years in Uni. Uni's a great place to stay in, but sadly it's not for an indefinite period of time. Sooner or later, you'll need to graduate and support the family.

If one does his Masters or Ph.D, that's a further postponement. lol.

So how shall we seize the day? =)

Singapurische Kultur

2007-10-29T19:17:00.000+08:00

Heute hat meine Lehrerin im Unterrricht über eine Deutsche Hochzeitsparty gesagt. Sie sagte, dass die Deutschen zusammen tanzen und trinken. Ein paar flaschen Bier wird die Mehrheit freundicher sein. Meine Lehrerin sagte weiter, dass es einmal war, als sie bei einer Hochzeitsparty war, lernte sie niemand kennen. Warum? Weil die Leute sich nicht vorstellen.

Ich glaube auch. Gestern Abend war ich bei meine Freundins 21st Geburstagsparty und ich kennte nur meine Freunde aus meinem Bekanntenkreis. Die andere Leute lernte ich nicht kennen. Zwar ist es langweilig, aber es ist typisch in Singapur. Wenn eine Party, Hochzeitsparty usw. anfängt, wird man wahrscheinlich nur mit seiner Freunde sitzen. Ich glaube, dass wir in Singapur "Ice-Breaker" Spiel spielen können, damit man nicht langweile haben wird.

Gestern Abend war nicht so langweilig für mich, weil Jiamin und ich zusammen gesungen hat und das macht viel viel viel Spaß! Heute singe ich noch "I'm Yours" von der Party.

Ok. That's all. Just thought blogging in german in a lengthier post would be good to STRENGTHEN my german feel for the german language, of which i need it strongly for my german oral exam. lol. :)

Anschaulichkeit

2007-09-15T13:49:00.000+08:00

I just bought this book " Introducing Quantum Theory " and it's gotten me immersed in the thrilling discovery of more and more 'quantum weirdness'. Now I know the difference between classical physics and quantum physics and how some loathe quantum. It's a different type of narration in this book, they took the comic book format and delivered the ideas pretty well.

It makes me want to study Quantum Physics, but however due to my mathematical language barrier, I don't think I'll wanna get entangled with it. But there's one thing I hope Life Sciences would be : To be as predictive as how Physics has been.

Physics is full of formulas but they are pretty powerful in terms of prediction, while in biological sciences, I feel it's more of extraction, insertion and let's watch what happens. It's pretty endless I'd say - so many species, so many genotypes!

But then again I hope that enzymes structures can be elucidated with just a few formulas in future. I'm falling in love with enzymes lately. Heh.

Bis Bald.

Maybe I can up my mathematical prowess in the German Vaterland of Physics! =)

Drawing blood from mice

2007-09-12T19:19:00.000+08:00

Today i was quite deeply disturbed when I heard one of the ways to draw blood from mice was to withdraw from its EYES. I was like OMG, that's bloody inhumane. I came back and searched info on it and yes, there's such a technique.

At first impression, you'll probably think of poking the eyes with a capillary tube or something. Turns out that blood is drawn from orbital sinus instead, but the risk of injuring the eyes are still very high! From what I read it isn't really a much advocated technique (really disturbing, i feel).

If you all wanna have a read, here it is : http://www.umic.sunysb.edu/newitems/mouseblood.pdf

This : http://www.medipoint.com/html/animal_lancets.html on the other hand, looks slightly better.

Geez. I guess I'll stick to microbes and fungi next time. Heh.

Of my new Semester

2007-08-16T22:56:00.001+08:00

I don't mind staying back late till 8pm
I don't mind having 3 lects per week

'Cos I think Experimental Biochemistry is very fun and interesting!

I'm really looking forward to my practicals! :)

Of high fever.

2007-06-27T13:05:00.000+08:00

I have finally recovered from a high fever of 39-40°C which lasted for 2 full days.
During this period my mum tried to cool me down by kiapping my armpits with cloth soaked in ice water, laid the same thing on my forehead, neck and chest but to no avail.
Took the usual sure-work chinese medicine, didn't work.
Took antibiotics, got worse.
Then Panadol extra was quite good. Though it kicked in only after 2 hours or so.
The first day was shitty, felt quite incapacitated though i could still joke around with people.
Second day i had a jab with something i don't know. Felt better in the afternoon, but in the evening when i took the antibiotics, somehow my temp started shooting up to 39 and stayed there till 1 am or so. I had to cool myself down in the shower for 15 minutes to go back to 37. And the water dripping down to my feet was warm. Quite a water heater eh.

After shower, i desperately searched mayoclinic for some life saving advice. Then it said that the body temp is set by the hypothalamus and since it set much higher now, i will tend to shiver and wrap myself with a blanket to reach that set-pt. Pretty true.
Then the reason being that some virus and bacteria are more vulnerable at higher temperatures so it's easier to kill them. So i did wrap myself, lightly. I didn't want my brain to burn.

And voila, at 1 am i was cool and back at 36.3! (or was it at 7am)

Then today i went back for the second jab on my left butt. Man, the needle was huge. I just shut my eyes and held my breath while she jabbed my butt. I had trouble getting off the bed even after massaging the injection site to disperse the medicine.

This time i think i noted the medicine, but they could have changed it. Cefoxin - for Cephalosporins, mix with Lidocaine HCl (anaesthetic). Then i saw the bad news on the instructions : " Inject DEEPLY into the GLUTEAL REGION ". Right now i still can't walk properly. I think it's because my butt has no fat so it all went straight to the deepest end of the muscle or hit the bones. lol

Anyway during the fever, i think i hallucinated abit. I felt that i was spilt into 2. Weird.
Then now the only problem left is that i have tonsillitis again.......
My palatine tonsils are swollen so i can't swallow well and without pain. It hurts even swallowing room temp porridge. =\

Direct your loving kindness to me, in hope that i recover speedily. =D

Tschuess.

The busy me!

2007-06-23T01:03:00.000+08:00

Hallo lieber Blog.

Ok I can finally rest cos I have no more work till early July.
This CC workshop job seems to be better cos this time i had more friends joining me in discussing and sharing tips on how to handle kids. So! it was a much more enriching experience, learning how to counteract their cute nonsensical monkey antics.

Now i can finally have a breather and play, slack without guilt.

Next week will be SCAMP, hope it'll turn out well. =)

I've also written in to a prof doing work on magnetic bacteria, hoping that i could help out and learn more practical knowledge. Magnetic bacteria sounds cool ain't it? =)

OK till next time.

The Stillness of the Night

2007-05-29T01:54:00.001+08:00

When it's late and quiet, I can hear the ticking of my alarm clock which sometimes prevents me from sleeping. Then I proceed to swirl my automatic watch to hear the swirling of the weight inside it, I'm still very impressed by the architecture of an automatic watch.

I woke up cos I wanted to videojug how to make a proper spaghetti meal cos I have a half-jar of Prego Traditional Sauce waiting to be devoured before it turns bad.

The news reported bad stuff about Sodium Benzoate. It's everywhere. No wonder we are getting sick. What else do we need to be wary about? Should I go all natural? The latter is probably impossible in Singapore unless I own a farm.

Hmm what else have I been thinking about....

What is the right justifiable amount of effort put into earning money right now at this stage of life? I think I'm lazy to work which is bad bad bad. hahaha. Oh well, but an empty wallet is motivating enough.

Oh yes, I dreamt of trying to converse in german. I must find germans to converse with, man. Time to revise my phonetics in german and get ready to fake a german accent! woohoo!

Ok das ist alles.
Tschuess.

Of what's to come.

2007-05-26T01:03:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow the results will be out. Hope they don't suck! Please!

Anyway, the near future (June) sets to look pretty good. I'm going for the briefing on the job for teaching june holiday workshops. I got a feeling I'll be still doing this job till year 4. Hahahaha. Well, the pay is really much better. =)

Then I'll be going for an interview on Monday for NUS Commencement ushering job. Hope it turns out well too. Gonna try out the leader role! Cool. =)

And I'm hoping to receive a postcard from Charmaine who's in Deutschland right now.
Now that's my first postcard from Germany! =)

I realised I ended every paragraph with a =)
Guess I feel pretty happy today! =DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

I feel improved!

2007-05-19T19:12:00.000+08:00

Ah. What a refreshing 4 days from my normal life.
I've never shopped so much before.
Never had so much fun in a long time.
Fell in love with Yuen Yong drink.
Never explored so much of HK in 4 days.
My mind feels lighter and clearer.
I finally feel lightened and chilled.
I feel more decisive.

Ready to take on the world. lol

Ngor Fan Lei Lah!

2007-05-19T02:18:00.000+08:00

This trip was a crazy and tiring trip. And I'm starting to like HK for its cheap and good food and clothing! I can't imagine the amount I bought. It's astounding and so un-shaomin. lol

At first it was danvin who was the mad man buying loads of stuffs, then me and joe were like maids carrying stuff around HK. On the 3rd day, suddenly I bought a lot, a lot. I had to pass some stuff to samuel uncle to carry back to sg.

I'm tired at this wee hour.

In all, HK is not 买东西, 吃东西. But.........买东西, 扛(gang1)东西!!!

Quirky Blogger

2007-05-12T22:34:00.000+08:00

I finally found a way to work round some blogging problem I'm having. Cos everytime i come in to blog, i see a normal-looking blogging page which soon turns into a brown mess with seemingly nowhere for me to type my entry.

Ok! I finally caught up with the frontiers of Heroes. I finished watching episode 21! yay!

Next, I've ruminating about my future finances ever since someone popped out of the blue to offer some word on financial planning. After some rounds of enticements and fears about the future just reading banking, insurance websites : I've decided that it's still best to be working hard for my future. Putting in my utmost efforts in pursuing my dream career as a Scientist.

My friend was telling me that insurance would come handy especially in times of really awful medical crisis in the family. That I wouldn't deny. But I need time to figure out all the stuff and get the whole picture.

Right now in this 3 months hiatus I shall blog my plans.

1. Study Immunology for the next few weeks
2. Ear-training for chords
3. SEP-planning : modules, finance, location
4. Make a big kite
5. Work in June. Try not to slack this time. Heh.
6. Read up on Bioinformatics
7. Remember that I'm flying off soon and I need to pack my bags!
8. Make a list of stuff to buy in HK!
9. Approach neighbour for tuition.
10. Wake up early. Sleep early. Healthy Living. Gesundheit!
11. And of course, learn some german.

And Shan is right, I need versatility in my abilities. =)

Exam Eve

2007-04-22T13:07:00.000+08:00

Guten Tag, here I am sick. But no whining, cos paradoxically, I feel more concentrated . Haha.
Anyway I realised that some people around me have managed to apply to leave their faculty to go places like Law and Medicine in time. It was quite sickening to know that I missed the deadline by 1 month because it was during the time-starved study week 2 months back.
I seriously doubt I'll apply for Medicine next year. Gosh, how old will i be then? lol

I shall just continuing bumming on this creaky wagon that everyone's trying to escape as they heard the last stop is quite a shitty place.

Personally I love biological and organic molecules as well as having a chance to learn German. Can Medicine offer that to me?

Between a stable future and earnestly pursuing one's own passion and interests, how many people are studying something just for a better pay?

I better stop sounding too noble. I might end up nowhere 3 years later. lol.

Meanwhile, all hail Biopolis, hope it can deliver us to the promised land. =D

Sad Singapore?

2007-04-13T14:29:00.000+08:00

My MSN list of nicks are often within the range of ok-mood to pessimistic-emo moods. Which sort of tells me my friends are under constant moodiness. I even saw a nick saying " I recommend suicide ".

Back to my german paper, but for a objective view on its passage. The cloze-text was saying that the average German has 80 hours of free time per week. Some people might have free-time stress cos they either don't know what to do since there's so many things and activities to take up OR they have too much activities engulfing them.

How much free time does an average Singaporean have?

I can't speak for the large population. But I'll just sample myself and do a bad extrapolation.

First of all I need to figure out what "free-time" means? Sleep included?

80 Stunden pro Woche
Germans have a shiok empty weekend so that's = 48 hours.
Assume they work 8 to 5 pm daily and sleep at 12 that's = 5 X 7 = 35 hours.
That's 83 hours. But I still can't comprehend why I need to take the weekend as 48 hours to get close to 80 hours.

Then let's assume they wake up at 10 am, sleep at 12pm. => 14 hours X 2 = 28 hours on weekend.

Then maybe they work 10 to 5 pm => 35 + 5(2) = 45 hrs.
45 + 28 = 73 hrs. Ok. not so bad.

Back to my life.

Monday : Lessons 12 - 6 pm. Free-time = 9 hours (wake up 10 am, sleep 1 am)
Tuesday: Lessons 10 - 8pm (pretty sad). Free-time = 6 hours
Wed : Lessons 1 - 4 pm (great!) Free time = 12 hours
Thurs : Lessons 9 - 8 pm (misery) Free time = 6.5 hours
Fri : Lessons 2 - 6 pm (alt. week no sch) Free time = 11 hours or 15 hours
Sat & Sun : 30 hours.

Grand total : 65.5 + 11 or 15 = 76.5 or 80.5 hrs

But whether I enjoy myself within these 80.5 hours or not is another question.
If on average I mug 4 hours on weekdays and 6 on weekends then => 80.5 becomes 48.5 hours.
but then again experiences tells me that only after major tests do we really feel that free leisure time exists.

We are weird, I think. After exams we'll probably whine about having nothing to do.

what are our expectations exactly?

At the pit of mental will and energy.

2007-04-13T12:13:00.000+08:00

I rose up from bed this morning/afternoon (close to 12noon) to find myself having weak limbs and a sore torso. Even after breakfast I still felt lethargic. Spoke to my mum about how I feel this time about the exams. That I'll not do as well as before.
I should not be overly stressed she said. Which I think sounds pretty true.

Right now I'm just still a little sad over my german results. Sad that I probably can't maintain my grades for german anymore. Regretfully, I regurgitated out the thought of not going for germany immersion and boy it feels kinda sourishly bad. I betta maximise my HK stay after exams. Maybe even stay longer to feel the local culture properly.

I also hope that she will not simply go/look offline so quickly.

I hope I'll get out of this loserish cycle quick and resume the normal self.

I need an optimistic read somewhere, somehow.

Pitfalls on beliefs

2007-04-03T22:17:00.000+08:00

One of my problems in reading philosophy is that I tend to adhere to philosophies I find true to Life. But I should just read more philosophers' work and not get tied down to one's single work. Am I turning pessimistic like dear Schopenhauer? If such, perhaps I might even doubt the idea of a marriage.

What is the zest of Life? Should we even have it?

Recent events have somewhat stirred my conviction that hard work will always bring me through.
Either I need to push myself even harder or maybe I should resignate myself to my depressed mind state.

Maybe I equate my studies too strongly to the foundations of my future life, such that even a single crack in the pillars makes my sirens run wild.

Where has my confidence gone?

But I should always remind myself that I'm the unlimited, undepletable source of my own confidence.

It can be done.

Thoughts of the day and a few days back.

2007-03-25T00:15:00.000+08:00

Why do we have bus seats that don't adequately cover an average butt size?
MRT seats too. Singaporeans have grown their butts.

Why the OAS in school needs to be shaded with full precision and intensity whereas punters at 4D outlet just scribble their boxes with ink?

That there is a trend for people to make retarded faces while taking photos. It was standing at "Attention!" in the past. We never really improved i guess. Or maybe we hardly make good photo models. =)

That after taking a language module, I start questioning the grammar structure that I'm currently using.

That expensive confectionery =/= good tasting

That a C+ can devastate 2 days of my life.

From doing surveys of friends, do we have a national identity?

I'm so screwed. lol Back to setting my record of speed essay writing.

Auf Wiedersehen. Bis naehste mal.

Peaceful Weekend

2007-03-12T01:04:00.000+08:00

Weekends always fly by very quickly.
It's an hour into Monday already.

It has been a weekend devoid of schoolwork. very nice! =)

And instead been one full of philosophy and joy of watching a child grow.

To avoid sounding like a parent, i'm just talking about adam again.

I think it's very priviledged for me to be able to the one next to him teaching him swimming and how to cycle. Hug him when he cries. Terrorize him when he gets naughty and haughty.

Under the warm tablelamp, surrounded by Cai Cun Jia's lovely-inspiring songs, he curls on the bed sucking his milkbottle while his mum pats him ever-patiently to sleep. This form of love ever so inspiring and self-less. And looking at him, we don't know what will ever be of him. Will he come to be a learned and wise person? What will he do in future? How will his primary 1 life be like? Will he be able to defend himself once he's out of this comfort nest?
The future is always as mystic and promising as we pat his butt to sleep, thinking about his possibilities in Life.

A weekend without work should be an energising one. For once walking and shopping in a mall felt right and good.

Back to resoluteness. =)

Key pts of Life

2007-03-11T23:19:00.000+08:00

From Epicurus : To be happy, you should have the following:

1. Friendship
2. Freedom
3. Thought

From Montaigne:

I gladly come back to the theme of the absurdity of our education: its end has not been to make us good and wise, but learned. And it has succeeded. It has not taught us to seek virtue and to embrace wisdom: it has impressed upon us their derivation and their etymology....
We readily inquire, 'Does he know Greek or Latin?' , 'Can he write poetry and prose?' But what matters most is what we put last: 'Has he become better and wiser?' We ought to find out not who understands most but who understands best. We work merely to fill the memory, leaving the understanding and the sense of right and wrong empty.

Discontentment

2007-03-06T00:52:00.000+08:00

Today's been a day of discontentment.
Not that I've been grouchy and discontented, but that people around me have some discontentment.
After tests.................. some start worrying how they'll stand on the evil bell curve after trying to solve the statistical bell curves back in the LT test.
After results are out...... some have to contend with the fact that 75/100 is actually a D not an A.
Relationship-wise, some fall to the pit after learning that all these while, the care and love was never reciprocated. (not me, don't worry 'bout it)

Bell curve serves to segregate us. We no like.
Dreams fall apart at times. But not necessarily gone.

Beginning to learn why music and drinks go together. Cos at the moment, all's attuned to being beautiful and smooth.

P.S. I'm not an advocate of drinking till loss of inhibition. =)

Measure of a man

2007-03-04T20:40:00.000+08:00

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.: Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

I was thinking along the lines of how recruitment criteria should be like.
Critical thinking, morality and integrity probably sums it up. Not/not just certs.

Hokay, back to my statistics. Heteroschedasticity is quite a tongue-twister and it sounds like a german word again. Heh.

What I wanna be too

2007-02-26T01:31:00.000+08:00

I was playing my guitar as usual today and just felt like telling mum what I had on my mind

"Eh, i'm going to learn guitar in some music sch this coming holiday leh. "
"Hmm ok loh."
"You not complaining meh?"
"Aiya, holiday go and play mah."
"I need to spend some money also mah."
"A bit only..."
"Actually, I wanna learn how to compose my own music that's why i'm going to music sch"
"Wahhhhh...... sure or not.... then next time cut your own album ah?"
" no la, just learn, maybe next time i'm good enough to perform at gigs, then have extra pocket money. "
" oh ok la, not bad. "

Pretty encouraging. Hahaha.

About Oppression

2007-02-25T20:16:00.000+08:00

Serious topic thought about in the shower.

Just a brief random thought anyway.

What are locals oppressed by?

Nah I don't know. But something along the lines that I thought of was that many people are entangled in this knowledge race and many schools, bogus or not have been propagating pretty well here.

Lower educated people find it hard to get a good paying job
Lower educated people who are old end up doing jobs that are not suitable for their age such as cleaning for say 8 hrs a day, driving taxis for long hours.

There's this little old lady cleaning the library block. Sometimes it pains me to see her cleaning, dragging trash out everyday. And it's done solo and probably a solitary job done for most of a working day.
Social life shrinks as we age I suppose, compounded by her lack of social interaction in her job. She sees plenty of people each day - in the lifts, on library and ground floors, but I guess very very few would even bother to smile at her. I certainly hope my mum won't fall into the same fate as her and I hope we'll see lesser of these in SG. My mum's fingernailbed infection from her last childcare job pains me enough already.

I'm no expert on management issues and stuff but I think something should be done to pepper up low wage workers' life. Going back to the little hideout underneath the staircase to chat with other co-workers seems pretty sad.

On the other hand I think the school security team seems to have a much better time. Sitting on bikes patrolling, sitting in an air-con room monitoring threats (though if a threat comes, there's nothing much they can do except dial 999). Therefore a sweeping conclusion here would be that comfortable working environment is important.

Opportunities to socialise is also important. Some cleaners are talkative, some are not; but I guess those who express themselves often have a much brighter life.

I remember a career talk held back in JC.

"......hope you guys will go back and think about your future. For me, this is my future already, I'm here teaching you all. "

Or does it mean "there goes my search for a 'future'"?

Increasingly, I begin to define "future" as a state of uncertainty with an optimistic outlook.

So it's like when you land a job, your "future" kinda pauses or might unfortunately end depending on you and your situational circumstances.

So the proposed model is this :

School (hope) -------"FUTURE"-------> Job (might be a wall)

I hope the future also belongs to the cleaners. Human beings deserve more than just sweeping floors and clearing trash.

On Philip Yeo

2007-02-24T00:56:00.001+08:00

This was something Philip Yeo supposedly commented somewhere on the internet :

A very self-important university freshman attending a recent football game, took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation.

“You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one,” the student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear. “The young people of today grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, man walking on the moon, our spaceships have visited Mars. We have nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, computers with light-speed processing and…,” pausing to take another drink of beer.

The Senior took advantage of the break in the student’s litany and said,

“You’re right, son. We didn’t have those things when we were young…..so we invented them. Now, you arrogant little XXXX, what are you doing for the next generation?”

Sometimes I like him. =)

compositions

2007-02-22T15:10:00.000+08:00

last night was pretty satisfying
i managed to compose a verse and a chorus on my own
the tune was pretty nice (in my opinion) but penning lyrics proved a little more difficult
the humming of how my would-be lyrics was just simply natural when i went ahead strumming
but...... i still have a long way to go.

Hope i get more creative tonight. =)

New Year Resolution

2007-02-17T12:57:00.000+08:00

This is the first time I felt compelled to have a true resolution after reading a webpage given by Kenny.

There's so much more to life.

So I must set my philosophies and directions right in order not to miss them.

Not in any order, just how the ideas flowed in.

1. To look at someone in the eye when talking to them
- I guess I'm missing out a lot when I just steer away cos I find it stressful to look at people in eye, guy or not.

2. To remove my remnant holier-than-thou attitude
- hopefully most of you have not sensed it, but I'm still a little arrogant deep inside

3. To express my feelings honestly
- so that I'll not miss out on greater things in life

4. To expunge NS-speak and persona
- to be more pleasant to the ears

5. To not shy away too much
- to take things easy at times

Axiom : All our actions are intended to lead to Happiness.
Philosophy : To look at Life honestly and understand it to achieve the ultimate goal of happiness.

6. To sleep earlier
- cos I have a huge sleeping debt to clear since NS
- cos my peers can't sleep early
- to change the world, start from myself, let's see if it's true

7. To treat my parents better
- one of the better ways to express my love for them
- i don't abuse my parents by the way =D

8. To up my guitar skills after my exams
- probably gonna learn under Ernest

9. To evangelise all XP and Vista users to Mac
- Mac is a superior system!
- I'm another hardcore Mac fan. Not.

10. Learn more accents
- gotta fully utilise my vocal cords!

Now I can press on with unchained feet. =)

Epic Movie

2007-02-17T11:28:00.000+08:00

it's pretty ironic that I watched this show for borat but turns out he came out at the last 30 seconds to just say " Jagsemash, you make-a very nai-ce happy yending fur diese show. Greattt Successs! ".

And out of the many spoofs, i only watched DaVinci and Borat before. Gnarnia, Willy Wonka, X-men(ok, this one i know), Kumar and White Castle were just pretty vague ideas i've got thru watching trailers.

I roamed the streets with tim and kelly finding wee hour supper. We went to Kopitiam near SMU which was boring and empty, then to a muslim stall that was flooded and under-manned, then to Hawa which was unfortunately closed. Finally we clocked probably around 1.5km when we desperately went to Bugis Macs.

My bedsheets were undone when I reached home but i was too tired and just spreaded my blanket over and slept, without showering (just to emphasise how tired i am). I feeel a little bit of sore throat coming up, hope it heals today! Pls dun stretch into CNY! =)

This recesss week was set at the wrong time, seriously. How am I going to study so many subjects when it's CNY? my e-commerce is still on the rocks and it's CNY, i'll be like so absent-minded that i'll forget to S/U it. But i hope i dun need to!

Ok Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!

Frustrated

2007-02-15T21:53:00.000+08:00

I don't like V-day, I feel daunted by it.
To top it up, friends have been telling me to go for it
I really don't think I stand much of a chance
I literally grow weak when I see her.

There are 3 paths that I thought of

1. Go for it
2. Substitute that thought with other form of worldly pursuits
3. Abandon all

Home Ideas

2007-02-04T13:49:00.000+08:00

After forgetting my german uni choices, i realised i could recover those info from my blog, hence i'm going write down some of my ideas here lest i forget again.

I was visiting the phylogenetic garden on my own sometime back and i saw this pot of aquatic plants with small fishies inside. So i think it's pretty nice to have my own symbiotic pot of plants and fishes to complement my mini garden.

I've got quite some sun here so algae growth should be stupendous and they'll be food for the fishes while they and plants settle the shit of fishies. Baby fish frys should be able to thrive here since i do not intend to use any filtration system here.

Now... to look for an arty farty pot. =)

SEP shat

2007-02-02T10:39:00.000+08:00

Clare told me Ben's nick was SEP = Seeing Extra Problems
Very true!

It isn't that bad honestly, just that I have to learn to translate german webpages on my own, sometimes thru Google translator (hoping I get a perfect translation, most of the time it' s 80% so not bad!)

XQ and some people have told me how curt a reply they have gotten back from the admin side regarding their application.

Ok, that's the end of the first pessimistic prelude.

Now after I hopefully finish this module mapping shat, I hope to sit down and read thru my IT1004 and do a little of my presentation. Maybe touch on Bio-D cos I seriously haven't read thru anything since day1. Mug for my series of german tests. Sit down and visualise the human body map.

I just found a Brewing Master Diploma (equiv. to Bachelor) in Technical University of Munich, how cool is that!

Till then.

What degree of importance is it?

2007-01-29T01:40:00.000+08:00

I felt compelled to blog about this after my friend ran into some problems with her overseas study plans. That she had to spend an extra year over there due to lack of exemptions commonly seen here in SG. For the field that both of us wish to pursue further, sadly it is really important to have a good degree to venture further.

I've seen a mag poster headline " Is it really important to have a degree to succeed in life? Hear it from our non-grads! "in the train station. Would you agree or not?

Guess we need an attitude reform in our society and in the global society.

Plato believes there should be no charging for teaching knowledge to others, but I guess it's hard to do. To undertake university studies means a hell lot of money ploughed in.

If there's a will, there's a way. Same old line but it has served me well. Hope the same for you too!

Saturday

2007-01-28T01:25:00.000+08:00

Ever since i got my marshmellow fingers i've been sleeping well every night. Interesting ain't it? =)

Anyway, today I tried showering without gloves and exposing my fingers to water and they don't hurt anymore. The flesh on my most injured spot has risen high above its neighbours and I safely let it air-dry at night while asleep.

i met up with gerlynn before the run to explore candy empire at vivo after passing stuff to tim at PS. The space at PS was kinda small as i mentioned it to gerlynn. When i entered candy empire i realised that see june (not joon) was working today! Pretty odd seeing her dressing formally. To be honest it's the first time I ever explored a shop so thoroughly and it was cool picking out german stuff to read and learn that aussie chocs probably cost cheaper than my daily bottle of 1L milk. I bought about 4 items and they cost only about $10 which was pretty cheap cos I always feel candy empire's expensive. Whatever the case is, the next time I will force her to give me a 50% discount. =)

We boarded the bus around 1240 hrs and i've come to a conclusion that 963 drives off around every x:40 am/pm where x is an integer. Pretty useful info especially when I need that extra 10 minute doze and yet get to sch on time with minimal waiting time!

When we arrived, gerlynn said with subtle disappointment, " My excitement just died...... ". Because there were only just 10 joggers on the track but surprisingly in the end $10100 was raised! We jogged about 16 rounds with a Paul Frank who wears shades when the sun is out.
Though frankly I've not really noticed shades magically appearing, it could most probably be that Paul Frank wore Transition Optics .

I promised Sheena to be there by 4pm but even though i had no prior frisbee training due to poor weather i still came by my latest worst-case scenario timing of 4pm, which is measure of how much sluggish bus circulation in NUS gets on weekends.

TQ was pretty entertaining today with a few truly great voices. Most of the time I was just loitering around, sitting and leaning against the escalator listening to songs. The brief after de-brief was pretty saddening cos I didn't expect tim to have suffered in that way, I wouldn't gamble my future that way. But somehow it makes me look at him from a new perspective. =)

I feel that my engine is starting soon and hope mid-sem break doesn't come so fast though!

If every sem were to be this fast I doubt I can really slow down and enjoy my probable last 4 years at NUS.

SEP

2007-01-21T17:32:00.000+08:00

After a tiring night and eye-straining morning of wikipediaing and DAAD-ing, I've come to shortlist these 5 Unis for my Deutschland stint.

1. Technical University of Munich
2. Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen
3. University of Konstanz
4. University of Karlsruhe
5. Rupert Charles University of Heidelberg

Last night I just realised I could access my mac wirelessly without the LAN cable (silly me), so now I can play my mac's iTunes wirelessly on my PC. Neat!

On another note, I just went to the optician with my mum. It was my idea to go there to have a check-up for myself, but turns out my mum bought glasses instead.
But the sad part was that, I just found out she has cataracts growing already and her astigmatism went up.
What am I to say... after 2 weeks of cadaver interactions, seeing countless dead body parts...... aging is really slowly coming straight at my face.
I guess before I turned 21, I didn't really think much about aging, cos it's like not my business.... yet.

Sigh, why do our bodies deteriorate with time? =\

Trip to Anatomy Hall

2007-01-12T10:58:00.000+08:00

First i got lost on my way to the anatomy hall which just resided next to LT27. So i made a large detour from Medical Library back to LT27 and down the passageway to A.H.
I entered in late and already there was a large herd of students wrapping around Prof Ng listening attentively to his prep. talk.

I only caught the tail of his speech but it was inspiring and reaffirming my faith in what I chose to learn and hopefully do.

"............. For medical students, we have them to take out their gloves and touch the cadavers. these cadavers were once someone's granny, grandpa, friends and relatives. They were also once humans like us, so please respect them and not make unsuitable remarks about them. This is also to remind us that they are here to help us learn about the human body so that we can eventually benefit mankind. "

Next we took our gloves and gathered around a cadaver.

Initially the cadaver was wrapped in a blue zipper bag, those that you see in crime scenes.
A brave girl initiated the session by unzipping it.
It wasn't scary.
Just rather sad to see a human being in that state.
In a state of being deskinned to the muscles and bones, of having undergone the irreversible process of aging and finally death. It looks sadder if you look at the cadaver's expression for a little while longer, just thinking that it could be your granny.

The TA told us to lift up the thorax, to which after much hestitation and courage, we lifted it and unveiled its inner workings.

1. A green liver
2. The whole gastrointestinal tract
3. Kidneys on both sides
4. Pancreas
5. Spleen

It had no heart and lungs cos they were dug out long ago I guess.
As to why the liver was green, the TA suggested that the gall bladder leaked or perhaps the granny had some liver problems.

Next, she flipped the intestines for us to see. It was quite shocking to see someone actually lifting up the intestines to expose separate out single tubes of the small intestines and further lifting it up to show the kidneys, pancreas and spleen.

Contrary to what books show about small intestines, they are not like long sausages coiled within the body just like that. It has some sort of ligaments clinging onto it, keeping it in place. On hindsight, the ligaments look like the underside of a mushroom, just very much wetter.

Next we proceeded to touch the arteries, veins and nerves. Arteries are bigger, like drinking straws with good recoil when pressed. Veins just flatten when pressed. Nerves are like long continuous strings.

We were pretty much left to explore the other 7 cadavers in the hall on our own, which we found some to have extremely hard livers and one to have liver cirrhosis. I supposedly found an appendix but it didn't really look like what textbook show.

We also visited the anatomy museum during the pract. On the door of the musuem there was a small label saying : " Friends and Relatives of the deceased are strictly forbidden to enter ".

It was pretty much like what you can find in the Human Body exhibition held years back, except that it is very detailed with labelling.

In the end, i just felt that we are really all the same, we face the same fate of death as all beings do. We are not much different from goats and pigs (if you see people devouring their intestines regularly). And all your identity fades after death. And... I kept comparing people on the train to a imagined cadaver model of them.

人是否只是个臭皮囊？

Exams and post-exam

2006-12-05T12:47:00.000+08:00

"Exam" is probably the top hit word in the blog realm.
I've been getting diarrhoea just before exam papers, a little troublesome and suay : I almost went in late for my molecular genetics paper. Haha.
I have an episode of persistent diarrhoeas back in NS, which I think was due to lack of sleep. So for this recent one I guess it's the same reason.
Lack of sleep is evil, i get eyebags, old face, foul breath, acidic mouth when i wake up plus diarrhoea.

After exams I was quite happily anticipating my 42 km run but I just had to get indigestion/food poisoning before I ran. I ended up taking photos of dan struggling to cross the finishing line (I waited very long man.... haha). BUT, I saw a few NS friends running in too! I just frantically shouted at them and they posed for my cam while running. Heh. I saw Tan teck loong and naturally I just screamed at him like how he scream at us during course time. " OI TAN TECK LOONG!!!!! " He jogged past and gave an act seh pose, heh. Saw Weijun also, kinda miss this funny guy.

But anyway, the main thing was that dan and joe gave me a guitar! A very good guitar to be exact! Thanks guys! Love you all loads. Hahhaaha.

Ich über mich.

2006-11-16T01:18:00.000+08:00

Jetzt bin ich sehr müde.
Nur ein Woche vor das Semester enden

Hier sitzen mich allein und nachdenken.

Wer ist mich?

Idle banter.

2006-10-29T23:02:00.000+08:00

I'm getting pretty lonely these days.
My friends are seldom popping up online, or so it seems.
I need some idle banter.

I was reading up a little on gaining mass but phew, no way am I gonna gorge myself so much and pump iron like an addict. It'll just be a vicious cycle cos I think my muscles will equilibrate back to this current state.

I only hold my pen most of the time.

I prefer jogging. I just reminded Dan that we have a 42 km to complete and both of us will surely and most certainly get an ambulance that day.

I jogged in Fort Canning just now and this girl came up to me for a survey. Pretty odd place for a survey. Well, she asked about the cleanliness of the park, the sufficiency of litter bins, whether SG is serious about littering. I said SG was serious and she was a little shocked. Perhaps because efforts seemed to be stepped down a little these days.

I'm almost done with Organic Chemistry and I'm a bit too lethargic to carry on tying up the loose ends a.k.a. testing myself. How will I score? Oddly this massive CA only costs us 10% of the final. A very small opportunity cost for some of us perhaps.

My mum has taken my macbook as her latest toy cos it's very fast.
I don't know if repeated startup and shutdown might wear out the com or not (rumours seems to affirm this somehow but there is a lack of technical details).
Anyway I've joined the league of not-shutting-down-my-macbook cos it's more convenient.
But sleeping my macbook while in school sucks for one thing cos it saps batt. power. Advocates of sleeping mac says it has minimal energy zapping but I beg to differ. But if the power cord is plugged in, I just sleep it.

I just learnt that Temasek Hall has squash courts. It's splendid news cos previously I heard only KE7 and SRC has squash courts. But now I found 2 more squash spots. =)

I should not be late for Chem tomorrow. Because I always do. Haha.

Of recent decisions and thoughts.

2006-10-07T21:03:00.000+08:00

I've decided to stay in Hall next sem despite what my mum might say because after all it's the one last chance for me to interact at such a fun (i hope) and community-based level.

I think I'm wuss when it comes to matters of the heart.

My front teeth has been shifting out tremendously, soon I'll look like bugs bunny. >_<

I plan to learn Italian after German.

I feel there's a void in me.

I feel that maybe I will not go into biomedical research due to my uneasiness with purposefully killing animals. Maybe more towards cell/molecular-based studies/research.
But nonetheless I'll do my best to nurture myself in School.

I'm very paranoid at times and I need to tone down.

Blogging like this is very much easier.

I need to just do it.

Where is this leading to?

2006-09-17T22:46:00.000+08:00

The career talk yesterday wasn't really helpful in telling us what we can do.
Description of job opportunities were vague.

Just look at this : "Our staff profile 41% Ph.D, 59% M.Sc and B.Sc."

Why don't they put in the percentage for B.Sc and not bundle up the figures?

But there was a good message by Dr. Low. That is to " just do it ".

I'm embracing that message but I hope I don't end up at the cliff when 2010 comes.

Life Science..... what good can it really do for me?
Why not Chemistry?

I went jogging with Dan yesterday and we felt that we are forced to grow up at this point in life. We are forced to begin to take charge of things in life, we know the inevitable work life will come soon, we will inevitably lose some/a lot of freedom. There'll be major changes in life, good or bad.

Why do we even exist?

Why are we programmed to crave for food, intellectual nourishment, aesthetic nourishment?
If we don't need to eat, don't we need not work at all?

Is it part of evolution? Is my thinking a part of evolution?

We are used to the idea and experience of having a beginning for things and a closure at the end. What if in the objective reality, there is no beginning and no end?

Why is there even propagation of all life forms in the first place? But without propagation, what life form would I be talking about?

Will I be a serial killer of lab mices in the future? Will I live well with this guilt? Why do we eat another life form after another? Aren't there better substitutes? More morally correct substitutes?

As each day passes, the more questions I get. Depressing or liberating?

2006-09-15T18:58:00.000+08:00

It exists all the while but it certainly took 20 years for it to register on my mind. I really feel it's a really shockingly diverse world out there. It's hard for a city dweller to peer across the skyscrapers into the 3rd world country to feel and sense their experience of life.
Life must have been too painful, too motivating such that people can travel across continents and try to influence the powers through their limited means, be it wearing a 'No Voice' gag to drive the message home.

First entry with a Mac!

2006-09-01T23:55:00.000+08:00

I think I sound like a Mac evangelist.

But Mac is really neat, elegant and simple to use (after some getting used to).
One recent feature I just found out was the ease with which I can change keyboard language input settings. I can switch to german just by clicking the german flag on the menu bar, chinese by clicking the china flag, thai, thai flag etc. The best part is that I don't even have to install Chinese software or german, thai software, it's bundled. I can even type tamil, man.

My 1.83GHz macbook doesn't lag a lot compared to my 2.4GHz WinXP desktop, I can open 5 or 6 applications simultaneously and I don't expect a hanging catastrophe. 10, 20 browsers don't hang the system as well. I can zoom out and expose all the windows and watch them work in realtime (like 5 browsers playing movies simultaneously). If I have the money, maybe I can plug in 1 GB RAM for my PC to do a fair comparison.

Anyway, I'm enjoying School, lots of friends to make, lots of things to learn. Ah, learning is one of the greatest joy on Earth! Right now my favourite subjects are Biochemistry, German and Satellite remote sensing. Especially German, I don't seem to be ever late for German classes. Haha.

All is fun before the exams. I wonder what my CAP and future would be like. Such a daunting thought.

Tschuess!

School's starting.

2006-08-12T19:45:00.000+08:00

Ok, I must learn to accept this quickly.
SCHOOL IS STARTING ON MONDAY. TWO DAY'S TIME!

I'm seriously too used to perceiving Uni as attending talks, free food, orientation and fun.
Monday will be the real stuff.
The serious part of Uni life beyond what orientation can show us.

And I'm only doing 4 modules, wondering if it's the sensible thing to do.

School's back.

2006-07-29T13:05:00.000+08:00

That sounds like a Bata school shoe ad.

Anyway, I was quite excited about starting school soon, being able to have fun and great fields of knowledge to explore, however after yesterday's talk, I felt a dim reality dawning upon me.

The various thoughts are listed below :

1. Life isn't going to be that much of a breeze.

I can't lie back on my chair and watch things happen then react when exams come. It's probably impossible.
A culture shock awaits me, a thundering wake-up slap from the lazy, unproductive NS mentality I've grown accustomed to for 2 years.

2. Learning to accept what's left for you.

Of course I'm talking about CORS bidding.

3. ~~Struggling~~ Learning to maintain a good CAP.

Otherwise I can watch my career dissolve right in front of me. I'm starting to realise this Life Science major is not a thing to trivialise over. Well, I guess you can sense my casual attitude on previous things and events in Life. Haha.

4. NUS is where I'll roam in 3/4 of a day.

I have no hostel room whatsoever. Time to make friends with cleaners.

5. Time to learn to organise events, no more hiding.

Because it's going to be necessary in Life. But if I feel the passion for organising something, why not?

6. "How can I develop myself fully?"

'Fully' is a concept to encourage people to maximise their stay at knowledge bank NUS. I think it's hard to 'fully' develop myself. There are always time restraints, limited resources and unlimited wants.

As I now listen to my staple auditory diet of Jazz, I found another reason why I like it so much.
It paints the feeling and atmosphere of this urban jungle with its elements of mundaneness, the people's desire to feel a slightly simpler life akin to its melodies.
Simple can be beautiful.

I've got you under my skin
I've got you deep in the heart of me
You're so deep in my heart
That you're really a part of me
And I've got you under my skin.

A loud neighbour.

2006-07-15T16:48:00.000+08:00

I got a neighbour who turns on his tv probably to the max every second, even in the night.
My sympathies goes out to his adjacent neighbours because even as I live 10m away from him, the noise can be of high irritant quality.

Various theories spun by neighbours to describe this pestulant behaviour range from andropause to 'mating call' caused by bachelorhood at old age. It's kinda mean but perhaps it's true. Hell, we even got an underground intelligence band of aunties to call up each other on his movements. Heh.

My mum, out of exasperation, said to me one day, " Don't strum your guitar here, open the back door and strum it out there to him! ".

So I did with a John Mayer's No Such Thing. I even got blisters. Haha.

2006-07-12T00:08:00.000+08:00

I took the chem test today and what a surprise I got.
Two girls in the front row dozed off. One in the nodding position, the other in the lie-on-table-and-drool stance.
My MSN pal next to me had a 70% empty paper while I tried to lie/create mechanisms imaginatively, hoping to strike it.
But there was one girl, plainly dressed, bespectacled and short-haired who checked her papers assiduously with every page painted with blue words of wisdom. Impressive.

Honestly, I guess most of us used the test as a measure of what Uni life would demand from us.
Heck, I haven't even finished studying for tomorrow 2 one and a half hour papers.

It has been difficult to focus on the text, allowing text to transform to images and meaning. Every 15 mins or so, I inevitably start surfing blogs and oogle at my MacBook at apple.com hoping it would be mine.

Otherwise I'd be deeply serenaded by Silje Nergaard's baby voiced jazz songs.

After tomorrow, QET would be next. Fighting this beast is a 50-50 thing. I haven't been very confident of my English after GP grades demoralised me further. Sometimes when I look back, I felt I was simply too stubborn to accept what was taught, always trying to carve out my own alternative understanding of the topics and many a times a very myopic view surfaces. Then again, environment degradation, politics, media, censorship, whatever boring topics were simply too boring. The sights, smells and sounds of attending GP in E block with its dusty, unventilated smell is still very vivid. I feel I let my GP tutor, Ms Lim down a bit. I just couldn't be bothered. My attention was almost all on my core subjects which I felt were more definitive and gratifying.

Well, at least now I can fully concentrate on the sciences and slowly appreciate the cirriculum of GP as opportunities for genuine interest in the various worldly issues sets in.

End of World Cup

2006-07-10T14:43:00.000+08:00

There must be reason why they held APC tests after World Cup.
To give students a decent day of distraction-free revision.

I wonder what provoked Zizou to header in a chest dent on the italian.
Some dinosaurs have thick skulls and header each other in fights, that's the first association I got after that incident. As I watched on Discovery (i have bad memory), one should headbutt a person using the sides of a skull to give more bang and suffer from lesser chance of fracturing the skull.

Sensing in the night.

2006-07-07T02:22:00.000+08:00

Finding it difficult to sleep at night is part blessing and part curse.
With all traffic noise, construction cacophony, conversations and TV murmurs withdrawn, nicely and surely the mind settles down and distillates.
More is observed, though it was always there. Like light slicing through settled muddy waters, the uncomprehendable makes much more sense than ever.

But I woe that I'll only awaken when half the day is gone with the pace of life inevitably sped up.

The ORD irony.

2006-05-28T22:57:00.000+08:00

Your heart tells you that you might be missing something, things might feel odd, the routine is changing. But the rational side of you urges you to rethink (but it isn't anything urgent) about what's there to miss about. I don't think I'll need to ever wake up at 6:30 am for a few years; I can start sleeping early and get the straight 8 hours' rest made unattainable for the past 2 years.

What I'll miss would be the simple life, friendly people and friends made during this stint. What I would -definitely- not miss would be the saikang of accounting for vehicle defects, changing of vehicles and endless stream of work interrupting my rest time. Last but not least manpower issues. Having to account (positively) for phantoms is tough work and very much against my conscience.

I'm probably one who prefers the status quo, correction : my own comfort zone. There was and will always be an element of uncertainty when we move from institution to another, an organisation to another, etc. Through these transitions and stays, we change.

I packed my stuff today and brought it back home. Dressed in No.4, I dumped my duffel bag on the house floor and inevitably it made me recall that great jubilance when one can finally come home from camp, especially for special occasions like POP and the once and only once ORD.
Today it signified a great shedding of responsibility and liabilities to the service. I'm almost done with the role of a Driver IC, role of a liaison between my unit and MT line, role of shepherding back phantoms. One more duty cycle and I'll be through.

For those still in the service and waiting to enter, everyone says the 2 years will fly by. Believe it and your life will be greatly enriched.

This is where inspiration comes from.

2006-04-17T17:10:00.000+08:00

My all time favourite song, delicatedly woven with the unwavering ambition of a man in uncertain times but yet self-assuredly optimistic of his future and driving ahead with iron will.

我吃得起苦
动力火车

走出去就有路
寻见了就有福
拥有了一切都进了包袱
思念是带不走的

天空疑云密布
心中翻腾起伏
虽将飘摇前途仍模糊
此地会是我衣锦还乡处

飘洋过海我吃得起苦
相信天无绝人之路
现实有咒诅梦里有祝福
有缘同舟风雨共渡
顶着烈日当空眼底有迷雾
不能再让懦弱困住
日子多坎坷命运有变数
只盼久旱逢甘露

Efficient Paper Gliders.

2006-04-15T23:46:00.000+08:00

Paper gliders would be a better, more accurate term to describe colloquial paper airplanes because they really just glide and nothing else.

In search of a perfect efficient paper glider, just to amuse lil' Adam, I found out 2 models that work pretty well.

1. "Swallow" form (http://www.zurqui.co.cr/crinfocus/paper/airplane.html)
2. " OmniWing " glider (http://www.omniwing.com/)

The first glider is interesting because you can modify it much like a remote controlled plane by tearing off edges to make rudders or bending the tail like a rudder to effect horizontal or vertical changes. The distance it can cover is slightly better than average paper planes. It would seldom spiral or head straight for the ground unless the wing is uneven and the fuselage's not straight.
A little bent in the tail can dictate whether it dives or climbs or climb & stall.

The second one which I just found and made is real neat. A little push and this baby can glide gracefully in a smooth descend. I asked my dad to try but he gripped it a little too hard causing the wings to become uneven. Then I asked my mum to toss it out of my house while I go downstairs to catch it. Sadly, due to the uneven wings, it spiralled and got stuck on the roof of some other structures. But nice spiral. Haha.

Give it a try, it's fun!

ISO 9000

2006-04-08T20:40:00.000+08:00

I've been productive today. I washed the dishes, mopped the floor, tidied up my table, cleaned my unused calculator (coated with grime and dirt), massaged my mum's legs cos she had muscular cramps and threw rubbish (boy I hate that).

I went to Qian Hu and IMM with my mum today cos she hasn't visited them before. The salesman at Qian Hu is really very helpful and compared to his fellow counterparts I've encountered before, he's on the top of the list. We went there to catch a glimpse of a fish farm and to find a treatment for fish lice, which has been plaguing out dear fishes for months. His analysis of symptoms and fish tank environment was way better than hearing " Orh, never mind, come use this one, 25 drops every 3 days ok? ".

Then down to IMM, surprisingly of which my mum hasn't visited before, she wanted to enter Giant, but I dragged her elsewhere. I've developed an aversion towards hypermarts due to the long tours within and also having to carry/push things for a long period of time. I brought her to Daiso and she just kept asking if this item or that was really $2. In conclusion, she hypothesized that certain products that could be sold cheaper were sold at $2 while the better products were sold at the lower $2. I got myself a nice bamboo noodle tray to house my ipod, hp and wallet on my desk and also a bamboo chopsticks holder for my chinese brushes. As a true housewife, she got herself practical goods such as a vacuum bag for clothes storage, flowerpot stands and storage solutions.

Watching Ray Charles (now that I have the DVD) again makes me wanna learn jazz. Any helping hand out there? =)

It's not like I've never driven before....

2006-04-02T00:13:00.000+08:00

But after getting my civilian licence, there's this urge to get myself a car, any make, can zhao can already. Initially I was quite reserved about getting one but after looking at the car ads, 2nd hand cars look pretty cheap but still outta budget. Like all craze/fad, it will fade. I just need to sit down and wait for it to wane off.
Again, it's not like I've not driven before, but it just feels convenient. However, the rationale side of me warns me strongly that it is a bad deal to get a car now, don't even think about renting!
Getting a car is akin to having a baby, though the former is easier to maintain. Servicing, road tax, insurance, parking, fuel, cranky engines. I'm used to cranky engines, nothing beats what I drive for the past 1.5 years. Haha. There's an on-going need (involuntary) to sustain that metallic assembly with heaps and heaps of money (in a jobless student's pt of view). Car hungry, drink fuel. Car sick, see mechanic. Headlight blow, waste money again. For the second hand car, what if it comes with a aircon with bad breath? Hidden defects like nick's van (his got a huge lump of welded metal on his underchassis) ? Never mind, donate your P plates to me and that's good enough.

Bless me friends while I force myself to buy a Motorola HP just for a weeny chance on getting that Jeep Wrangler.

Recently...

2006-03-20T22:02:00.000+08:00

Ah, it's been close to 2 months since the last update.
I can't really recall in detail of what happened but I'll definitely remember that I've been hooked by the Korean Wave through Dae Jang Geum (more hooked to the show actually, but I'm getting more interested in their culture now), steamed up my internet connection to 3500 Mbps, learnt to appreciate and write Chinese calligraphy, realised that listening too much of music through earphones will hurt the ears and drove the President's National Day Parade rover.

Dae Jang Geum will always remain in my list of Inspirational Lift-my-spirits-up movies and dramas. Jang Geum's relentless enthusiasm and iron will reminds me never to wallow in self-pity and doubt, and to live life with ethical principles and sincerity. The particular scene where she cared for all the sick children infected with chicken/smallpox solo with a motherly warmth reminded me of how powerful and touching loving-kindness can be when practiced in life.

Calligraphy was astounding, never mind that I wrote badly. As Mr SR Nathan puts it, it really clears your mind! A perfect outlet for the troubled mind of mine, often plagued with minor politicking and demands of my shift drivers. How I wish everyone just works in harmony. Luckily I believe I'm seeing improvements after some talks. Tai Chi's just as wonderful as Calligraphy by the way.

Alright, it took me a lot of energy to blog this. I'll stop here. Pretty much explains for the lack of posts. Heh.

Fireworks.

2006-02-04T11:16:00.000+08:00

Finally after 20 years, I got my hands on 7 pieces of fireworks. Their strength is the equivlaent of those you see being lit in Chinatown. Woohoo! Haha. Too bad I don't know how to stream videos of those fireworks. Till then!

Shantou Airport.

2006-02-04T11:15:00.000+08:00

This is the couple I've been talking about.

Back.

2006-02-04T10:41:00.000+08:00

The adage goes, " Eat in Chaozhou, Die in Hangzhou. ".
Hangzhou has the best wood for coffin and Chaozhou has the best food for your palate and some of the best teas around.
Everything's freshly plucked and prepared, some of the noodles are even prepared with spring water from the Phoenix Hill. Tea, of course, is a daily affair and common sight. Almost every household has more than 1 Kungfu tea set.

I landed at 2 am, 8 hours ago, and slept at 3 am. I still couldn't come to terms with reality that I'm back in warm, humid Singapore so I turned on the air-con full blast to give myself one last sleep 'in Chaozhou'. I miss the cold floors, cold feet and hands. I miss wrapping myself up in 2 thick blankets every night.

Chaozhou was a good break away from Law and Order. Every road and street there is unofficially bi-directional. So even a small alley between houses can have 2 cars coming head-on but yet pass through freely (but not that small an alley of course!). Vehicles there don't waste time travelling, they don't need traffic lights or lane markings to cut across a dual-carriage way. They just cut across the lane with on-coming traffic, braving the massive load of traffic.
The best part is their U-turn. They just turn whenever they want. Heh. Thus creating a jam.
Despite all these irritating manoeuvres, Chaozhou citizens never frown. They are surprisingly zen and calm about all these hazards and their accidents rates, according to my cousin, is quite low. 40km/h is the usual speed in the hectic Chaozhou city, but the necessary traffic weaving and siam-ing is really painfully tough, even my dad says he doesn't dare to drive. Conclusion : Chaozhou drivers really have good driving technique.
Upon my departure at Shantou airport, I noticed at the bookstore that they actually sell books with nude models in it. It's China and they have this stuff?! Wow, daring. Haha. Msg me for the pic if you're ~~horny~~ curious about it. Meanwhile I caught a glimpse of a pair of flies mating, a rather rare footage I'd say.

I transferred frm Chaozhou to Guangzhou and the flight home-bound was delayed 50 mins. Sigh. Thankfully I had a deep unconscious sleep on board. =)

To China!

2006-01-29T21:17:00.000+08:00

I need to cut down on vulgarities, cold turkey style.

Tried to do it but a vulgarity nearly come to form while playing Winning Eleven 9 last night.
*missed scoring chance* " Wah lao eh! Simi L*njiiiii..ooooooooooooo ?!". The finishing syllable was toned down to chastitise my record after the strike of midnight. But I broke it today.Haha.

Seriously man, I think my relatives are gonna really stare at me and wonder how I had developed my way of speaking so badly.

I'm thinking of mentally substituting the vulgarities with 'shit' 'ohhhfff!' etc with each imagined, vivid scenario of stimulation.

Tomorrow will be a long boring day, so I've printed out 3 'very hard' Sudoku puzzles from dailysudoku.com and I guess time will fly. =)

Random thoughts.

2006-01-07T23:33:00.000+08:00

1. Man weren't built to survive in wet places.
- The reporting on the recent landslide showed pictures of the dead and the alive. For one of those rescued, he was pictured resting on a stretcher and smoking in comfort with an awkwardly large hand - it was swollen and wrinkled, similar to an assembly of red dates. I wondered how ancient people dealt with rain and storms, do they hide in caves or what ? What if the caves were filled ? Do they just go 'sorry' and let the fella stay out just like when the lift is full/overloaded?

2. That I should disspell the myth on disqualified varsity enrollment for ex-/current detainees by asking NUS.

I switched on my com this afternoon and after the memory check, I had a black screen of death.

++_+_++_+_+++_+ GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT _+_+__+_+_+_+_+_+
Blah blah blah...

Okay, I resetted it and it just stood dead.

I carried it to Sim Lim and near the escalator, one fella giving out pampflets spotted me and asked whether I needed repairs. Without much talking, he laid down his stack of paper and beckoned me to a store.

It was a small store around the Sim Lim backalleys and operated by 2 indians.
He opened the casing, turned on the com, fiddled with the interior, took out my RAM and tried a new one and voila, it worked!
I was so freakin' scared that my HDD died on me. All my pics could have been gone just like that!
All was done within a minute. Sleek.
$20 for service and $45 for 215MB RAM.
I wished I knew how to do computer repairs.

I asked for receipt and further asked whether the TwinMOS RAM had guarantee. " Yesh yesh, Lifetime. ".

The African customer looked at me and smiled and I replied with a cynical look, " Oh yes, lifetime... ".

IPPT.

2006-01-03T23:26:00.000+08:00

This is just a typed out list of training that I plan to do to earn my dough from the SAF.

1. 5 km runs twice a week.
2. 100 m sprints twice a week.
3. 60 Crunches every night.
4. 15 chin-ups hopefully for everyday.
5. Quadriceps training.

Last window, hope to get the monetary incentive. Haha.

And after that I'll try to do something about my bad language, exercising self-restraint such as not saying 'F**** MAN!' when something goes wrong or when I drop a pen in the LT next time.

The leave ends for now.

2006-01-01T21:23:00.000+08:00

After 7 days of idleness, I'm back to camp to idle again.
It's true pure pre-monday blues I guess. Wearing back my No.4, waking up early, sleeping in the hot uncirculated bunk. But I can see the greenery, birds, swallows and re-experience the blissful idleness of a public holiday in camp.

We went for the countdown and it wasn't really a countdown, nobody counted. The fireworks blew and we just wah here and there, take pic and had stiff aching necks. New York Pizza @ HabourFront's good, we had the super medium 12" X 15" Hawaiian, just nice for the 4 of us + a tray of cheese fries and drinks.

HF was simply swelled up with throngs of people up on the bridge, across the walkway, up illegally parking their lorries, cars on the flyover and us on the middle road divider. Cars didn't wanna move and no one was occupying the divider and it was a great place to view the fireworks, especially for those coming from the cruise centre.

Up next, we made a long, tiring journey back home. Exiting the carpark was tough but exiting the AYE was even tougher. It was almost equivalent to a jammed causeway whereby every car moves inch by inch for several kilometers. Dan's legs eventually got tired.

With the torture over at Rochor exit, joe was sent off first and we had tau huey near my house. They decided to take a leak at my place and to nick's horror he found my room way beyond decent expectation. Dan commented that it's much better now and I said my mum has given up on my ability to be neat and tidy. I'm simply incorrigible. =)

Exhaustion.

2005-12-30T23:37:00.000+08:00

I thought I'd just go down and play a few old man's game but I had too many old man's games today and I'm waddling instead of walking. My bum just aches badly.

Another aching region would be my left hand, I suspect it could be due to my new Casio keyboard toy. I remembered having such aches when I started guitar so I expect the pain to cease pretty soon.

I've been too busy enjoying this splendid freedom from camp that I've forgotten to return my library books and apply for exit permit for which in the case of the latter, I'd be screwed badly if I ever really forgot to apply. The year has passed really quickly, I can still remember how I spent X'mas or was it X'mas eve in camp last year cooking outside my bunk on an electric grill and spending $60 on food etc. And as my posts usually would be formulated, I can't contain my excitement to say that I have only 5 more months to ORD!

School starts on August 7th 2006, that means I can relac and self-actualise/develop myself for 2 months. If there are no committments after ORD, I intend to go forth into the Sangha for a month and develop into a more holy person, just kiddin'. =) But the monk part is true, I'll try to find a suitable monastery. The remaining month would probably be spent at freshmen camps I guess.

Meanwhile I'll go work on maintaining my baseline happiness.

Christmas

2005-12-24T17:06:00.000+08:00

I guess Christmas has much lesser meaning for me compared to say, 60% of my friends. A rough estimate, but I seem to have much more Christian/Catholic friends than those of other faiths. I digress, again.

My mum's been nagging at me to send e cards to my relatives which I have just done. *phew*
Among them, those from yinsha.com were good and cute, americangreetings.com ain't that bad too. So I've stumbled upon an eye-catching term which I've neglect for 20 years.
"The Spirit Of Christmas", what is it?

I googled for it, as usual. I expected something heartwarming, nice and theological, but hey, I got a Southpark cartoon, man. I think it's graphic Southpark movie clip, still d/ling now.

What's Christmas to me?

1. Orchard strolling
2. Photographing Christmas festivities
3. I used sing carols and I miss being in the choir, probably joining it in NUS. Haha.

The whole hype of Christmas has sadly made me conclude that I lead a boring life. Seems like everyone's having fun out there with friends and their loved ones. My friends are, definitely, out with their loved one. So Christmas is spent with my loved one : Mum. Haha.

I don't know why I got my mum to buy those cheapo x'mas hats with running led lights and super low quality carolling tones. A kid is a kid, that my mum says.

I've been walking along Orchard quite frequently these days, looking for books, clothes etc. and I always see a family selling toys, toys that have little market demand. I guess it's a family lah har...
They take turns to play yo-yo with their tentacle surrounded rubber ball which emits red, blue lights when played. I haven't seen the little girl do the advertising yet (in my fragmented mind), I only remember seeing her once, fiddling out some SMS or game on the phone.

I'm not sure if this family's enjoying it or feeling great about having to sell stuff on X'mas.
So I partially conclude that not all can really celebrate x'mas, sometimes circumstances don't really allow one to enjoy this priviledge. But I guess we can all be nice and loving to each other so make it a special day. Right, I copied that from the South Park clip that I just finished watching. Heh.

2005-12-20T16:16:00.000+08:00

It was a night of mental incarceration and torture.
Papayas, after the inspection of my vomit, were prime candidates as the culprits behind it.
I was having a throbbing headache the whole of yesterday afternoon and after dinner there came the other dimension of suffering - bloated stomach.
Usually I thought it'd go away as diahorrea or after eating some handy chinese medicine that I carry around, but it persisted even after a second dose of medicine. Even sleeping was a problem for me, the pain and agony somewhat sensitised my nerves so much so that even resting my head was painful. I tried meditating to calm down my nerves and finally slept.
The hours from 7 to 10 p.m. flew past and my stomach didn't feel any better.

To report sick or not?

I struggled with it cos my shift's manpower was quite low and it wouldn't be nice to lay my work upon the remaining 2 men should I get a MC/Att B.
Talked to my mum over the phone to see if she can think of any other remedies but got a timely shelling to get myself seen by the doc. I can't possibly drive when I'm so sick, silly me.

2 sgts sent me to the medical centre and while waiting I started retching and vomitting out mildly. The medic took my temp and bp and my temp was rather interesting.
Started from 35 then rose to 36.5 then dropped to 36.
2 days of Att B and medicine was all I got. And I still feel damn sick.

I finally rested around 12 am but was still plagued with intermittent vomitting. I took the medicine for Nausea at 12:30 am and I could feel the upheaval picking up tempo. By 1 am, I was very very very nausea contrary to what the medicine was for. For every few steps I took, the bloatedness of my stomach made me nauseous, it was like a big fat water balloon wobbling in my body threatening to squirt out vomit.

I vomitted. I thought I should just go for the extreme. Vomitting bit by bit's gonna be a long-term torture and I thought why not I go for the 'open tap' style of vomitting ?
After the initial vomit, I 'ate' in air to irritate my stomach and more vomitting followed until I was paralysed in motion and watched most of my stomach content vomit out. It was bloooody painful but worth it. Felt lighter and much less nauseous.

I looked into the drain where I puked. A chunky porridge of papayas.

Of late.

2005-12-12T19:20:00.000+08:00

The package finally came and I've awakened to the economical side and ergonomics of postal service. I'm just sua ku.
2 books sandwiched between bubble sheets which are ever so tempting to pop open.
Initially, I thought I could do a easy transcript of my fav. songs, but never mind, I just can't read the tao gheys fast enough to match my patience.

I realise I can't improve my squash that fast and 3 Div is really a very strong team.

Annoyance.

2005-12-02T10:05:00.000+08:00

It's such a blessing to get an off day but it just can't be a perfect one.
I wish I wouldn't get a wave of CallerAlert messages whenever I switch on my phone; I've refrained from switching on my phone too early 'cos the camp guys just love to dial my no. for anything to do with drivers.

Currently down with sore throat and runny nose but at least I can roam around later to take photos.

FR strikes back!

2005-11-28T22:01:00.000+08:00

I was in the fitting room at a certain store trying on new pants and every time I lift up my feet to slip into the pants, I detect a familiar odor. Something closely associated with army, field camp, dirty fellas.
Footrot strikes back and yes, I hate it.
My friend got it and his feet is nauseating to look at. Just picture CRATERS on your feet. *hair stands*
I have to protect the identity of the store, just in case this entry serves as a deterrent to patronise it.
Just tried soaking my feet in hot tea in a pail, it felt like it worked previously so I'll just try again.
If not, I'll have to get potassium permanganate to kill kill kill those frustrating fungi on my feet.

If you have friends and loved ones suffering from footrot, please do not judge them as unhygienic. It's a sad, unfortunate, unexpected, sometimes unpreventable outcome of military training and it lasts for a long time. My feet had never been looking good since last Sept. Always peeling and rough to touch with the occasional soft painful bumps that could fester.

Sleepless tonight.

2005-11-27T00:31:00.000+08:00

There's a pain that comes on and off in the middle of my right shinbone, if the unexpected happens, it's probably a stress fracture.
The sum of heavyload exercises and high falls, should have been more sane.
Today's hiking at Bukit Timah was good except for an occasionally irritating adam. However, considering that going up and down is quite a stressful workout and having to carry the 20kg kid occasionally on the slope meant that my suspected stress fracture could have possibly been exacerbated.
It's hard to sleep with the pain.

Where's the sun?

2005-11-25T12:56:00.000+08:00

I hardly see it these days.
I miss the handy sunshine that sanitizes my helmet and slippers (unfortunately I just recalled why I keep getting a low-level footrot cos I don't sun my boots =\)
A lot of aunties must be distraught about their wet laundry and half-baked laundered ones.
Plus the children complaining about the half-baked stench emanating from their fav. shirts.
My plan to bring adam to Bukit Timah hill tomorrow will probably be foiled because of the monsoon rain that will almost definitely plague every single day of this month.

Are we to live in the rain or get sheltered from rain?
Now the image of an ancient man stuck in rain appears in my mind.
What will he do?
Is he acclimatised to moving about in the rain and he will never / seldom fall sick cos of it?
Or are we really following our instincts to hide in waterproof areas?

This is the month to sleep more if we think about it. Hibernate...

Moderately minimal.

2005-11-23T23:26:00.000+08:00

At times I ponder upon their reluctance to buy/do something, their not-so-happening lifestyles and social circles.
I guess I've found the first clue to it - that my parents are 'moderate minimalists'.
A psychologist might say (well, guessing) that they've adopted such an attitude towards life because they did the opposite and didn't find any incentive or experienced unpleasant things while doing so.
To me, they probably enjoy life as it is now. With those few strings attached.
I'm their biggest rope metaphorically speaking and to be less desirous of all things material leading to easy contentment could be the way for them. I take on their values and attitudes but it makes me misfitting at the same time, at least I feel it that way.
But it ain't that bad usually, if the quality of the intended purchase/activity's good, it's usually green light for me.

Time conscious.

2005-11-17T21:57:00.000+08:00

A couple of guys are touching up the last bits of their NS stint.
One guy just converted his licence, others clearing up their belongings.

Then I did some counting.

Dec... Jan... Feb... March... April... May... and finally June 1st 2006.

6 more months to go !

However, I need to remind myself to live one day at a time otherwise 6 months would be a miserable stretch of time. Ignore the time and time will flash by.

I usually have a lukewarm to warm passion for squash but I need to change that cos a SAFSA coordinator might be taking me in for the games and definitely I wouldn't miss the last chance playing for Air Force plus the bonus. ;)

But..... going about that is analogous to getting outta a maze.

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

Ever notice that most animal-to-human diseases occur in cows, pigs and poultry ?

Far lesser in sheeps, cats, dogs.
And a corresponding coincidence that beef, pork and poultry are the among most consumed (I suppose so...) in today's society.
So wouldn't one hypothesize that the mad cow disease, pig disease and avian flu are natural retributive means to redress the unjust overkill of these species ?
I'm just thinking along the lines of karma. Heh.
But of course, their living conditions are usually horrid, in-bovine, in-swine and in-avian (think inhuman), thus giving room for bacterial and viral resurgence (as I hypothesize).

But I'd often like to think that these farms are concentration camps and hellish. Ever see castration of piglets ? I saw it on TV before and the gore and piercing screams are forever etched in my mind.

Exercise I must.

2005-11-12T11:12:00.000+08:00

Squash's been cancelled this morning and I've been quite sedentary for the past week.
All I hope is for fair weather so that I can run later.
And also the same for tomorrow. My urge to test out my dad's golf club is building up.
Now if only golf is cheaper...

Morphing.

2005-11-11T22:42:00.000+08:00

Nick stared at me and looked amused.
" Your face is becoming a skeleton. "
I couldn't agree more. Gimme 2 bones behind my head and I do look like a toxic sign.
While others are fretting about weight loss, I'm struggling to gain weight.

Q: Have I gained weight before?
A: Indeed, ironically during tough, turbulent periods like BMT and Field Defence course.

Q: What causes weight gain ?
A: Torturous exercising.

My ex-classmate JY is a naval diver and he really looked big and heavy during training. But when I looked at his recent friendster photos, he looked back to square 1. We probably share the same ancestor.

Meanwhile, I'm currently tracing my diet and daily routines back during those punishing times.
Did I eat more rice back then ? Yes.
Had plenty of fruits and syrup drinks ? Yes.
So... I'm patronising the cookhouse more frequently these days. Just to see if it happens.

I slept at 2230 and woke up at 0530 the next day. Maybe I should follow suit.

36 chin-ups/day. *ticks* I should try it too.

60 push-ups per set, I'd try.

4km runs.

That's a regimental weight gain programme I probably wouldn't bother with.

*ponderssssss*

Kitchen Mural.

2005-11-10T13:40:00.000+08:00

5 elements
Originally uploaded by SM Huang.

Inspired by an ad and troubled by the odd-looking kiwi gold background, I decided to mitigate it with spring yellow scribblings of ancient beliefs, the 5 elements.

E.C.

2005-11-05T23:16:00.000+08:00

My first time hearing him was around P6 with his hit, Change The World.
He looked like nerd with his brown rimmed glasses, curly hair and simple clothes.
Today I'm quite a fan of Eric Clapton. Fan of some of his songs actually:
Blues Eyes Blue, Wonderful Tonight, Tears in Heaven and my favourite Layla.

A fan because his riffs and licks are simple yet really groovy.
A fan because his songs make really good guitar songs for me to play.
A fan because his voice is really expressive.

I ain't that sure how his other songs were inspired and produced but the above songs were generally inspired by love and grief in his relationships. Like Tears in Heaven, a song where one can feel part of his grief for his dead son who fell from the 53rd storey house window.
Recently he announced that he would not perform the song anymore because there's difficulty connecting to the feelings he had when he first started on the song, and now he doesn't wish for the feelings to return.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapton%2C_Eric

After this ?

2005-11-04T23:40:00.000+08:00

My mum and I were painting my room this afternoon. It's Nippon Spring Yellow and it made me hungry cos it looked like the filling in Kong Guan's Lemon Puff biscuits.
We were chatting and in the midst of it she said, " I don't know how old I'll be when I become a grannie and after I become a grannie, it's time for me to go. This is how life is like. ".
Having grown accustomed to a life of planning and thinking that something will happen after something, I asked, " So where do you go next after that ? ".

Life as it seems is quite empty and blank isn't it ?
We come into existence from somewhere/nowhere and construct an identity for us to hold through our lives and this identity, or rather we feel that this identity needs to be perpetuated on in the afterlife.
To me, after I'm dead, my consciousness's also dead. I probably won't think about " I , me, myself ".
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, my material body - an aggregate of atoms, shall undergo some conversion and be gone, spread, dispersed.
Considering that I eat and assimilate food from various parts of the globe, my ashes shall be spreaded across world.

Labouring day.

2005-11-01T23:17:00.000+08:00

Subconsciously, I slapped the alarm off and woke up late for my scheduled morning run.
After the first 100m, my back started aching and it was the only part I left out for warm up.
The streets were pretty empty except for the occasional buses and Fort Canning was cool and fresh-smelling.

Recalling on how I missed out on joining the Vert. marathon, charging up the hill's steps was a way of compensating for it. Fortunate it is that I didn't manage to register, 'cause merely a flight of 20+ steps left me gasping for air.

I circled the hill via the 19th Century walk path and headed to Macs for a Kaya Meal.
But " Sorry, Sir. It's not available on a public holiday. " was not what I expected at the counter.
But why a public holiday of all days ?

The rest of the afternoon was spent painting my ceiling.
I changed into my smelly clothes for the paint work, ironically after a shower.
When lunch came, I just headed for the market in a undersized SAFRA Half Marathon shirt and crappy shorts, with speckled paint on specs and shoes, arms and legs.

I recalled how one SMU student pretended to be a beggar for his Creativity project and tried the same. It only lasted for like 5 s cos it's really silly.

A ethnic chinese tourist couple walked past and looked lost.
I asked, " Ni Men Yao Qu Na Li ? "
The lady shouted at her husband, " EH! Ta Hui Shuo Hua Yu YEH! "
Again, they probably thought I was malay.

Sweet sweet golf.

2005-10-30T18:10:00.000+08:00

Golf they say is addictive and I found myself practising swings in the lift just now.
Sweet because the fruits of practice gives you a crisp sounding golf swing and high flying far ball.
And you stand there with the club suspended behind and above your shoulder, staring far away, admiring how well you've done it.
But it sucks when you realised the price is quiteful physically painful the next day.

My god-ma told me to get golf equipment from my dad and I asked my mum if dad's equipment's still around. And dang, I forgot he was a left-handed golfer. Maybe I'll ask him later if he has some right-handed clubs, hopefully.

They were quite a lot of uncles at the Toa Payoh driving range today and they really hit well and admirably with ease.

What if...

2005-10-23T22:17:00.000+08:00

Rooftops have meaningful life quotes and SOS hotlines written on erected boards.

Motorbikes have ejection seats so that in the event of a horrific crash or imminent crash, the rider can launch skyward and go airborne ? Then slowly parachuting down.

Cars have parachute launchers at the rear so that when desperate emergency measures (super hard jam braking and hand-braking) are applied, the parachute launches out to give drag ?
It could be more than 1 parachute and installed at strategic spots.

Air-gliding is legalised and promoted in Singapore. Travelling's much more simpler and fun!

--------------------------
Suggestions aside.

While staring at the moss growth outside my bunk, it reminded me that my green army towel looks quite similar to it. The grand aggregation of broccoli-like bumps does look like the terry towel's stitchwork. Now that's called a tactical towel.

Violence.

2005-10-20T15:35:00.000+08:00

Right from my window I'm now hearing piercing screams of a woman and a helpless soft sob of a child transmitted from the opp. block.
It just softened.

Shit.

Now I hear slapping sounds (presumably from a newspaper to flesh impact), each slap accompanied by an agonised mother's cry. I presume it's a mother.

I think she's more hardcore than my mum man.
My mum just threatens, cane and finish.
This lady really can scream loudly.

Shit.

The boy's really wailing now.
I heard *PIAK PIAK* (lady scream), followed by a helpless sobbing plea, " OK!!!!!! OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ".

Nabeh, I listen to her screamings I also scared out of shit.
Is it really necessary to be so violent ?

Vertical Marathon : Closed?!

2005-10-20T11:34:00.000+08:00

Ya know in today's Urban it mentioned, " But that's not stopping 750 people (so far) from signing up to do it on Nov 6. That's the day of the Vertical Marathon 2005............ "
Nicholas talked about this weeks back, so I really forced myself to detour my return home route a bit just to sign up.

The attendents directly me to the Concierge and I waited for my turn to be answered. She replied with a contradiction of expressions, a frustrated-despair-stone look contrasted with the nice expected tone. " Oh, I'm sorry, it's closed 2 weeks ago. ".

Did she get me correctly ? I hope she didn't cos I really wanna try runniing it out.

Urban implied that registration is still open and she said it's closed. I find it hard to believe what she said still. =\

Runs.

2005-10-15T10:54:00.000+08:00

My gastrointestinal tract is somewhat like a incorrectly fixed steam engine or pressurized cooker.
I kept having the runs yesterday and hoped I wouldn't avalanche on my bed at night. After ingestion of food and drinks, I'd bletchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Then ease off some pressure below.

Recovering.

2005-10-14T20:29:00.000+08:00

I am going to eat lesser now.
No, not dieting. I can't even do that.

I'm convinced that my gastrointestinal tract is very weak and prone to bloating and flatulence.
Hopefully with medication and strict diet it'll improve.

And the prospects are exciting.

For once, I may gain some mass.
For once, my hair may grow thicker.
And I won't look like a third world vietnamese soldier in long 4. Haha.