Beauty

Beauty as perceived by a commoner


Beauty as perceived by a knowledgeable engineer, perhaps?

Before being polluted with knowledge, we perceive beautiful as what they appear, as what it really is. A building is beautiful because it has unique designs and colourful lightings. After being polluted by Newton, we started to be able to see a building differently. We don't just see a building as what it is. We see the building as composing of arrows of forces. Beauty is not as pure as it used to be.

It's the same for knowing a person. How much do you want to know about her and yet retain your perception of her beauty? Although beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, I think that's because the beholder lacks knowledge.

To the group of friends who are watching fireworks at esplanade, the fireworks appeared so magical and they were engrossed in the moment with their mouth wide open in awe. To the person controlling the explosives, it's just the sequences of igniting the chemicals. Fireworks isn't that beautiful and magical afterall.

As we continue to advance and aquire new knowledge, and science continue to unravel the mysteries of nature, we are able to explain the phenomena of the natural world logically and systematically. Where is the beauty of the world then? The end of the rainbow is a pot of gold? Or the angels are sitting on top of the the rainbow looking at the world? Nobody is going to buy this story now. They will tell you how the sunlight and the rain formed the rainbow.

When everything can be explained scientifically, we no longer imagine things. No fantasy, no beauty. The petals of a flower don't appeal to you anymore once you can see a fibonacci pattern in there. Returning to study after two years no doubt made me appreciate studying more and appreciate what knowledge can do to the world around us. At least that was what I felt during a statics lecture on bridges in equilibrium, being able to appreciate that bridge stretching across the sea. But that's when beauty is also clouded by the balance of arrows of forces.

Maybe there will be one day when great physicists like Stephen Hawkings really discovered the unified theory that can explain all the forces of nature. Perhaps, that's where imaginations end. And beauty is deterministic.

Ramblings

I just want to vent my displeasure today on this blog. Vulgarities and insults are regretted, superficially.

I went to Woodlands Library before school today to read up on some of the info required by my course. The library was quite vacant as it was still early in the morning, about 10am. I borrowed this Engineering Mathematics book and happily went to the reading room to cross reference this book with my JC notes. And remember, the library was vacant. There were only 3 people in the big reading room.

After some time this stupid muddy librarian came in. She said "excuse me, no studying in the library" , then said "and no sleeping in the library". I was stunned. Even though I did not reply her, my mind was thinking "what the fuck are u saying". Damn. Did I look like some stupid teenagers occupying the library tables spreading out all their notes, mugging and chatting at the same time? It's precisely I need to refer to a book in the library that's why I was there. And that cockhead ask me to stop studying? Isn't Reading a SUBSET of Studying? If you are reading, you are studying anyway! And it's forbidden in the library. What a joke! And closing my eyes to imagine how those screwed vectors intersect with planes means I was sleeping! It was as though I was wasting their pure airconditioned oxygen, converting them to carbon dioxide. Maybe I think more so I produce more carbon dioxide. But then, the plants in there can photosynthesise more! What's more, I was not using their tables even though they have so many vacant tables out there! I was jus sitting on a couch by myself, occupying less than 1.5m by 1.5m of area. I think she suffer from psychosis, as what our previous OCS SSM used to say. Psychosis is too much psy (shit) in your brain, that they start to ooze out.

So maybe to them reading means u skim through a book. If you are reading indepth means you are studying, then that is forbidden by the library. If you are using a pencil to jot down important points from a library book that's even more sinful. You will be chased out of the forbidden city. It made me wonder what is a library then? Out of curousity, I went to dictionary.com to find out its meaning. Here it is.

Library (noun)
a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.

Some updates

Weekend was a a seemingly short and eventful one even though I slept about 2 hours on sat and sun each. I was so sleepy when I went for tuts today. It got worse when I got to try hard to figure out what my tutors were saying. One was Made in China the other was Made in Sri Lanka. My four hours passed really slow today. But I was glad it was over eventually. Recalled what Einstein said.

"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
Albert Einstein

Took part in AHM2007 on Sunday. Not sure if it's just this year, but it's the first year in three years that I saw high frequencies of ambulance evacuation. And I saw one person fainted just before the finishing line. Later in the day, I heard about the captain who collapsed and died. Life is fragile. Seems like you never know when you will be leaving this world. You can only try to live fully by the day I guess. Nevertheless, Sunday was still a good run. Although I was quite tired from the lack of sleep, my eyes really wanted to close while I was running, I still managed to meet my goal of not stopping for the 21km. After the run, I felt like going for marathon again this year end but its a pity that I got to give it up. All thanks to having exams on the next two days. Running half marathon, as the name suggests, only feels like half the journey completed. But more importantly, there is one less thing to look forward for this year. I need to find another goal to replace this one so that I can have a purpose to exercise and train.

Today is my sis birthday. Happy Birthday zy! But most importantly, it's one of the rare occasion in a year when the whole family enjoy a meal together, which I really appreciate.

Respect

I went for my MKT1003 lecture today at NUS biz school from 2pm to 4pm. It has been a lively and interesting lecture and I must say that the lecturer did a great job imparting her knowledge to us. She was humorous and at the same time was able to get the important points across effectively. However, what really irritated me was how most of the students behaved just when the lecture was about to end.

Those ungrateful students just did not bothered about her making announcements and were just busy packing their notes. While the lectuerer was trying to make some announcements about tutorials and a few other stuffs, the whole lectuer theatre was polluted with noise of notes flipping, files clipping and bags zipping. I mean, the lectuerer worked hard for the past two hours teaching you guys and making the lesson as lively as possible so that you don't fall asleep, why can't you ingrates just give her one or two more minutes of respect. Give her the airtime to finish making her announcements before you pack your things and leave the lecture theatre. While trying to save that extra one or two minute, which I think most of you weren't but were simply ignorant of basic human courtesy, you portray a lowly image of yourself. Undergrates, young adults, not knowing how to show some form of basic respect for the speaker. If you were to change roles and be the speaker, how would you feel when u haven't finish saying what you wanted to say and the whole lecture theatre started to ignore you and engrossed in packing notes into bags?

The one or two minutes might be what it takes to spoil a person's day.

Wednesday

Went for a 2 hour computing lecture today, which I think I didn't absorb much from the session. I didn't understand what the lecturer was talking about. Looks like there are a lot of readings ahead to catch up already. It's like trying to learn hindi in a two hour session. But from experience, you can definitely learn much more for hindi because normally you will absorb and learn the vulgarities of a new language very fast. For computing, there is no interesting crude language for you to pick up and add some passion for the language.

Schoolwork is starting to pile up so I went over to yujin's hall after shool to clear my tuts, bumped into cons and later ben. Think having a room in campus is really a convenient thing. Although the hall was pretty noisy at that time, which I was quite distracted, it at least added some live to the atmosphere. After 'engrossing' in mugging for a seemingly short while (according to clock time it's 3 hours), yujin, ben and I went to the SRC swimming pool for a canoe polo tryout.

Canoe polo was fun! Doing stretching beside the pool and playing ball passing reminded me of the canoe polo competition we took part four years ago. I was still thinking when was the last time we played and surprisingly, it's been four years! How time flies! Four years ago we were still training on thursdays nights and sunday at paddle culture with simon and ah pang as our coaches. Some flashbacks included capsizing jizheng, capsizing ninghan, capsizing ben. Seems like it's all about capsizing people! There were also other memories of course, like training till very late at night and dozing off during lecture the next day, saving up every single cents to pay for coach fees, the after training small talks, and my team striking a draw with RJ (thanks to the ball bouncing off peigeok's boat)

The fun began when we got into the water with our boats. It might have been 4 years since we played the game but the feeling was still there, not the tactics though. We tried rolling, passing the ball, chasing the ball, dipping koon's boat till he capsized and also pushing ben and koonz into the water when they got the ball! Seems like I still get the thrill of capsizing people after four years. Instinctively, we played rather aggressively and it was full of adrenaline rush, which was what I like about the sport. Release of all our suppressed violent tendencies accumulated over the years!

After the session, koonz pillion me back. Thanks bro. We had supper at a neighbourhood coffeeshop and catch up a bit on each other's life.

Canoe polo days were one of the times in OAC when we were close and you could feel the camaraderie of a team.

The story of a BBQ

During a BBQ session, a small kid and a big kid had a conversation.

Small Kid: "Let me show you a magic"
Big Kid: "Come on, I am older than you. What can you show me that will facinate me?"
Small Kid: "See this pile of burning charcoals? I take one of them out and lay it somewhere else. The glowing red disappear!"
Big Kid: "How interesting, but its not magic! It's the obvious! You take it out from the heat of course it will cool down!"
Small Kid: "Now I put it back to the pile. See It starts glowing again!"
Big Kid: "So that's your magic?"
Small Kid: "Yes! Daddy told me that's life. But I don't understand what he's talking about. I only know its magic that the charcoal starts glowing again when you put it back. "
Big Kid: "Yeah... that's enlightening"

AHM2007 Race Pack

Race Expo for AHM was orderly, with the filling up of forms, recruits serving as friendly ushers directing the crowd to queue up in front of the counters corresponding to the events for AHM2007. However, a good impression of a well organised race expo did not necessary mean getting a good race pack. I'ill tell you why from the following two illustrations.


This is the race pack, which we also normally call the goody bag. A cheap piece of plastic carrier containing whatever is of good value inside.


Everything out - A very useful and quick method, developed and often used in the army, of finding out the contents of the goody bag. That is all that the goody bag contains.

An old Yiddish Proverb

It's good to hope, it's the waiting that spoils it.

A new girlfriend

After a long wait, I finally got her. Yes here she is. First impression counts. When I first saw her today, she looked cold and unfeeling, like a piece of scrap metal. Icequeen.



And when I tried to charge her, not with my own potent electric current, but from the power source, she got hot very fast. Albeit this poor stamina of hers, I got to accept her weakness, as I am gonna be stuck with her for the next four years. She will see me through University.

But God is always fair, and the consolation of receiving such a cold, black and unfeeling girlfriend is that she is very slim and portable. I can bring her around easily. Two pens joined together is longer than her!



Her specs: Core 2 Dual 1.66GHz, 1 GB Ram, 160GB HDD, cant be bothered to type down the rest. Can search online for Lenovo X60

Well, make her seem warmer (of course not literally), shall call her Yvette. Call a girl's name so I will take good care of her.

2nd day of school

Decided that I should pen down something to mark the start of school. Well, the second day of school was more happening than the first day of school, so I shall blog about today instead of yesterday! (Basically yesterday just went for a two hour lecture. Lecture content: Lim (content --> 0) )

Today's marketing lecture was interesting. The lecturer rocks cos I did not fall asleep at all in the late afternoon. After lecture I met up with jeanne and jw to go ikea get some stuffs. What nice seniors, made me walk all the way from business school to university hall there (which is to cross from one side of the school to the other.) There I was, a young and blur freshie with a colourful map trying to orientate myself in this concrete jungle. But it was really a surprise that I did not take that long to reach the other side. NUS wasn't that big afterall. Still, I think I need to have a campus orientation soon so that I wont be carrying that stupid map again in year 3.

So after being bullied by the two dear seniors, we went to ikea and queensway and finally settled down at ikea again to have dinner. Meatballs! Hotdog Buns! Fried Chicken Wings! My favourite gourmet from ikea! Wooah! Already pampering myself before all the workload come in. Well, I guess I will pamper myself even more when schoolwork gets heavier. Its always pleasure - suffer - more pleasure, so that when you mug, the previous pleasure is still on your mind and it won't be so unbearable. Suffer to appreciate pleasure.

Stage 1: pleasure ........ completed 16 Aug 07
Stage 2: suffer ........ till late

Stage 3: soon... semester ending soon

The Ticktockman

He decides you must sleep now because if you don't sleep, you won't have 8 clock-hours of sleep before you wake up for tomorrow morning lecture. However, you lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling with countless thoughts, yet trying to fall asleep because you have to.

He decides that you only have 2 hours to get what you want on the streets. As a result, you have to shop for what you need, objectively. He doesn't allow you to see other things or stop for a drink, because he doesn't wait for you. If you don't listen to his instructions, you will be late for your appointment.

He decides you have to leave the place now, even though it's been great sitting down chatting with your friend on almost anything you can think of. He forced you to return to reality. You have to leave if not he will make you pay for the probable consquence of missing the bus. However, you left feeling that the conversation shouldn't have ended so fast.


He says that you should have him on your mind every moment. If you lose track of him you might not be able to finish your exam papers when the examiner ask you to put down your pen. You will not be able to swim fast enough. However, you realise that the more you think of him, the faster he race across your mind, such that with him around, you are never able to complete all the maths questions, never able to swim fast. When you lose track of him, the span of the moment is infinite. Your mind is on what you are doing, not on him.

He says that racing against him is productivity, and productivity is speed. In his perspective, speed is the only way to compete with an edge over others. If you are doing nothing, you are wasting away your life because he says that life is a continuum of events after events, the void of doing nothing should be avoided. But peace of the mind, clarity of thoughts, and internalisation of virtues and values are realised through comtemplation in the void.

He says you must stop writing now because its time to sleep.

No Chinese High Day! Yay!

A picture paints a thousand words! And this is it! Whoosh! A strictly RV-and-an-affliate Day. And a delighted pose from the rvians taken by the affliate!



Yep, Zhengwei, thanks for bringing up the idea of kayaking! I haven't kayak for a long time. This trip from Pasir Ris to Coney Island and back was really fun and laughter in the sun! Of course not because no Chinese High guys were around! But because we were just a fun lot of people! Beaching up halfway at coney island and decided not to continue to Punggol Beach. Where has our determination gone to? Remember our YLTC Quote "What doesn't break you only make you stronger?" To Hell with it! Cos here's the result of 'giving up' going to Punggol for something better! Check it out!


That guy just plucked an orange from the orange tree at Coney Island


Someone is trying to fly like the other two


Here we come!


Now with the paddle!


Pawnees with the yellow paddles!




This picture sums up the day

Disclaimer: Any reference to Chinese High is entirely fictional. We have nothing against Chinese High.

The slower outdoors

I woke up at 6am this morning, not due to insomia but due to the urge to go for a morning ride on my bike from woodlands to yishun, down to mandai and back to woodlands. I started at high speed, intending to return home drenched in sweat, with undrainable lactic acid accumulated in my calves. It was indeed fun riding fast and cutting through the cool morning breeze, un-aerodynamically. Furthermore, riding at high speed was justifiable especially along the dark paths beside sembawang airbase, as the imagined ghosts, werevolves and vampires won't be able to catch up with me. It was until I reached mandai that I was compelled to slow down as I thought I shouldn't just zoom past these places without capturing them with my 2.0 megapix nokia 6288.


Dawn. Along Mandai Road, a place where we always take for granted as our cars zoom past at 100km/h


The peaceful seletar reservoir


Penguins + Grass?


Mystery revealed! Reminded me that I've never been to the zoo for many many years.


And a good reward gave the day a great start!

Cycling with a group of friends is filled with laughter and joy, you will never feel lonely with the great company. Cycling alone is a journey of contemplation and discovery, especially when you go at a slower pace, you see things you never noticed before when you are in a car zooming past it. At times, go slow to see the world go by.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

Finally, I get to watch NDP this year! Well, the past three years I have been going to Marina Bay with 29th OAC to squeeze with the crowd so as to catch the fireworks! Today, I am glad I could be a couch potato and watch the full parade from the comfort of my home!

Two years ago...

Thought bubble: A chain of malay commands, which I could't understand. The marching contingent looked cool, especially the guard of honour, majestic flag.

Two years later...

Thought bubble: Finally I understand what the hell those commands meant! The marching contingent looked cool, especially the guard of honour, majestic flag! (Its called the Colours) Recalling from my experience of being in the colour party, holding the Colours really made your right bicep so much bigger than your left one such that you need to do something to your left arm to balance up the size. When there is a breeze, endure! When there is a strong wind, you are lucky if you don't fly! When marching with the Colours, you will be cursing and swearing at that irritating sword which kept hitting against your leg. From far it looks neat and cool, from near every one is full of sweat from the Hentak Kaki. But involvement indeed made me more appreciative to the whole event.

One year ago... It is what most NSF will call Saikang (Shit Work)



Fortunately, exposure in an active unit allowed me to gained some insight to that saikang. After watching NDP this year, this quote sounds even more meaningful now.



Happy Birthday Singapore!

Simple Pleasure

I went over to zw house to stay over yesterday night after sending off wl at the airport. In the morning, I woke up to see his mum has already prepared a cup of warm soya bean milk, a cup of plain water, curry buns, and a bowl of cereal for me. It's a pretty touching sight to see. I started to recall when was the last time I had such a well prepared breakfast by my mum, which made me really miss homemade breakfast. Life nowadays have always been a rush. While I will try to prepare a sumptuous breakfast for myself if I have a lull morning, it's not the same as it being prepared by one's mum.

Why go to the summit?

Saw this from Mr David Lim's website and thought it's a meaningful to share.

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.

Rene Daumal

Listening to your heart

AHM is coming and I've not been running further than 10km ever since my marathon last year because all the events that I took part since then were never longer than 10km. But the evening was really beautiful today, and I can't resist not leaving my house. Unlike other people who were attached and were going on a date with their girlfriends, I changed into my running gear and headed for the roads. Call me a loner, I don't care. It was going to be a run of uncertainty because I did not know what distance I would be running and I just recovered from a sprained ankle. Let's just run from woodlands to yishun and back! (I discovered this to be 16km when I plotted out the distance from the street directory when I reached home)

Off I ran, step by step, taking one breath every ten steps and soon I was in a rythmic motion. I could feel my heart pumping. As I ran alongside the sembawang airbase, to my left was the hustle and bustle of the cars and to my right was the serenity of the forest (its serene if you don't think of any ghost) It's an interesting contrast when you were running there. On the left the world zoom pass you but on the right, the world seemed to have stopped. There I was, running and listening to my heart pumping at the same time. I felt alive and at the same time peaceful. It must be the effect of endorphin. Who cares about that injured ankle! For that period of time when I was running, nothing else was on my mind. I was free from the clutches of time and emotions. I just had to move on step by step, enjoying the beautiful sight of the slowly darkening sky. Nothing else matters.

Don't worry so much about past injuries, for the more you worry the more it hinders you from moving forward. Life goes on and injuries are past events. Don't think about how far you have to go to reach your destination because once you label a number to the distance, it will make you cast doubts about your own ability. Enjoy the moments of the journey to your destination. Enjoy the breathing, the aches, the breeze and the timeless feeling of not bringing a watch with you. Listen to your heart. That's living.

Bullshitters bullshitting

This blog has been stagnant for months and I am not sure how many mossies it has bred. Well, enough of my bullshits, now its blogging about some real life bullshits.

I had a great dinner @ swensons with my colleagues from Eventage last tuesday. The take of the day from my boss was 'Jeremy, I tell you, the university people, the lecturers or professors, are also people who talk jiao wei (bird talk, or rubbish). You don't believe tomorrow you see ' And this statement was verified the next day.

Like anyone who is concerned about his studies for the next four years, I took great effort in mapping out my university modules with yujin. Great effort was taken not because it is so hard to map. In fact, mapping is a simple affair, like piecing jigsaw puzzles. The effort is in trying to navigate the NUS websites, reading through the websites, which are so screwed up and messy. Newbies typically cant find information from it easily. And the whole search for information became more irritating after a while when you realised the karma of your clicking actions was 15 windows being opened! Nevertheless, the determined me finally mapped out my modules for the four years, with some queries to ask the professors or experts the next day during the engineering welcome talks and briefs.

And Yujin can testify, we literally wasted one day of our life going to the NUS engineering briefs. It's F##ked up. First was the dean's welcome. That was not so bad, although he kept saying 'you've made the right choice' throughout his welcome. Perhaps to the impressionable 19 year olds who just graduated from JC not long ago, this appear to be some form of reassurance and motivation that they have indeed make the right choice. But to us who have been enlightened from 2 years of NS, it just appear as pure bullshit... in army it's termed as wayang. Next, there was supposed to be a briefing on CORS bidding and IVLE. The shock came when this briefing was actually not a briefing but a broadcast of a webcast teaching us how to bid. Any IT literate student can easily read the webcast online at home, why travel down to school to watch a webcast? The next bullshit and the greatest bullshit of the day was the double major brief. Our queries about our modules were mostly about the double major programme and we were looking forward to this brief to seek enlightenment. However, this was wishful thinking on our part. We were enlightened, not about the modules, but about becoming aware that we know more than the professor. He couldn't answer all our queries and he tried to smoke about it, which made the audience more confused. 'maybe, perhaps you can do this and that, well, i don't know'. These were words that come out from him and it cost me 1.5 hour listening to him bullshitting and gaining no new insights about my course. I went to the session to seek answers from the subject expert, not to hear someone trying to smoke out answers he himself didn't even know. It was absurd. NUS shouldn't send someone who know nothing at all to brief the audience.

Leaving the school in a pissed mode, thinking that the day was not worth living, I remembered what my Eventage boss told me, by the way he was form ITE. 'Jeremy, I tell you, the university people, the lecturers or professors, are also people who talk jiao wei (bird talk, or rubbish). You don't believe tomorrow you see ' It was the sole enlightenment I had for the day.