Need Cash, anyone?

I saw this advertisement at my grandparents' house today. Everyone is learning the concept of packaging and advertising well. Advertising, that's part of marketing strategies! I learnt that in MKT1003.



What a samaritan that guy is. Helping people with cash problems! There are only three people in this world who will be so kind hearted or 'kind hearted' to strangers.

1) The banks. Obviously it's not from the bank.
2.) The rich. When they donate, they need publicity.
3.) Ah Long. That's more likely.

Ah Long is learning the ropes of marketing well.

OAC 我们的家

Decided to post the lyrics here after yesterday's outing.

OAC 我们的家

这些年来 我们走过坎坷路
时不时 感觉好孤独
几经风雨 我们有缘来相遇
就此结下了解不开的友谊
坚定不移 我们历尽了迁徙
为了一致的目标 让我们一起向前行

Chorus
Ah – Ha OAC是我的家
每一刻都想念她
我们付出了所有
为的就是发扬她精神
Ah – Ha OAC温暖我心
给你我似家的温馨
让我们手牵手
一同共创美好的未来

多年以后 我们唱起这首歌
一瞬间 回忆齐涌现
弹着吉他 友谊就像这首歌
永恒的 陪伴着生命的旅程
歌声响起 秉着炽热的内心
让我们再次歌颂 以往美丽的回忆

Chorus x2
Ah – Ha OAC是我的家
每一刻都想念她
我们付出了所有
为的就是发扬她精神
Ah – Ha OAC温暖我心
给你我似家的温馨
让我们手牵手
一同共创美好的未来

Supper @ Bedok 85

After attending pek's farewell yesterday, 29th OAC met up at bedok 85 for supper at 11pm! To put it in a more nolstalgic manner, last supper with zhengwei and shuying. The company was great! In what seems to be minutes, it was already 230am when we left. Apart from the usual good food, sugarcane drinks and crapping, this supper was a little different from the previous suppers we've had. We had a mini-MAF cos Tze and I brought lanterns to relive our childhood memories!

After eating at bedok 85, we went over to bedok reservoir to light up, a place which ben claimed to have special memories with.... With university level understanding of torque, Jingsong and Likoon managed to balance themselves on a see-saw without their legs touching the ground, with a very constipated look though. Walking towards water with our lighted up paper lanterns, we settled down to light up more candles, forming the numbers 29. Some of us also went nearby to play with the swing. It's like turning back time to our childhood. I noticed the playgrounds were all sand based, something which is very hard to find in Singapore nowadays. While using candles to form 29, tze, jw, shu, pg and zw were trying to use a burning twig to draw hearts and stars while our 'official' sandfly-cum-mosquitophilic photographer cons took pics of it using fireworks mode. The effects were fantastic!









Apart from the merry making in the wee hours, I felt it was a nolstagic night. A quiet park, a half-full moon and a group of friends sitting in a circle with lanterns, burning lanterns, burning candles. It felt so much like a campfire. Automatically, we started singing some HC songs and our own OAC song. Those were the good old days. The meaning of mid autumn festival is 团圆。And I thought the outing suited it, since two of us are leaving for the UK and Japan this week. Nevertheless, MAF also have a meaning for people who are leaving their home. 但愿人长久，千里共婵娟.

Pek's farewell

Friday was engin day! Half day for all engineering students. My lecture ended at 12pm. After having lunch at Techno Edge, I went to beach road with likoon to buy a 60L Outgear backpack for jingsong as his b'day present from 29th. Later on, went back to RV to visit zhengwei and weiqi. Had a short game of frisbee and wanted to visit Mr Desmond Lim, but he was not around. 530 was up! I gotta rush back to put down my stuffs and attend pek's farewell cum birthday party.

Pek's farewell was at Parc Vista condo at lakeside. Needless to say, the food was definitely great since Pek is someone who is always hungry! Junyuan brought his ice wine! That was wise move, I must say. The last time I opened my ice wine at yujin's house, it was shared by more than fifteen people, which means each person only get a sip of the wine! Not shiok enough! This time round, the wine was shared by 9 of us from ADA! I got to drink about 1/3 the volume of a paper cup! That pureness of the wine was great! Shouldn't have ate the korean bbq during the last day of NZ. Should have bought 2 more bottles back! Back to pek's farewell, it was a good catching up with my army friends, especially ivan, a.k.a. bunkmate! We have not seen him for a long timE! i gotta self introduce myself to him yesterday. "Hi Ivan, I am Jeremy". Always pon our outings! He's famous for this pillow talk, which all you hawkers will remember.

Weijie: "Hey Ivan, don't like that lar, what are friends for?"
Ivan: "Hey what friends, we are just bunkmates."

Now that pek is leaving, we will have one less person turning up for outings. Certainly it's going to feel like a missing jigsaw. Nevertheless, let's hope that our rotation of organisers for outings will continue. Keep the fire burning.

Macritchie Outing --- Marcel'06
Dragon Gate restaurant Tim Sum Buffet --- Jeremy'06
Marche --- Alan'06
Paragon Ding Tai Feng --- Jy'06
Swaadhisht Authentic Indian Cuisine --- Siva'06
Michael Father's Tze Char --- Pek'07
Geylang --- Wj'07
?? --- Alan

A journalist from the business times once said, apart from the three types of mutually exclusive friends identified by Aristotle, "there is another type of friends. They are those that you know your life will eventually diverage from, but with whom you've shared something special for a time."



And to pek, thanks for being both a brother and a great friend. I've learnt a lot from you. All the best in the UK!

Zhengwei's Farewell

Went for zhengwei's farewell on saturday at east coast park coasta sands chalet. It's been a great outing with this bunch of friends from 29th OAC. Something really special about this group of friends is that we are still going out as one big group after graduating from JC for 3 years, and it's pretty often, say at least once a month, but most of the time is twice a month. Maybe it's because this is the 21st Bday year for all of us, maybe it's because the guys have passed driving and can drive pple out for supper. Whatever the reason, looking back we have really came a long way, a friendship forged since YLTC 03 and is still going strong. Now that zhengwei is leaving, it's one less person in the group. The guy who is trademark for saying disgustingly mushy stuffs is leaving. There is no one to teach koon to say sweet nothings and not to stutter again. Of course these are not his only good points, but these are the first two that came to my mind currently. Hope you don't mind, zw. Thanks for organising the farewell. It's been a great night catching up with everyone. We will miss you one =D

Something good about the day

Sometimes you just need to do one or two things you don't normally do to break the monotony of the day. This was what happened today for no reason. I think I was abnormal.

I saw four teens cycling past me while I was walking home from woodlands library. I noticed some orange light on their right and on closer look, each of them was holding a cigarette. Although this is really not very me, I just blurted out, telling them to stop smoking. And I got my retribution when they replied me with a string of vulgarities. But so be it. There was no new vulgar vocab to learn from them anyway. I once used them as punctuation too.

Later, feeling totally saturated from trying to draw correct freebody diagrams to solve equilibrium problems (fearing that Sir Newton will wake up from his grave if I don't draw according to his laws.), I went for a jog to drain away the lactic equations accumulated in my brain. Saw this young girl in a car. I tried waving and smiling to her but she hid below the window. Well, very not me to stop halfway to wave to a little kid. But it's kind of those little pleasures of life. Haha.

Weekend is coming. Hosei!

Botak Jones

Went with my army friends to botak jones yesterday to celebrate jy bdae at the clementi outlet. It's my third time eating at botak jones! And yesterday was the second time I ordered a cajun chicken set, plus a shared plate of large whoopass cheese fries! It funny how 1 month in university can change our conversation topics. It used to be army here army there when we had outings. But yesterday, the topic was this lectuerer sux or don't understand what that lecturer was talking or I spent 3 hours doing one question in my tutorial! There was also a significant decrease in the universal friendly gesture -F- used too. We dun use it as a punctuation anymore. More cultured now? Less 'Ah beng?' Nevertheless, despite the erosion of crude culture, we can still talk about any rubbish. Just that the rubbish topics now include maths and equations and being in an almost all guys class. No more Russel Peter's jokes!

And one hour passed like nobody's business when you are in good company. or engrossed in what you are doing.

I went home after my outing to do my tutorial which was supposed to be submitted today. I din realise that it was already 2am by the time I cleared it. As a result, I missed today's morning run which I promised myself cos' my lazy body just refused to get out of bed! I really missed going ecp to run every sat morning.

Today, on my way back from school I remembered I haven been on msn for a while since most of the time I was trying to clear my pile of work. I am not sure when did it become a 'habit' to come online. So, on my boring journey home I did some mental sums, like those sch kids having mental sums. The only difference is that I don't have an exercise book now to write it down like last time. But I think my mental sum is more meaningful than those your teachers give you, kiddos.

Assuming an average of 2h spent on msn per day.
1 Day = 2h
30 Day = 60h (awake)
= 2.5 Days (awake) -------- (1)

[ Recall: An interesting chat with my friend yesterday taught me the concept of waking days. If you sleep 10hour per day, which is about half a day, you only live about 30 waking years if your lifespan is 60 years. Sound like some chim crap, but I shall crap on. ]

So assuming you are a superman and sleep an approximately 4h per day.
Total waking hours per month = 20 x 30
= 600h
= 25 Days --------(2)

Comparing (1) and (2), percentage of waking time spent on msn = (2.5/25)*100%
= 10%

How you infer this value of 10% is up to you. Cos I have not really reflected on the 10% either. It's just out of curousity on the train that I worked out the percentage. We can't say msn is totally bad and time wasting because it's a virtual meeting place with your friends and many other advantages you can name. But we can't say that 10% is not a significant amount of time. And maybe 10% is just too much an underestimate because you might just be online for more than 2 hours and sleep more than 4 hours per day. So next time when I want to complain I dun have enough time, I should think twice whether I am a victim of time or vice versa.

Took so long to type out the maths when my mental sum only took less than 1min. Haolian my core 2 duo brain processor a bit =)

Work

It's four weeks into the semester and schoolwork is piling up. Been trying to clear some of them these few days but was unable to summon enough discipline or having mental blocks when attempting to them. Yet life's not so bad after all. I am starting to know most of my classmates (and also happily accept that it's almost an all guy's class). I also look forward to the weekly canoe polo training to release the suppressed violent tendencies of me accumulated from the frustrations and sianness of mugging. Admist the monotomy of a work-oriented week, little actions certainly go a long way as a pleasant surprise, thanks :) Well, I am glad I am adapting well to university life. Things are now starting to settle in place and I have better control of my time now.

"The only way to go beyond work is through work. It is not that work itself is valuable; we surmount work by work. The real value of work lies in the strength of self-denial."
--Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

Sunday

An excerpt from a social experiment book that I was reading, which I found it interesting.

"And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy," it is written in the Book of Genesis. God devoted six days to creating heaven and earth. Then, on the seventh, the work is finished - not by building a holy place, but by creating a sacred time. Although the world was created in the first six days, its survival depends upon the holiness of the seventh. "What was created on the seventh day? Tranquillity, serenity, peace and repose." Philosopher Abraham Herschel observed: "Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh we seek to dominate the self... In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity. The island is the seventh day, a day of detachment from things, instruments and practical affairs as well as of attachment to the spirit."

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.