YCYC

20090929

Recently I had my MA1521 mid-term, which I screwed up and am sure I will fail. It sucks because I really put in a lot of effort into it, much more than any module, and I skipped an entire week of lessons at NTU so I can focus on it.

The worst part is that it's not that I don't know how to do, but for some reason I made ridiculous careless mistakes that cost me, a lot. It's a MCQ, so if you're wrong, that's it. No working marks, no nothing.

So I'm probably getting less than 10% for this 20% weightage test, and I've to somehow get 80% for the final.

Some stupid mistakes I made include seeing a t as 1, differentiating a constant and somehow it remains a constant instead of 0.

The only good news is that hopefully whatever I've learnt helps me for the final paper.

Sigh. Have to get over this shitty feeling somehow. If I was just clueless, it wouldn't have been this bad. It's bad because I knew how to do them, yet I f-up. As they always say, suck it up, move on. I know.

20090910

:( =( :[ =[

About 2 years ago Geri gave me a picture of us, nicely framed, and puzzled-dized (is there such a word?). Since then, I’ve always displayed it at the top of one of my shelves.

Today, after a tiring day, I bought dinner home. As I turned on the fan, and began taking out my wallet and all, the picture frame dropped, and shattered beside me, narrowly missing my head.

I am very sad.

Good thing is the picture, though a puzzle, is still perfectly intact.

It was like one of those moments from a movie, whereby someone representing a couple will suddenly break or drop in the presence of one of them signifying a bad omen for them :(. I hope none of that happens.

I shall look on the bright side! The puzzle is still complete :D, and I’m safe!

20090906

^^

Cleaned up the blog layout, removed a couple of unnecessary stuff ^^. Anyway, I had a wonderful birthday celebration yesterday :D! Thank you everyone!

Dinner was @ Sunset Bay @ ECP. When I arrived I saw two Hello Kitty Happy Birthday balloons. One was for me, and the other for Jeremy. Also, I received a picnic mat, a picnic bag, and some food, and of course a voucher for going to Jazz By The Beach :P. Haha.

I had Tropicana Chicken (or something like that) for dinner. Mac, Jeremy, Chin Ming and Kenny had it as well. I’m not a food person, so I don’t know how to rate it, but I’d say it’s good but a little too dry. Geri had a platter of nuggets, samosa and fries, and we all helped to finish it :P. Greg had fish filet, while Pate as usual, decided to have salad. Haha. Jeremy’s friends, Adeline and Nick, had spaghetti and fish filet respectively.

The birthday cake came after dinner, and it was very nice! Haha :D.

Dearie and Pate had to leave 1/2 way to send Joanna off, and we had to walk quite far just to get a cab. Sunset Bay’s really a little inaccessible if you aren’t driving. After Jeremy and I sent Pate and Geri off, we went back to Sunset Bay where the rest of the people were. Shortly after, I realised my Hello Kitty balloon was missing :(! The weight holding it down was on the floor though. The string holding it must have snapped, and Hello Kitty flew to the heavens. Lol.

Shortly after, Adeline, Nick and Kenny left, while the rest of us decided to walk to McDonald’s. It was far, but fun :D. Chin Ming and Mac actually survived the walk :X! Geri and Pate returned to join us soon after.

Initially, we walked to McDonald’s as we wanted to find a place (any one of the benches in ECP) to sit down and drink. The weather forecast showed that it may rain at night, so we wanted shelter (McDonald’s) in case it rains. However, there were no empty benches, and we ended up ordering drinks from McDonald’s, and mixing it with the Hennessy :D. Lol. We then played some drinking games for the rest of the night.

That’s about it! Words can’t describe everything, but thank you people for the memories :D.

On another note, if people don’t do the things you expect/think/believe/hope they will do, there’s nothing you can do either, right? So I’ve learnt to just accept it :D.

20090905

For those of you who’ve yet to seen this, I highly suggest you do!

http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/workplay_balance_at_mit/50_things.shtml

Although it was written for his students, I find that a lot of the things written inside applies to all of us, student or not, and some of it actually hit me quite hard, while others just make me smile. It’s real nice, and among the list, those that mean a lot or make a lot of sense to me are:

1. Your friends will change a lot over the next four years. Let them.

2. Call someone you love back home a few times a week, even if just for a few minutes.

5. Adjust your schedule around when you are most productive and creative. If you're nocturnal and do your best work late at night, embrace that. It may be the only time in your life when you can.

6. If you write your best papers the night before they are due, don't let people tell you that you "should be more organized" or that you "should plan better." Different things work for different people. Personally, I worked best under pressure - so I always procrastinated... and always kicked ass (which annoyed my friends to no end). ;-) Use the freedom that comes with not having grades first semester to experiment and see what works best for you.

7. At least a few times in your college career, do something fun and irresponsible when you should be studying. The night before my freshman year psych final, my roommate somehow scored front row seats to the Indigo Girls at a venue 2 hours away. I didn't do so well on the final, but I haven't thought about psych since 1993. I've thought about the experience of going to that show (with the guy who is now my son's godfather) at least once a month ever since.

14. Embrace the differences between you and your classmates. Always be asking yourself, "what can I learn from this person?" More of your education will come from this than from any classroom.

17. Working things out between friends is best done in person, not over email. (IM does not count as "in person.") Often someone's facial expressions will tell you more than his/her words.

23. It's important to think about the future, but it's more important to be present in the now. You won't get the most out of college if you think of it as a stepping stone.

24. When you're living on a college campus with 400 things going on every second of every day, watching TV is pretty much a waste of your time and a waste of your parents' money. If you're going to watch, watch with friends so at least you can call it a "valuable social experience."

28. Every once in awhile, there will come an especially powerful moment when you can actually feel that an experience has changed who you are. Embrace these, even if they are painful.

29. No matter what your political or religious beliefs, be open-minded. You're going to be challenged over the next four years in ways you can't imagine, across all fronts. You can't learn if you're closed off.

31. Don't always lead. It's good to follow sometimes.

41. Make a complete ass of yourself at least once, preferably more. It builds character.

As I was reading through the list, I realised I’ve stopped doing many things on the list that I once did. It’s quite sad really, and I’m going to do something about it.

Do read the list, some of it MAY seem like common sense, but common sense isn’t really common nowadays. Most people are on the extremes. Either they give everything and everyone up just to study, or they give up completely on their studies and university becomes just a social gathering ground…

<3