A stressful driving lesson this afternoon. The instructor kept nagging. According to him, that was to mentally prepare me for naggy examiner during my test. Argh. Sigh. I did all sorts of stupid things when he nagged. The more he nagged, the more things went wrong. I was really glad to get out of the car when the lesson ended. The instructor tried to comfort by saying I drove well. Erm. I mounted kerb thrice. Forgot to check blind spot five times. Didn't accelerate when I went up the slope. Too close behind vehicles. If it's a test, I would have failed.

But, he actually said if I had a bit more luck during my previous test, I would have passed. Errrr....

I thought I could kind of take a break and relax for a while during my driving lesson. On the contrary, it pushed my stress level to its new peak for the week.

Argh.

The email sent by the department telling us to observe the rules and regulations in the honours room wasn't too effective. We still talk. We still laugh. We're still loud. ok, at least, we didn't sing this time round. Haha. I guess, as long as we don't go overboard and turn the room into some disco or noise pollute the whole building (though we're already noise polluting the room and the corridor), the department may just have to close one eye. Because the room now serves as a gathering place for the honours students. To think that some of the students actually survived their last three years of their university educations, having less than ten friends (including hi-bye ones), I somehow feel that we should make use of this last year to know each other. In the process of interaction, noise is just unavoidable.

Haha. I'm just trying to find excuse for making noise. Still, I hope to get to know all the other 50+4+1 applied/pure mathematics honours students by the end of the year. I know 27 of them. 28 more to go. Shall start with people from my matrix computation class. :) That shouldn't be too difficult, since they've just laughed at me on monday. My "orgonal" matrix (I meant orthogonal). And my super shocked expression when the lecturer commented that I've done much more than he expected.

I miss friends from my junior batches, as well as those who have graduated. And those who I no longer get to attend lessons with. And seniors. The times we took bus 95 home after lessons. The times we laughed during lectures and tutorials. The times we teased each other. The times at science canteen. The times we passed paper messages to each other during lectures. The list goes on... ... Thanks to all these people who gave me such wonderful memories.

Despite feeling all so stressed up, I must admit, the times we spent together in the honours room for the past few weeks had greatly brightened up my days. :)

Feeling so much better after typing such a long entry. It's time to go and work on my tutorial again. I'm beginning to get the right momentum. Thus the dip in stress level as compared to last week. I remember those speeches during commencement ceremonies. The graduates thanked their family and friends on stage for their support over the years, in particular for their honours year. Now I understand. This last year is a stressful one for most of us.

I think my senior is right: I've problems with discrete stuff. I spent the whole day on a damn discrete problem. It's for my project. According to my supervisor, it's suppose to be simple. Erm. Fine. Luckily, I don't have to deal a lot with discrete fourier transform. Argh.

Still a lot of work to be done before I meet my supervisor again on tuesday. After which, I've to go for some briefing held opposite honours room. I had this weird dream last night: tkm told me to treasure this chance of meeting visiting professors. Err. To prepare for masters overseas? In the dream, he went on to tell me to treasure whatever opportunities my grades have opened up for me. The grades have generated much stress, but at the same time, they've opened up doors which I never get to open last time.

Though I don't know why out of all people, I dreamed of tkm telling me such things. But then, the conversation in the dream did make sense afterall. Haha. There's another dream: some good looking guy comforting me. Too bad I didn't grab hold of the opportunity to hug him and cry on his shoulder. Haha. Since it's something I can't do in reality, I should have done it in my dream.

Teachers' day is coming. I heard maths society is passing around these luminous star shape and heart shape papers for students to write some messages to their lecturers and tutors. Why didn't they pass some to me... I'll need one, two,.... seven, eight... erm... I heard the piece of paper isn't too big, so, I may need a few for one message. Haha. I'm just that long winded. Maybe I should go get a card for my supervisor. Maybe denny. Maybe quek. Maybe chew. Maybe woodstock. Maybe tkm. Errrr... ok, just one for my supervisor. That is, if I remember to get from co-op tomorrow.

I better go and finish up my proof. Still the one on discrete fourier transform. Ah. Then I'll go and sleep, and hopefully that good looking guy will come back to my dreamland. :)

Just finished my matrix computation tutorial, in the midst of understand tay's proof for graph theory. Whether I understand his proof or not greatly affects my morale for the rest of the day, I either feel accompanished or demoralised, nothing in between.

Graph theory tutorial questions, each proof requires just a trick. When you've thought of the right trick to use, the question would be solved easily. And sometimes, I've to spend hours thinking of the trick to use. Maybe analysis requires tricks too. But to me, it's more of dealing with inequalities, moving absolute signs in and out, looking at the definition and working backwards.

I actually felt slightly comforted when I knew someone who is smarter has more A+ than I do actually feels unappreciated and stressed. I know this is very sadistic of me. But then, I just can't help feeling this way. At least, even if I can't find someone on the same boat as me, I know there's someone on the next boat, sailing in the same direction as I am. Even if I may be the one drowning in sea and he may survive, or vice versa, or both drown together or whatsoever, at least, I know there's someone going through the same tides, braving the same waves and storms.

I guess, if he's my friend, I'll probably try to shower him with some nice words. And the fact that he's stressed probably won't make me feel any better.

Just like when I know my friends are stressed (I wonder why everybody is kind of stressed right now), I'll try to listen, and then entertain them with other stuff. I think all they need to do is to walk around math department and canteen with me, and they'll be entertained by the stupid things I do on the way.

We've to undergo some hardships now. Eventually, we'll all survive. :)

Been a week since my previous entry. Too busy, too stressed in the past few days. I started feeling better only today. I guess, I just have to take things easy. With the difficult modules, HYP, coming driving test, my tuition kid's coming promos, they all seemed to suffocate me in the past few days. I've high expectations. I've to maintain some so called reputation.

But I think, since I can't escape from them, I've to live with them, happily. Because happy or not, I gonna face all the problems.

I wished, I've more help. I wished, I've more encouragement from people around me. I wished to have more care and concern. I wished, people can be less blunt in their comments. I wished, people can show better appreciation.

But I eventually stopped wishing, because this is probably an infinite sequence of wishes. If I'm really deprived of care, concern, encouragement, sympathy, etc. I can always cry out loud. I'm quite sure I'll be showered with some of those. The thing is, because I've survived three years of school without shedding a single drop of tear, I don't wanna do so in my last year. Also, I guess, I'm at where I'm, being who I'm, because I've received the optimum amount of help. Too much of which I'll probably be more dependent. Too little of which, I would probably have given up on a lot of things by now.

It is my own duty to make myself happy. :)

Received this email from math department, requesting us to keep our volume down in the honours room. I'm guilty of contributing to the noise volume. Haha. The email was sent this morning, so they weren't really targeting at the noise I made, since I wasn't making noise in the past one week. Today is just a different story. :)

Quite amazed by the number of people I got to see today. Just a quick recall, I saw hin when I reached LT9 in arts, had lecture with xiujuan in the LT, went back to science, when the lift door opened, I saw terence -wave-, thomas -slightly more enthusiastic wave-, faizal -even more enthusiastic wave-, victor -most enthusiastic wave-, went to the honours library, made noise at xiujuan while erasing my wrong solution, faizal came in to talk, went for lunch with the two plus luyi, approaching the canteen saw hanxiong, while making noise at him saw yahong -wave again-,... ..., back at the honours room, saw nicholas -wave-, saw tkm on my way to the toilet, but the timing wasn't right for me to wave, BUT, i met him face to face on my way back -wave plus hello plus hi- , lesson and more noise making in the honours room, ... ... , and lastly, I saw wanlin at the mrt station.

Talked and waved too much today. But this is to make up for the lost when I was feeling stressed in the past few days.

Decided to switch back to the original template. "Homework, Exams, Stress" doesn't quite fit my image. :)

When I used to like this guy last time, whenever my friends said something like "oh I saw him in the canteen just now, he's eating with a girl", my heart would sink. I knew I was unhappy. But all I did was to let myself feel upset for the rest of the day. Now that I've a clear mind to analyse this situation, I realized how foolish I used to be. The sadness was purely due to jealousy. I was jealous because I knew no matter how hard I'm going to try, how nice I'm going to be, he'll never eat with me. I knew this deep in my heart, but I didn't wake myself up from the nightmare of self torture. Because I didn't want to admit. I didn't want to let go, because I thought maybe by trying a bit harder, miracle will happen.

Obviously, that miracle remains as a miracle all the while.

Even after I've decided to let go, I still make occasional comparisons of how he treats other girls and how he treats me. In some sense, this may be because I haven't let go completely. To think of this slightly more positively, it's because I want to convince myself that letting go was indeed a wise decision. To be real optimistic bout the whole situation, I'll say, perhaps it's good that he never attempt to be nicer to me, so that I never have to regret.

Is this considered a confession? :)

Haha. I know this isn't the kind of confession people want from me. At least, when people asked me whether I had made any confession before, they weren't referring to this kind of confession. Haha. Even though I like to enthusiastically wave to my lecturers, it doesn't mean I'm the kind who will confess. Some people are friendly, but they may not be open with their feelings.

Having said so much, maybe I should "confess" that I'm beginning to like my graph theory lecturer. Though I still think that he had spoken to us in Tamil language when he was explaining the proof of menger's theorem last lesson. Anyway, I just feel that he's a nice man. I'll be nicer to him.

CORS is a test of patience. I guess every student who wants to rank their tutorial time slots today have loads of complaints of the lousy server. So what if they had extended this round to 7pm, we can't even log in now. Such problems aren't quite forgivable, because this system has been there for 5 semesters. Most of the problems should have already been rectified. And today, the server was down since 9am till now.

I understood close to nothing during the graph lecture yesterday. I'll need to grab some reference book from the library on friday. A friend dropped the module because he couldn't understand what's going on. Oh man, how I wish I could do the same. If only AODE is being offered this semester, I won't have to go through this struggle. At least for AODE, I'll be enjoying what I'm learning, even if it's just as difficult.

Luckily I've a friend's notes. He took the module last semester under a different lecturer. It kind of reduced my struggle by 3/4. :) And thanks to all who encouraged.

Was in school for only four days since the start of the semester. And I blushed thrice. Argh. All the shocked faces when they saw me blush. I bet they have not seen a 22 years old person blush before. Haha. I'll make an effort to stop doing stupid things from now on. :)

Still jammed in CORS. Irritating.

I think my student finally understood the topic of transformation of curves. Today was the third time I went her house this week. That's maths in jc. You'll be able to do well, as long as you work hard enough. And this "hard enough" isn't all that hard afterall.

Just read xiaxue's blog. I'm no fan of hers. I went there today because a friend told me of this interesting post. So I just clicked on the link she sent to satisfy my own curiousity. Go and take a look when you've time, and you'll see for yourself the power of photoshop. You may ignore her remarks though. :) For a moment, I was quite impressed with her.

After a break of two weeks, I'm back to working on my project. At last, I get to do some analysis. Everything looks kind of familiar. And I suddenly feel, I've chosen the right project. It'll probably be much of a struggle if my project is on graph theory. Haha. Still, I hope I'll begin to appreciate more of graph theory this semester.

If I ever do my masters in nus next year, I hope graduate analysis I and II will be offered. And hopefully, denny will be teaching! Haha. I just saw him teaching the class last friday. If not because it clashes with my graph theory lecture, I would have asked him for permission to sit in. And probably, my semester will be more enjoyable than what it is now, without a single analysis module.

Academic issues aside, below are my new toys from Hong Kong.


prince keroppi: it's going to be the lead character in my commencement photos next year


donald duck: pluto's new friend. new collection on my bed

I think I'm such a fortunate kid sometimes. At the very least, I get to do masters, if I want to. I've heard of people who give up masters so that they can work to support their families. It's a pity. But on the other hand, I look up to them for being such good children to their parents.

I was so determined not to touch graph theory ever again. Yet, somehow, I have no choice but to do it now. I'm not too happy bout this, because it's like being forced to do something. But on the other hand, I'm now reading the notes for the third time since yesterday. I guess it kind of shows how much I want my A. If I don't have passion, I'll substitute that with hard work.

At last, I saw some simple differentiation. That was during my econs lecture. I've forgotten all I learnt in EC1301. Including AD and AS. But it's not as if I gonna care much. But I guess you can imagine my joy when the lecturer said there's going to be four tutorials only. It seems to be kind of slack.

Nobody can fight andy's enthusiasm. That's my matrix computation lecturer.

I guess all who were present before graph theory lecture yesterday were kind of stunned by my prediction. I accurately predicted that the lecturer would forget the keys to the room, and we would be five minutes late by the time I found a seat in class. Even the lecturer's reaction when he found the room to be locked was predicted correctly. What was missing from my prediction was that he made me carry his mug of tea for him as he went to get the keys.

I saw quek and chew in the canteen yesterday; denny and tkm outside the honours room. Imagine how high I got when I saw all of them within one hour. Haha. I was sprouting nonsense after lessons, I blushed. Now I can't remember what exactly I said. Must be something stupid. :)

The amount of un-intelligent remarks I've made yesterday should be enough for the semester.

I think bad luck is by my side again. There's this trojan virus in my computer. Mum is back, but she has rashes all over her body. My goldfish died. It's not exactly my goldfish, because I seldom pay attention to them when my parents are around. The thing is, it died when they were overseas, and I was supposed to be looking after it and the rest of the goldfish.

Today is the unofficial last day of my vacation. Sigh. Got to reach school by 8am tomorrow morning. It's econs. Ya know, I don't mind going to school early if it's quekie's lecture. Quekie. I hope I'll see him in the canteen during lunch time tomorrow. :)

It's all so easy to lend notes to people. But it's quite difficult to borrow notes from others. Maybe, I'm just not charming enough.

Lots of mosquito checks nowadays. And they spray those kind of insecticides around the neighbourhood every few days. Gosh. I had a few mosquito bites yesterday. I hope I don't contact dengue fever. I'll go mph one day to learn the good luck spell from the spell book. Is there such a spell?

Now I'm feeling kind of confused bout who I'm supposed to meet at what time to collect which set of notes. I think I need a librarian to manage the returning and borrowing of my notes. And whoever that hasn't returned my notes, please return as soon as possible.

Gonna go to the airport soon. Before that, I gonna mug my notes on transformation of curves, and hunt for a variety of questions for my student to do tomorrow. She flashed me this super puzzled look just now. Haha. I've certainly did a good job in making her realize how much she has underestimated the difficulty level of this topic. The school actually made this a self study topic. Erm. Anyway, since I promised to clear her confusion tomorrow, I'll make sure she'll be able to do all most transformation of curves problem from then on. And she's all so confused bout vectors. I'll rather sit for the test on her behalf. But... too bad.

Still, I've high hopes of her getting an A in 'A' levels.

Maths in university is no longer so straight forward. It's abstract.

I've forgotten how to prove all those theorems and stuff in denny's class. But I remember one thing he mentioned, writing a proof is like banging your head against the wall, and you just have to keep banging until the wall breaks down. Indeed, there's no free lunch. In class, there're ones who are really talented. Just as I admire those talented ones for their talents, I too admire those who put in more effort than I do. :)

Gosh, I better start packing the stuff I've messed up at home. Shall rush off to the airport soon. No nap this afternoon. :(

The feeling of going back to school was somewhat different from the past semesters. I had been going to school almost every week during the holidays. Such that there wasn't really any excitement bout start of new semester. Also, a lot of my friends have already graduated.

Still, I was glad to have bumped into a few of my friends. And seeing friends who were attending the same lecture classes as me yesterday.

Matrix computation. I have no choice but to take this module. Luckily, I can understand what the lecturer is trying to say in class. I'll need two or three more lessons before I can really get used to a lecturer. Anyway, he handed out his first assignment last night. I was kind of intimidated by his questions. It's a different level of difficulty from numerical analysis I and II altogether. Now MATLAB is just a tool. We're supposed to have mastered it by now. Erm.

But since I've no better choice, I just have to master whatever I've not mastered and study hard for the module. No escape. Even when the module is going to eat up my free day.

Have to wait until friday before I can attend my graph theory lecture. The horror module. There's no way I can forget bout the algo graph theory exam in year two sem one. I left the whole of section B blank. Erm. It was demoralising. So demoralising that I still remember the feeling now, two years after that exam. Now that I've decided to take its more advanced course, I can only look forward to not letting history repeat itself.

4 math modules for this year. The grades won't affect my honours class. But still, I want to do well in them. :) Shall stay focused. And the year will be over soon. Who knows, this may be my last 4 math modules in NUS.

My lecturer has uploaded his lecture notes. The vacation is coming to an end real soon. Considering the fact that NTU students started school two weeks ago, I better not complain too much. :) I'll look forward to May 2006.

There's this collection of 500 pieces disney jigsaw puzzles selling at $2.90 each in suntec minitoons. $10 for 4. The pictures looked cute. But I've no idea bout the products' qualities. Not in the mood to do a jigsaw puzzle right not. Wait till May next year, I'll do a 2000 pieces jigsaw. Hehe.

Spent an enjoyable time with qing yao and li li yesterday. Thanks for the orientation at marina square. :) And thanks to qing yao for the treat at cafe cartel. I was with my camera. Had a hard time trying to capture someone in the photos. Still, it turned out to be quite a failure. I'm not going to step into the same cafe cartel again for the next one year. Haha.


monster and her two victims

The photo looks blur, even after editting (i've only adjusted the brightness and the contrast). Sigh, my juniors are both taller than me. :)

The next project discussion is postponed, again. I guess I gonna learn to be more independent. Before that, I gonna finish reading up the instruction menu for latex. It's quite fun learning it. Next week, I'll get to stay at home on tuesday, wednesday and thursday. Haha. It's like another week of holidays.

Watched three episodes of prince of tennis. I didn't touch this anime for the whole of July. Lost the momentum. But I guess it isn't difficult at all to pick up the momentum all over again. :)

My favourite characters. Cute and handsome huh. Haha.

Finally generate a pdf file using winedt. My memory isn't all that bad afterall. At least I still remember my basics.

When I was waiting for my mum to take her x-rays, I finished reading one novel. So now, I can claim that I've read a novel this holidays. Not just comics. Hehe. But just to be very frank, I've not been reading many chinese books these few years. Nowadays, the only Chinese words I come into contact with are in the form of subtitles in dramas and animes, and comics. And magazines, which have more pictures than words. When's the last time I wrote a card in Chinese?

I was reminded that yesterday was flag day. I remember I went back to have lunch with kwan three years ago. That was like the official day I stepped out of tj, and about to proceed to a new stage of my life. I remember he told me something like this: once you step into nus, you'll meet new people, learn new things. Nobody knows what you've done in tj. Your achievement list shall start from zero. You're on your own from now on.

As I sat back to recall what I had done in the past three years, I thought I could claim that I've tried my best for every decision I had made, although I didn't make the right choices all the time, and sometimes, the outcomes didn't turn out satisfactory.

The day I first stepped into university for lessons was just like yesterday. Time flies. Yet, so many things have changed. I hope, as compared to three years ago, I'm now a better friend to most people; a more responsible daughter at home; a brighter and nicer student in school. And as a whole, a more mature and humble person. :)

At last I can hear the background music on my blog. I couldn't see my tagboard, counter, buttons for playing and stopping the music, as well as all the words in between. I suspected there's something wrong with the tagboard, and it affected all the html codings below the codes for the tagboard. Or maybe, it's just the problem with my computer.

After numerous times of postponing, I finally conquered my laziness and started on my quest of latex learning. :)

This is the first time I see mum so sick.

Went shopping for a bag (as present for a friend) just now. The backpacks we came across in far east, at least 65% of them looked similar to the bag I carry to school. And I never seem to recognize the shops there. I thought I just went to a cosmetics shop last tuesday? How come I don't see it today?

I find it really hard to choose presents such that my friends will like what I had chosen. Especially when my taste is quite different from theirs. In the first place, it's hard to think of what to get. Is it bag, watch, wallet or what? Everyone is fussy over different things. If I happen to get something which my friends don't like, it's a waste of effort somehow.

And so sometimes, I decide to just go ahead and ask my friend what she wants. If she doesn't trust my taste, we can go and choose together. :)

I'm fussy over earrings, bags, pencil cases and clothes. And it's difficult for your taste to match mine. Haha. If a friend gets me any disney soft toy, bracelet, necklace, watch or wallet, I'll probably like it. Haha. I'm not asking for present here. Just that, I thought I should mention this once.

Off to sleep.