@ColdPalace

2008-06-11T20:48:00.000+08:00

I have moved! Drop me a message on MSN if you wish to know the new URL. :)

2008-01-19T21:11:00.000+08:00

Been some time since my last update. Was always tired when I got home from NIE. The train rides are energy draining. :(

Had my ed psy presentation yesterday. So glad it's over. The whole of last week was burnt on this presentation. Yes, I didn't manage to complete any other assignment. We stayed back to discuss on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And Thursday was spent printing out the stuff, correcting this and that, and making sure everyone in class was informed of the change in venue. >_<

Many times we tried to relate things back to our school experiences. Over lunch and chit-chat sessions, they discovered all the weird things I did last time. Ok, and probably how weird I am. Like I think html is easier than powerpoint and I rather use latex to make my slides instead of using powerpoint. We had quite a good time working together (oh well, they probably had a wonderful time suaning me).

I hope to finish all my assignments before CNY. :)

2008-01-01T21:53:00.001+08:00

Happy 2008!

Today marks the start of a brand new year. 2007 had not been a really fantastic year, but the problems encountered did make me a stronger person.

Family: We are going to have a breakthrough in the number of people in the family. Haha. In 2007, I took up slightly greater responsibilities in the household, partly because mum's health conditions deteriorated. I hope to see a more healthy and happy mum in 2008, as well as an united family.

Friends: I did not get to spend much time with my friends in 2007. It was in their absence that I realize how much I've missed them, as well as how wonderful each of them is. I guess very importantly, they treat me well from the bottom of their heart. No hidden knife in their smiles. I hope to spend more time with them this year. :)

Personal Development: I hope to take up some courses and develop new skills. Maybe a language course? Pick up some computer courses? Haha. Must spend my LDS well.

Relationship: Haha. Don't worry, I'm not the contributer to the additional family member. Furthermore, I don't think I'll be getting married this year, so there's absolutely no need to start digging out your piggy bank and saving for my big day. Lol. As I have told some of my friends, I won't be having wedding dinner. To my dearest (haha, I know you want a low profile, so I shall not mention your name), thanks for being there during my struggle with the three musketeers. We have been through a lot last year, I hope the coming year will be more smooth-sailing.

Schooling: I have left NUS at last. The five years as a mathematics student made up a really memorable period. I'm now in the midst of the transition period from a student to a teacher. As a trainee teacher, I sometimes reflected deeply on my personal encounter as a student. I must say I was really fortunate to have teachers who have been truly good role models, even up till this point of time. It is partially because of them that I want to become a teacher. I have had friends, who are truly friends. I need not have to be too careful and protective when they are around. In 2008, I look forward to a good start for my teaching career.

Before I go, here is a video i took during the countdown at Marina Bay. Short video of the fireworks. Enjoy. I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2008 ahead!

2007-12-30T14:38:00.001+08:00

Imagine my joy when I saw the 7th harry potter book on the library book shelf this Friday. Haha. I looked forward to reading this book despite most other harry potter fans have already read it and written numerous reviews. I would check out its price every time I visit any bookshop. I never bought it because I was stingy, and have already run out of space in my room to store books. It's really good that I got it from the library as it solved both my problems. Lol.

To me, the most touching part was towards the end, when even the house elves were united to fight against the dark lord. There were lots of bloodsheds. My favourite Weasley twins, one died and the other lost a ear. Both incidents came about pretty sudden. Of course, being a children storybook (seriously, I doubt children can understand the last few episodes), it comes with a happy ending. Hermoine is married to Ron, and Ginny to Harry.

Met up with sauwai. Haha, this name has been absent from my blog posts for so long. The good thing bout meeting up with old friends is that, the conversations don't just stop at what are you doing recently and what movies have you watched this month. You can't possibly ask anyone "Is your brother getting married soon?" or tell anybody "My boyfriend's brother is handsome." More importantly, you don't have to sound politically correct all the time.

We bought three birthday presents. Gonna have a belated birthday celebration for three of our friends next week. Two of them were born in November. >_< Hopefully I'll see everyone there.

I know it seems really insincere to postpone birthday celebrations for two months.

During my supposedly birthday celebration, which was less than a week from my actual birthday, only two others turned up, one of whom left early. I found out the rest weren't able to make it on the spot. I wore makeup, strightened my hair and brought a camera. I didn't take out the camera of course. I felt like leaving to go home and cry. Very much on the contrary, I told myself to smile brightly to my friends who turned up, which I did. I wanted to show them that I appreciated their attendance.

To me, seeing my friends is a much better gift as compared to the actual birthday present itself. To have a birthday celebration when most of my friends don't turn up is worse than not having any celebration. Of course, I understood that they couldn't make it probably because they had something really important to attend to. But because I didn't want any of my friends to feel the same way as I did, the celebrations were postponed until everyone can make it. Haha. Anyway, I hope I don't have to postpone it another time. :)

I think I've spent too much over the past one week. Since I need not go NIE this month, I can afford to spend the transport fees on clothes. Lol. Speaking of NIE, the timetable is still not out yet. Argh. I really hope I'll get a 3 days week. Then the two months of torture will seem much shorter. :P

2007-12-27T18:27:00.000+08:00

Went for the Isetan sale this morning. Reached there at 10am, and it was already packed with people. >_< I thought I was one of the early birds.

I'm afraid of crowds and noise. I gave up on my quest within 45 minutes. Haha. The IORA counter inside Isetan is having 30% discount. Nothing looked attractive. Mostly previous designs, and the nicer ones are left with XL size. So much so for sales. I can't squeeze and push as well as the others. Even babies bullied me by poking and touching my hair. >_< I left without buying a single thing.

To make my trip to Orchard slightly more worthwhile, I went to the IORA boutique at Wisma instead. Haha. Pretty rewarding, coz I bought three new blouses. I'm so proud of my new clothes. Lol. The first thing I did when I saw my mum was to take out my blouses to make her jealous. And I really think I've succeeded. So happy that I kept smiling to myself. See the power of retail therapy?! :)

Have not touched my jap textbook for the whole of this week. Better work hard tonight.

2007-12-25T21:56:00.000+08:00

Got a new table for my computer. Coupled with the reformatted hard disk, I feel as if I'm using a brand new computer. Haha. The table is small. Need some time to get use to it. :)

Big enough for my monitor, cpu, speakers, printer and dvd player. No extra inch of space. The part where I placed my keyboard and mouse can be slided out. Available at ikea. It costs $90+ (excluding delivery and assembly of course). Quite a small package, you can actually pick it up and assemble it on your own.

Was looking at how the two guys fit in the wood pieces like jigsaw puzzles. They looked amusing: one is small and thin, the other is big and fat. The smaller one was the one instructing. Haha. They both have this punky hairstyle. I can imagine them making trouble in class. Big headache for the teachers. But now they're able to take up small responsibilities. They can work wonders with the hammer and nails.

Imagine few years later, the normal tech students I taught during my ESE came to my home to assemble my furnitures... I think I'll be really happy to see their progress (provided they don't come and make a mess, of course). Haha.

Back to my new table. When I look up from my workstation, I see......

When I look to my left....

When I look to my right.....

Hopefully I'll get good inspirations while working on my computer.

Before I go, Happy Boxing Day to all. Hope you've received lots of nice Christmas presents!

2007-12-24T19:03:00.000+08:00

Have reformatted my comp few days ago. It was a nightmare. Especially when I had to re-install my Winedt. The most important file to back up is my masters thesis. It must be available when I do my corrections.

When I met up with my supervisor last week, he mentioned bout promoting my results during his talks. Haha. For a moment, I felt really proud of my work. Lol. I'm quite sure that he said that to just to assure me that my thesis will be fine. Otherwise, I'll begin to have nightmares of myself doing major corrections. My supervisor is such a nice guy.

Back to my comp. Yes, I think it is well and sound now. Installed the new versions of Matlab and Winedt. I miss the days when I spent hours working on the projects. If only lesson plans can give me such pleasant memories. >_<

Met up with my TKGS friends last Thursday. It has been quite some time since I last met them. Probably when I try to slack more next semester, I'll get to see them more often. Haha. Took some photos that day. Enjoy the slideshow below.

My trains to Boon Lay shall be accompanied by a PSP slim next semester. Yay. :)

2007-12-18T18:19:00.000+08:00

I'm so happy to have met up with my supervisor today. Haha. Always feel so high after seeing him. :) Despite the rain and waiting time, I'm really glad to see him. Will probably be meeting him again in January or February for thesis correction. I really hope there's little correction. I've waited for 4 months plus, still no news from the Registra.

Went to the book fair at Suntec City after that. Not very crowded, probably because it is rainy weekday. The aircon was freezing cold. I was there, simply to take a look at the stuff. Lol. Was constantly reminding myself not to buy anything unnecessary, for otherwise I would have to find a place to store it. There was a huge collection of fengshui books in the book fair. Haha. I didn't know people are so interested in fengshui.

Was pleasantly surprised to find four Christmas cards on my table when I went back. :) One of them wrote a very long message. Haha, so touched.

Oh yes, my gifts from Yunnan and Japan:

Necklace and earrings from Yunnan

My best friend from Japan

Really appreciate the gifts. Haha. So nice of them to remember me while they were overseas. :)

2007-12-17T00:11:00.000+08:00

Quite unusual of me to be blogging at this hour. Haha. Probably the power of the mug of hot milo. Imagine if I drank coffee instead.

Have been busy with learning japanese for the past few days, as well as the cleaning of cabinets. I found several dried cockroaches. And just for today, we threw away more than 200 video tapes. Oh man, I'm thinking if I'll be brighter if my dad invested the money on me rather than the video tapes.

We're thinking of painting the house. For now, all three of us are working towards the goal of cleaning up the house by Chinese New Year. :) Basically I was the one cleaning. Nevertheless, it is important that they agreed upon the idea, so that I can throw away some of the unnecessary things.

I hope my plan will go well. :)

2007-12-11T09:56:00.000+08:00

Was exploring Photoshop 7.0 yesterday afternoon. Haha. All I can do now is to remove some pimples from the faces in the photos. The book elaborated on various other cool effects, which I believe will come in handy when it comes to poster designs and so on. Due to my limited talent in art and design, I'll probably just make a mess. So I'll spend the time to learn something else instead.

Claimed $400 of LDS. Haha. We can make an LDS claim for cultural performances like Phantom of Opera. Too bad I'm not a cultural person. We can make a claim for internet subscription, books, professional magazine subscriptions and so on. Not to mention PDA, laptop, digital camera etc. Yes, and also language and IT courses, as well as motivational talks and conferences. Sounds pretty good huh. :) I should spend my LDS wisely next year.

I'm still very determined not to buy any pair of shoes in Singapore. Haha. I'll see how long this determination can last. :)

2007-12-08T22:37:00.000+08:00

On the very same day, two friends told me about the flash cartoon series "Happy Tree Friends". The characters look really cute. Haha. BUT... for each epsiode, the situation will somehow escalate into violence. :( Anyway, if you're interested, just google it.

Holidays has been relaxing. I'm beginning to feel bored, cos I lacked motivation in writing a paper. I thought of taking up some IT courses and googled for them. A few lessons on Photoshop cost more than $300! I gave up that idea almost instantly. I'll dig out my dad's computer magazines and figure things out myself.

I love holidays. :)

Hong Kong Disneyland

2007-12-02T22:18:00.001+08:00

2007-12-01T08:59:00.000+08:00

Just came back from Hong Kong. 4 days 3 nights is really too short! There are so many things to buy! Must save more money for my next Hong Kong trip.

I'll buy less shoes in Singapore. Save the money to buy shoes in Hong Kong. Haha. I was so tempted to buy every single pair in the shop. Lol. The heels are of good height and their qualities look good. What's more, they are of reasonable prices. Here's one pair:

There is popular bookstore in Hong Kong too. It sells mainly Chinese novels, comics and a good range of Doraemon, Sanrio, Disney and Forever Friends stationaries. The ordinary membership card and be upgraded when you spend more than a certain amount, and members get to enjoy 15% discount instead of 10%. There is 5% discount in the CD Rama section too. Haha. Seems like there are more privileges and benefits in the Hong Kong branches.

Some small things to add to my Doraemon collection:

And the new members of my bedroom:

We went to this restaurant for dinner on the second night, and it is having this promotion for 大闸蟹. See the decorations at the entrance...

I miss Hong Kong!! Shall upload some Disneyland photos in the next post. :)

2007-11-24T18:26:00.000+08:00

Spent the whole afternoon clearing the cupboards. I didn't know there exists such a huge collection of Chinese history books, 孙子兵法, and several of the classics in my house. And there's Chinese chess, reversi, mastermind and so on. I didn't know they exist too. >.<

I was hoping that some dollar notes will fall out. Not a single one fell out.

It was scrubbing and wiping for the whole afternoon. The only so-called excitement was the discovery of yet-another of my brother's love letter. Haha. Since I could pinpoint that it is a love letter, it means I've read it. Apart from the books, models, cards and love letters, the stationaries too escaped the fate of being thrown away. I found 5 tubes of pencil lead. >.< Some wrapping paper, construction paper, foolscap paper... amazingly, they didn't turn yellow.

I think the dirt stained my fingers black. Argh. Enough of cleaning for the day.

2007-11-22T10:05:00.000+08:00

Holidays at last! Woohoo. :)

Had an oral test yesterday. We were each given a piece of paper with a specific scenario and 10 minutes to prepare for an appropriate speech. After which we were supposed to deliver the speech to the class. I think I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. Much worse than my Honours project interview. I just feel calmer when I have a pen in hand.

Haha. Maybe I was the only one who was nervous. My classmates were confident in their speeches and they spoke well.

Hopefully I'll receive good news of my M.Sc thesis and start work on my paper within this holidays. And clear up some of the mess inside the cupboards to make room for other stuff. I'm really disgusted by those thick layers of dust. Argh.

Time to plan my disneyland iternary. Haha. Gotta start listing down what to buy in HK. :)

2007-11-20T12:00:00.000+08:00

My new blog design. Haha. As celebration for passing SMMT. Lol.

I've mentioned to some of my closer friends that I'm having some problems with my right ear. I can't hear properly sometimes. Not only that, it makes me giddy at times. During the SMMT, it gave me some problems. I almost fainted after the paper.

I remember during one of my exams in upper sec, I had problem concentrating on the exam because there was some drilling at some construction site near the classroom block. From then on, I put on headphones and played songs while I'm revising. It isn't so much of music therapy or relaxation. On the contrary, I did that to train myself to concentrate on my work and not pay attention to surrounding sounds.

After the SMMT, I was upset of the fact that I now have to train myself to cope with a blocked ear. It caused me so much discomfort that I couldn't concentrate on my paper. And I began to wonder, will this happen for all my exams from now on? Does this mean I have to give up the option of pursuing another degree?

I'll try to find a cure. In the event that it cannot be cured, I'll have to think of a way to overcome the problem of surviving work and examinations with the blocked ear and giddiness.

I suddenly realized I'm going to Hong Kong really soon. Haha. Too bad I can't wear the coat I bought the other time. Looking forward to end of QLK lesson. Holidays is coming. :)

2007-11-19T18:19:00.000+08:00

Went to get back my camera and tour around the school. They have 2 LTs and 1 auditorium. A Popular bookshop as well. And their library is simply gigantic with quite a good collection of math books. The staff room looks spacious too. Their carpark is in the basement. I never knew that schools have basements. Haha, 刘姥姥进大观园。And the best thing is, I saw students bowing to teachers.

I must send my daughter there next time. Lol.

We came across this art piece when we toured around the school:

It was drawn on the floor. If I remember correctly, it is an art piece to be submitted for 'O' levels. I'm sure I can never produce something of this quality. It looks 3 dimensional. Woohoo.

Came home to play civilization. Sigh, it's very addicting. I stopped coz I felt bad about sending my troops to bomb enemies. It's like sending my troops to die. And I refused to stop a war because I had not fully conquer that country. Sounds bad huh. Yeah, so I eventually turned it off and went to pat the pets on facebook instead. Lol.

SMMT results gonna be out tomorrow. I had a nightmare last night: My teacher said I did badly and I had to be retained in NIE for the rest of my life. Ahhhhh.....

2007-11-17T10:20:00.000+08:00

《哆拉A梦：大雄的恐龙》是一部温馨的作品。不知曾几何时，我开始被卡通片感动。在卡通世界里，我们可以体会到真挚的友谊。我们可以看到主角奋不顾身、义不容辞地为朋友。我们可以看到人性的善良、纯真、勇敢的一面。在现实中，我们生存在一个个人主义挂帅的社会里。我们极少听到有人为朋友两肋插刀。很多时候，人与人之间的关系得靠“价值”二字来维持。雪中送炭的友人极之难寻。

我在我的四周围起了一道厚厚的防卫墙。每受一次伤，防卫墙就加厚一层。我付出真心、给予帮助，对方可能不当一回事。要在社会上生存，就得戴眼识人。大声说“你真是我的知心好友”，那人未必出于真心；默默无言的，可能暗中给予无限的感激。

在黑暗中挣扎求存的当儿，我很庆幸有一群真心待我的朋友和师长。我的身边，依然有“大雄”和“叮当”。

照片来自：http://lib.verycd.com/2006/09/04/0000118633.html

2007-10-31T16:32:00.000+08:00

Now uselessly lying around at home. I'm sick again. Weep.

My right ear gives me a buzzing sound and it makes me giddy. Haha, I thought I was turning deaf. The problem persisted for some time, so I thought it would be good to see a doctor. Yawn. It cost me $40! I hope those ear drops and nose drops work.

Microteaching tomorrow. Smmt on Saturday. Double sigh. I think things will be better once Saturday is over. Maybe I can continue with my game on PS2 then. Hoho. Or go and get some story book to read from the library.

I'm starting to feel giddy again. Argh. I hope I don't faint during my lesson plan interview or microteaching tomorrow. Oh well. I'll lie down now. zzzzzzz....

2007-10-24T23:03:00.000+08:00

Haha. My blog is almost dead. This is the problem when I have to travel to boon lay. It is so super inconvenient. Yes yes, as you can see, I'm grabbing hold of any single opportunity to complain about the long journey. Oh well. I'm really deprived of sleep. Most of my time is spent on assignments. Sigh.

I hope next week will be over asap. I think I'll be damn high after smmt. Ok, this is a test which all math teachers have to sit and pass. I'm not extremely worried about the test. Nevertheless, I hope to have some time to prepare for it.

Some courses have already ended. Nice right? Yes, I hope my math lessons can end asap. This sounds so unlike me, but yes, I really hope they can be over soon. I was telling my mum the other day that I feel really fortunate to have teachers like kwan, quekie, goh and zuowei. Haha. They make learning math a joy. They are caring, motivating and I always look forward to their lessons. And I feel that they really helped in making me a better person. Haha. So they are wonderful teachers, aren't they?

I really miss them. I have been thinking of them often these days in order to sustain my passion in teaching. Haha. Because I wanna be great teachers like them. So you'll be wondering, is nie killing my passion? Oh well. In a way, yes. It sounds pretty ironical sometimes. Here, some teachers like to make this comment "we know how to teach, unlike most of the professors in university". Oh well, to me, my professor in university know how to care. They know how to push me to attain greater heights. They don't shut me up in class.

I remember during my first year in nus, I pointed out my tutor's mistake in class, and we debated over it for like five minutes. At the end of the day when I reflected on what I had done, I felt quite guilty over it. I thought I shouldn't have spoken to her in that manner. And I thought she would hate me and condemn me for the rest of the semester. Very much on the contrary, she was quite nice to me from then on. She did not pick on me. Neither did she do anything to make me feel awkward in class. She was very approachable when I asked her questions. Yes, it put me to shame to even think of her as someone who will condemn me for that incident. From then on, I consciously made the effort to be polite to my tutors and lecturers.

I used to be worse in jc. kwan probably had condemned me a hundred times if he wanted to. Haha. But the thing is, at the end of the day, no matter how many times we had debated over the math problems, I still respect him as a teacher, and he still thinks I'm a good student. To me, only good teachers are able to forgive their students and forget about their nonsense, and they can return to class the following day to teach the students whole-heartedly, and care for the students.

Haha. So... I'm just super glad to have such nice teachers, and never encounter people like ***. Lol.

2007-10-06T20:46:00.000+08:00

It's been almost a month since I last update my blog. Haha. Yes, I'm busy. What's new right? So busy that I'm deprived from time to sleep. Nowadays, I can sleep on the train, on the bus. Basically, I just need to sit down, and I'll fall asleep. Give me a bed and I'll fall asleep within seconds. Amazing huh.

I'm looking forward to end of November when I can finally take a break from NIE and start writing on my paper. Probably by then I'll receive news from NUS about my thesis examination. Yes, I certainly hope it is good news. Haha. I think I'm kind of worried subconsciously, such that I dreamed of my supervisor scolding me for lousy research.

This nightmare was probably a consequence of my daily experiences in NIE. I think my tolerance level is quite high, but still, some people managed to go beyond my threshold. Oh well, I'll not elaborate further.

There's so many upcoming events. Assignment deadlines are approaching. Presentations. And bazaar next week. I think I'll be quite stressed on Monday. Well, I hope everything turns out well. Have been occupied with GESL stuff these two days. Each GESL group is supposed to brainstorm on a CIP and implement it. Non-trivial ok. It is quite depressing to see the lack of teamwork sometimes. Luckily I'm not the leader. Certainly, I'm guilty of not displaying great teamwork. Haha. I wanted to skip the meeting at Pasir Ris this morning. I didn't of course. Haha.

ok, time to rush assignments...

2007-09-08T19:17:00.000+08:00

Went back to nus yesterday. Haha. The feeling is like going home after a tough journey. We had lunch with my supervisor. As usual, he insisted on treating us. Haha. I feel kind of bad, coz we've started earning money. We should be the ones treating.

We didn't talk much of maths. He was sharing with us his recent latest adventure in China, the new rat movie (yes yes, he watched that too), old cinemas in Singapore, his encounters with his funny students and so on. Time past quickly. Before he left for his meeting, I "forced" him to take another photo with us. Haha.

Then I went to take a photo with my name. Lol.

I hang around school until evening. Spoke to quekie! Then to mr. ng. ok, he is dr. ng now. I was so happy with chatting with my idol that I forgot to take out my camera. Luckily wq reminded. Haha.

Of course, the trip to nus isn't complete without a visit to our good friend's office. Guess who is he sharing his office with!

I think I talked a lot yesterday. Haha. I was happy and high.

2007-09-06T21:25:00.000+08:00

It's e-learning week. I thought it's just school holidays in disguise. Yah yah, only to realize that it is nothing but assignments-rushing-week cum e-learning week. The discussion boards take forever to load. And I have been typing essay after essay since Monday. How wonderful.

Met up with friends for Ratatouille last Saturday. Haha. At least my social life is not entirely empty.

The Rat

The rat and the human.

Haha. I know my captions are kind of lame. I forgot the names. Lol. Anyway, it wasn't super good, but I enjoyed it. Haha. I like animations and cartoons.

We went cathay. UOB card members have discounts!!! 12%. I think OCBC card members have 10% discount too. Haha. The more discounts the merrier. :)

Going back to nus to have lunch with my supervisor. I miss him!

2007-08-29T20:19:00.000+08:00

I met my secondary school teacher on my way to the bus stop in NIE. Haha. We stared at each other for a good ten seconds before acknowleding each other. "Hey, Mr. Lim!" And in return he went "Ah, don't tell me you're going to be a teacher!" Haha. Isn't it obvious that I was trying to be polite and nice (as usual) and he was trying to attack me right from the beginning!!! Lol. I was rolling my eyes several times, though the conversation lasted for less than five minutes. And in the end, he was saying something like "you must study hard! ah, I can't believe I'm saying this to you again. study hard ah!"

After which, I told WQ briefly bout him and his lessons in tkgs. Haha. He used to speak to me in the exact manner when I was in sec 4. Sweat sweat. But seriously, I think he is one of the more interesting teachers who have taught me. Yeah, and that's why I never condemn him, despite his daily dose of suaning last time. Haha. He nagged at me after prelims, because my e maths result was like 5 marks below the top girl. And he wasn't even my e maths teacher then!! However, this is one of the things I appreciate of him (that's why I still remember this incident). If I see him again, I gonna tell him that he should have pushed me harder last time. Hopefully, for once, I'll be able to make him speechless. :P

We have not seen each other for the past 8 years. When we were chatting, it seemed as if nothing has changed. He is still the attacker, I'm still the 'victim'. Haha. I often claim that I've limited memories of my secondary school life, but after talking to him, a few images of him suaning me appeared in my mind. Lol. I think I had fun during his classes, except that now I've no idea what I was laughing at last time. Of course, many things have changed. He is a VP, he is a father. Haha. And I no longer need him to tell me to study hard, for I've transformed into a super mugger. Lol.

Looking forward to e-learning week. :)

2007-08-26T10:41:00.001+08:00

Another two weeks since my last post (ok, 12 days to be more exact). I'm still as busy as before. Not busy socializing. Rather, I'm trying to complete my assignments. Haha. This sounds like the exact thing I'll do right? I'm looking forward to mid November when I've completed all my assignments, and I can take a short break before writing my paper. Too bad, the GESL thingy is still on at that time.

Was in school from 0830 all the way to 2145 on Thursday. There was a video conferencing with a noble prize winner in the evening, and all those taking Physics have to attend. Amazingly, I didn't fall asleep. Haha. But I did try to disturb the two guys next to me occasionally. Haha. The dinner served at 1830 was much better than what I initially expected. Of course, it was great catching up with some friends from my nus batch. Apparently, they made the January intake come back for the conference as well. After talking to them, I feel affirmed of my decision of applying to (some school) for practicum. I'm really not ready to see students being canned, and to have nightmares of the DM screaming at students.

Anyway, there's going to be 2 maths tests next week. Haha. I'm trying to memorize the pentagonal framework, theories of behavourism and so on. Now you understand why I say I dread maths lessons? Haha. I admit I'm not enthusiastic of all these. I bet everyone who knows me well enough will be shocked if I claim I'm enjoying all these theories right now. All these conflict my interests. Nevertheless, I'm trying my very best to do whatever I'm supposed to do, and I hope to do them well. Haha. To me, it becomes a matter of discipline and responsibility. You never know, maybe one day I begin to like all these stuff. Haha. I used to think maths is boring too.

2007-08-14T09:29:00.000+08:00

Someone commented that my blog is dead. Haha. Sorry lar, I'm busy.

Although I can churn out many many pages for my theses, it is a different story when it comes to essays. Oh well, I guess the things I'm doing now are just not my cup of tea. I just hope the bit of extrinsic motivation is enough to last me through the next 10 months. For the first time in my life, I had Monday blues yesterday. Well well, this is certainly not a good sign.

Some people are encouraging me to do phd after my bond. The thought of becoming the only female prof in nus math department really brightens me. Haha, especially when this idea was being proposed by my favourite lecturers in nus. However, reality sets in. I think my brain will be rusty by the time I step out of this place in 10 months time. And whether I can gather up enough courage to pick up research again in a few years time is another story altogether. :)

A short update about the past two weeks. Hmm. The timetable is still pretty slack, with a few e-learning sessions here and there. Some courses have yet to start, so the full timetable will only kick in at the end of the month. I have no content upgrading, haha, thanks to the physics modules I took last time. I kept comforting myself that most of the modules will end by end of October. I'll have holidays soon. Haha. And if I minus away the ten weeks of practicum, December holidays and public holidays, my days in nie are limited. Then I don't ever need to travel all the way to Boon Lay again. Haha.

Btw, in our canteen and library, there're several spots with no network. Meaning, I can't receive calls or smses there. Last week, someone tried to sms several of us to meet at a particular spot at 10am. I received the sms at 11.20am. Some didn't even receive it at 1pm.

It is going to be a long day tomorrow. My lesson starts at 8.30am. The last lesson ends at 7.30pm. Fantastic right. Luckily friday is going to be a free day, but that's until end of August only. Sigh. I'm missing NUS for all sorts of reasons now. Haha. But I know it is no use indulging in the past. What matters more is how I can survive the present and plan for the future.

I hope I can gain something from my year in NIE. Haha, I have decided to not waste time, but rather make use of it somehow.

2007-07-29T19:42:00.000+08:00

Had some briefings in NIE last week. Sigh. It is time to get used to the long traveling distance once again. Oh man, I can't imagine that I've to spend around $5 on transport everyday. Yah, and total of 3 hours on transport everyday. okok, I'll not complain too much, since I'm the one who decide not to stay in hostel.

As for this semester's timetable, I think it is damn disgusting. ok, I know those who have to do content upgrading will probably have a worse timetable, but still, mine is pretty bad.

ok, I'll stop complaining. I went back to nus on Thursday to print my thesis. Now I think nus is near to my house. All thanks to the trips to nie. Haha. ok, managed to have a chat with my idol in the afternoon. At last, I finally got a chance to take a photo with him. Lol. ok, now you know my trip to his room is planned beforehand, coz I even brought my camera along.

Had a gathering with some of the math girls this afternoon (ok, I think they don't like to be called math girls). I brought my camera along, just that I forgot to take it out and snap photos. Lol. How dumb right. Mum was surprised that I went home so early. She went like "how come you tend to stay out longer when you're out with the math guys?" Haha. She must be referring to kayjin's gathering last time.

My mum is quite amazing. She can remember all the names of the people whom I've went out with. Yah, she even remembers some of their special features or talents. And it's since my primary school days. I think her memory bank is quite fantastic. Anyway, we just celebrated her birthday last Saturday.

One last thing, I realize I seldom post my entries. I saved lots of them as drafts. Haha. I didn't realize this until I went to see the list of entries, oh my gosh, most of them are drafts. You see, I click on new post everytime, and can't be bothered with the entries I saved last time. Sounds so dumb.

2007-07-20T20:30:00.000+08:00

Last day of ESE. Haha. No relief teaching for me today. I was the only one without relief teaching duty. Can you imagine that? Haha, for once I felt really lucky. :)

All of us (those on ESE and practicum) were in ethnic costumes. We're quite united, aren't we? Haha, I think I'm going to miss all the joy and laughter in our little corner in the resource room. Took some photos with them early in the morning (when all of us were in our ethnic costumes) and before I left for my medical checkup.

Full force in ethnic costumes :)

3 ESE + 3 Practicum (the two PE practicum are missing)

Group photo in the resource room

Haha. I'm tired of loading the rest of the pictures. :P

I find it quite hard to imagine that the three of us on ESE actually went Little India together to look for ethnic costumes yesterday. After which, two of us went to candy empire to buy candies for our students, CTs, p, vp and so on. We're quite on huh? I spent over 30 dollars and suffered from great heart-ache. My friend spent over 50 dollars!

I just got my first credit card. :) No need to ask dad for supplementary cards from now on.

2007-07-09T17:38:00.000+08:00

Been some time since my last post. I had been to more NA and NT classes over the past one week. I witnessed more students being caned. I brought 40 students to AMK library alone. I had to dance on stage during youth day celebration. And more relief duties. Haha. I'm quite tired of elaborating on the details. I have repeated them to many people. :P

Kay Jin is back in Singapore. We met him for ktv last Saturday (he left to play badminton half way) and joined us for a drink at clemanti mac after his game.

Too bad I've forgotten all about the existence of my camera while we were chatting in mac. Hopefully can meet him again one month later. Haha. I think he is a great friend, a joy to all his friends. A decent number of people turned up for Saturday's gathering, despite the short notice and the fact that some of us were really busy. I think it spoke volume about how much we valued him. I laughed a lot on Saturday. Didn't get to laugh so happily for a long time.

Birthday celebration yesterday. Two birthday boys. So I ended up with a big hole in my pocket.

A family photo, at last.

I bought three pairs of shoes yesterday. Finally gotten its privilege card. :) But no more shopping until I receive my pay. Thinking of which credit cards to apply. I think one from UOB and one from citibank will be enough. Haha. Not that I have a lot of empty slots in my wallet anyway. Haha. It's like a big step into the adult world at last, but there comes responsibilities at the same time.

Gonna go and check out the bus routes and stuff. I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. Hope everything goes well. :)

2007-06-29T20:10:00.000+08:00

Hardly have any time for updates these days. Had induction programmes until 4pm or 5pm each day. Lots of relief teaching. Lots of invigilations. On the contrary, not much of lesson observations. Today, for instance, I had 4 periods of invigilations and 4 periods of lesson observations. For two exams, I had to stay behind after my allocated slot to collect papers. And basically, my whole day was occupied, with no lunch time. I survived with a bun. Oh man, I hope I've better luck next week.

Stepped into normal technical classes several times for relief teaching. Really got to react on the spot. For instance, one of them just stood up and said "teacher, I love you". The whole class roared into laughter. I had only three seconds to think of how to react. Another time, one told me a list of bad things they did and asked if I'm scared. Three seconds to think and respond.

This is more challenging than university maths. Hopefully, at the end of the ESE, I can really handle these students.

At times, I couldn't help but ask myself, why did I give up the well-paid jobs in banks and the chance to do p.h.D for this teaching career? Especially when I was standing in front of a class of noisy students during relief teaching, when students were throwing papers at each other while I was collecting exam scripts, when I witnessed a public caning during assembly etc. Oh well. I try to convince myself that this is the group of students whom I can make a difference to. All they lack is just motivation.

Have been sleeping before 10 for the past few days. No lunch, no nap today. Sigh. I had no nap for the whole week. I miss my university days!

2007-06-18T19:37:00.000+08:00

Was looking at the video clip I took for math department open house last year. Haha. I looked so round. And they didn't edit my pimples away! I looked much older in the video too. Haha. I think they shouldn't show this video during open house. It'll scare people away. >_<

The video clip is like a graduation gift from math department. My supervisor mentioned bout the nomination for some researcher award. Too bad I'm graduating before September, otherwise we can try our luck. I feel that it's really a pity. It's like, how many math students can get such nomination? Not to mention, how many of them are girls. Oh well, I think I have to psycho myself to put all research related stuff aside, and concentrate on my career path as a teacher. It's a pity, but then, if one day I managed to mould students who are even more outstanding and with greater passion in research, it'll be worth the 'sacrifice'. Haha.

Going for registration tomorrow. Oh well. I'm not quite ready for it, but well... Already know my posting results for the ESE. Wanna guess? Haha.

I may be a bit paranoid. Haha. I wonder what will students think of me when they read my blog. Should I move or something. ok lah, not that I've anything to keep from them anyway. See how lah.

2007-06-07T19:23:00.000+08:00

I think this is such a cool game. Too bad I have little time to play. >_<

Was thinking of getting a small tv in my room, so that I can play whenever I feel like it. And I gave up that idea after ten minutes of consideration. Haha. I think I'll have no time to play it anyway, so no point wasting money.

Just yesterday, I considered getting a bookshelf in my room. Before I took out my bank book to do some serious planning, I realized there are two cupboards in my room, and they don't belong to me. Haha. Yes, you know what I'm going to do right? Yah yah, I'm going to ask my dad to remove whatever he put in my room. I mean, he has his room, the storeroom and the living room to put his stuff. And my brothers have moved out. It doesn't sound logical for him to put things in my room. Of course, we can turn things around and view the room as part of his house so he can do whatever he wants. Haha. Nevertheless, I'm going to fight for space this time round. I'll think of a good speech such that he has no way to counter my argument. Lalala. I still have some time to think about this, since I don't need extra space to store my books and files right away. :)

Still in the midst of doing my thesis amendments. I think I'll have to go back to school for consultation even during my enhanced school experience thingy. There's still a paper to write. Sigh. Sometimes, I feel pretty demoralized by the silly mistakes I make in my thesis. I feel that my knowledge is not sound enough, and I wish I can be less forgetful about the stuff I learned.

Yet to get my appointment letter and medical checkup forms. Sent another email yesterday, and no reply yet. The in-charged apparently isn't very prompt when it comes to replying emails. I think I have to call her next week! >_<

2007-06-01T18:17:00.000+08:00

Haha, I think I'm really lazy when it comes to updating my blog. Lalala. ok, I was busy amending my thesis. And now I have to read through whatever I have corrected before I email the new copy to my supervisor. I don't want my supervisor to see tons of mistakes while correcting my thesis, you see. It'll reflect badly on myself. And furthermore, my supervisor is a really busy guy, I thought I should lighten his workload slightly by doing my part well. :)

Watched Shrek 3.

There's something which Shrek said in the movie which made me very touched. Haha. Indeed, we don't have to care about what people say about us all the time. We are what we want to be. I couldn't help but agree with wq that someone is just like the prince charming in the movie. People think he is a nice guy. And that's because they haven't gotten to see the kind of mean things he do. ok, I shall not elaborate further. :P

Sometimes, we just have to learn how to shut up and keep certain comments to ourselves. Reason? Hmm, because sometimes, it'll do us more harm than good. In a way, this explains why I reduce the number of posts in recent years.

ok, back to my thesis. I must work hard. Haha. Going to see my supervisor this coming Monday.

2007-05-26T19:03:00.000+08:00

Results were released. It was my 10th semester in nus, yet I was still nervous over what I would get. The amount of anxiety was much less than the previous semesters though. Haha. ok lah, I think I met expectation this time round, and my effort paid off. Luckily Prof Shen appreciated my reports. Haha. :)

Currently amending my thesis. My supervisor's definition of "very few corrections" is so different from mine. I think I have only amended 10 pages so far. 30 plus pages to go. Yaya, the second half of my thesis is still with my supervisor. Hope to complete the thesis before I go NIE. Sigh, got to work hard. I used to think that clearing 5 modules and 1 thesis is damn easy. Now I realize it is a different story altogether.

I can't believe it is already end of May, and I have to go to NIE for registration in three weeks time. >_< Still waiting for some official letter to be sent to me. Argh. They say my new pay will be indicated in the letter. This reminds me, I have to plan my finances again. When I went for consultation last week, my supervisor and I had a brief discussion on that. Lol. Ya know, I don't even discuss that with my dad. :P I hope my take-home pay in NIE will be more than what I'm getting now.

2007-05-18T19:39:00.000+08:00

Having stomach flu now. >_<>_<

Went to watch spiderman 3 last Sunday. It wasn't as good as what I expected. Haha, anyway, here's a picture of spidey.

I'm now waiting to catch Shrek 3 and Harry Potter. :)

Had a consultation with my supervisor on Monday. 3 hours consultation. Was kind of drained when I stepped out of his office at 6pm. Bus 95 was packed, although it's vacation time. I was standing at the front door, on the stairs. Luckily the female bus driver was really cautious, no emergency brake or abrupt turn or whatsoever. Haha, or else I would be flying out of the bus.

Had a lunch treat from my junior before consultation. Haha. He wanted to go and introduce his girlfriend to our supervisor, but too bad he wasn't back in his office at that time. Prof Goh was so disappointed when I told him what he had missed. Haha. So Jiale, you know what to do right? Lol.

I've finally gotten back my physics notes. I've lent different sets of notes to different people. Some of my friends are really appreciative and they take good care of my stuff. On the other hand, I think some people treated my stuff like doormat or umbrella. Look at the condition of my physics 3 notes... there're water stains, edges are folded, and that fellow wrote on my lab reports and notes. And (!!!) one of my lab report is missing. >_<

Haha. Before I go, just wanna mention that kwan's third child is a daughter. Lol. Yes, I'm still in contact with him. Poor him, get haunted by me for so many years. Haha. I'm quite nice to him ok... not many people's names can appear on my thesis' acknowledgement page, since I always limit its length to one page. Lalala.

2007-05-12T21:54:00.000+08:00

Had our mothers' day celebration today. We didn't do anything too happening this year (haha, not that we did anything happening before). Had lunch at imperial treasure and here's mum with the roasted pig:

Had her favourite chestnut cake at home.

Haha, we look like sisters, don't we?

Had a short mahjong session after that. And yes, I donated money again. >_< But then, I was entertained for two hours. Haha. And it's only $1.10.

I realize we have so little family photos. Haha. Is it because we have no camera stand or what?

2007-05-11T09:49:00.000+08:00

Heard that some of my friends had been arrowed to organize the coming Honours gathering. Poor guys. Initially, I thought it wasn't THAT bad for them, since they have a committee which consists of 7 people (ok, I hope I'm right with the number). Then I realized they have problem contacting everyone in the committee. Sigh. Oh well. I guess, just in case that any of them reads my blog, I shouldn't sound too discouraging. Lol. Let me say something encouraging then.

ok, first of all, I was very glad that I had a group of friends who took the trouble to come to school to plan part of the stuff with me and reach the lunch venue much earlier to help me set up stuff, when it's purely voluntary on their part. When the "elected" organizers walked away, at least I had my friends who stepped in to help out. Secondly, although the gathering wasn't perfect, the attendance was pretty good, and in general, the people who turned up were cooperative and appreciative. Of course, there were quite a number of discouraging incidents which happened along the way, and I was pretty stressed during that period of time, but, at least now when I look back at what I did last year, I think it wasn't a big waste of my time and energy. Haha. At least, I can say I had done something for my cohort, and a group of them appreciated the effort. And a handful of them are people I did not expect.

Haha. Time flies.

Most of my friends who are currently in NIE have gotten their posting results. So far, all the guys I know are posted to secondary schools, and most of the girls (except one) are posted to JC. Hmm. Haha, and I'm quite envious of my friend who is posted to TJ. :P

I can't believe that I gonna go for my enhanced school experience thingy in a few weeks time. >_< *** still hasn't replied my email. Sigh.

The holidays has been pretty relaxing so far. But gonna meet my supervisor next Monday. Haha. Gonna start working on thesis again soon. And sigh, my days in NUS are limited.

2007-05-10T16:39:00.000+08:00

Which HP Kid Are You?

2007-05-02T14:28:00.000+08:00

Haha. It's been ages since I last updated. Oh well, I was busy revising for my exam. I only have one exam this semester and I spent 8 days revising for it. Lol. ok, I admit that's a bit kiasu, coz I read through the notes more than three times and I did all the past year papers available. >_< Haha. Since it is probably my last exam in nus, I wanna do it well. :)

There's still the thesis to be completed. But then, there's not much time left. I'm leaving nus soon. :( Haha. I think I'm one of those odd ones out there who are reluctant to leave nus. I think these five years are really the best years in my life. There's a balance of freedom and challenges. More importantly, I feel that this path had been brightened by some people- my friends and lecturers.

In these five years, I feel a sense of achievement. I'm not born with an excellent brain, nor good looks. Not even good health. My family met a few crisis over the past two decades. I encountered failures and some failures weren't because I didn't work hard enough. During these five years, I managed to make my life better, and to some extent, I did manage to bring happiness to some people around me. Whatever setbacks in these five years, they made me a better person in the end. I am still far from perfect, but at least, I am now better than who I was five years ago.

I think I need to think of new items to add to my wish list. Haha. The last item is going to be strike out soon. Lol. :)

ok, time to rest and clean my room. Notes all over the table now.

Haha. BTW, I rebonded my hair. Lol. And I'm so poor now. >_<

2007-04-19T13:40:00.000+08:00

Long time since my previous post. Haha. I'm still surviving well, apart from the cold and sore throat.

Thanks to all who remembered my birthday. Thanks for the sms, e-cards, presents, treats and so on. Having consultation session and lecture on my birthday was not THAT bad. After all, I'm a semi-workaholic. Lol. :)

My three new members to my Doraemon collection. I'm on my way to open a grand Doraemon museum. Haha.

I did this Doraemon puzzle when I was sick yesterday. Haha. I finished the 1000 pieces puzzle in half a day. It's really easy, I guess. The puzzle itself cost $2.90. The glue I bought at jigsaw puzzle world cost $4.10! Haha. But I'm quite pleased with the effectiveness of the glue. It's worth a buy, especially if your jigsaw puzzle is not of very good quality. The glue leaves the jigsaw puzzle glossy after applying.

The jigsaw puzzle is now hanging on my wall. I took down my twins poster for it. BTW, the 3D doraemon jigsaw is now available at suntec jigsaw puzzle world. New stock.

Glad that everything is back to normal now. Haha. I was a bit disturbed over the weekend, partly due to my bad luck. The most trivial incident was like, I was eating lunch, and the waitress walked behind me, dropped her tray, and the food fell onto me. >_< Luckily it wasn't hot soup and I wasn't drenched from head to toe. Worse things happened. I think I must have been jinxed for that two days.

Before I go, another photo of me and Doraemon taken during my last birthday celebration for this year. :)

2007-04-08T10:14:00.000+08:00

Celebrated my birthday with my family members yesterday. Haha. I've forgotten when was the last time I had a birthday cake at home. Certainly, yesterday was the first time I've a doraemon birthday cake. :)

We had our lunch at imperial treasure before that.

Roasted pig. Haha. It tasted really good. But I dared not eat too much.

Hehe. Just in case you wanna take a closer look at my doraemon jigsaw:

Luckily my friends didn't manage to find it. Otherwise I would have two. Haha. Nevertheless, I appreciate my friends' efforts. They called the shops to check, and they told them it's out of stock.

Haha. I got other presents too. Maybe I'll post a picture next time. :P

Last wavelets lecture on my birthday. Oh well, it's not so bad, since I'm just there to attend my classmates' presentations. It's much better as compared to sitting for an exam. Haha. I had to sit for a physics exam on my 21st birthday. Have been complaining bout it for the past few years. Lol. And I always feel that it's a 'big sacrifice'. Lousy timetable, lousy exam date, and I don't like lab sessions. :(

ok, gonna go back to school to do research later. Argh. I can't believe I'm going back to school on Sunday!

2007-04-01T20:56:00.000+08:00

Haha. I gave in to the retail bug today and bought two new albums:

Miriam Yeung and Twins! :) Both are 精选集 with only a few new songs. I bought them because I did not get their previous albums. Hehe.

For the past few years, I only bought cds when I got full marks for my mid-term tests or A+ for math modules. Haha. When I go out to work next time, I can't use this excuse of rewarding myself anymore. :(

There's this body shop warehouse sale going on at suntec for the past few days. Went there to take a look before meeting my tk friends. And... I spent money again. -sigh- Bought a gift set for my friend's birthday, and a cleanser for myself.

Anyway, before I go, just wanna share photos of my partial doraemon collection. Lol.

Maybe next time I can open a doraemon museum. :)

2007-03-29T23:23:00.000+08:00

Haha. I'm really happy these two days. Hehe. Got a treat to swensens yesterday (ok, that means I gonna treat the next time, but that's fine), got back my DO test paper (which surprisingly, I did better than what I thought, though my mum was kind of disappointed that I didn't get full marks), received a call from taiwan, and for today, presentation was over! Haha. I think I spent lots of time understanding the paper, and coming up with the presentation slides. Luckily my lecturer knew I put in effort.

Seriously, I think I'm the kind who will cry during commencement. Haha. I didn't cry last year because I wasn't exactly graduating. Tears of joy, tears of satisfaction, as well as tears of fear. I remember few days before the start of my first semester in nus, I told my teacher: I'm scared. It's like, you restart your game and your score starts from 0. Your hi-score is only reflected as a hi-score, it's no bonus to your new game. And now, I'm starting to have this same feeling again. But I know, this feeling will go off eventually, and return when I'm about to proceed to the next stage of my life.

ok, gonna go and sleep now. Have to wake up early for my DO tutorial. The good thing is, most likely prof sun won't ask me to present my solution tomorrow. :)

2007-03-28T10:21:00.000+08:00

New doraemon movie in Japan! You may click on the following link to watch the trailer: http://dora-magic.com/trailer/trailer061201l.html

Doraemon fans out there, you may click here for a series of cute doraemon pictures!

Cute huh. This image was obtained from the above mentioned website.

Haha, my day was really brightened up when I saw those pictures. :)

2007-03-19T17:25:00.000+08:00

Most of the time, I don't remember what I wrote in my blog posts. Haha. I know they're studies related, but I don't recall the details.

My junior quoted something from my blog during his talk. I was nodding as he read the quote, thinking how come it doesn't rhyme. Haha. I was so surprised when he said he took it from my blog. Luckily my reflex action was to stare at him with a "huh?!", and nothing too violent like falling off from my chair. Hmm. Maybe I should stand up and bow? Haha. But seriously, I didn't expect anyone to quote anything from my blog.

Attending my junior's talk brought me memories of my honours year. Not so much of what I said during my talks, but the support and encouragement I got from my friends along the way. I feel that, being able to face the audiences and examiner takes not only hard work and calmness on my part, but also courage. This courage has its source in the people around me. I know most of them hope I'll do well. :)

Back to the present. I was heavily fined by the school library. Haha. I think either there's something wrong with my email, or the library changed their system. They used to send us reminders two days before the book is due, and they'll start imposing fines after the third overdue notice. Hmm. I need to keep track of the due dates from now on.

By the way, I sat on the doraemon train just now. Haha. I didn't take out my phone to snap a picture of the train, as it was kind of crowded. There're doraemon buses too! Advertising for the 7-11 promotion whereby you'll receive a doraemon magnet free for every $5 you spend. Haha. Don't expect anything like the pignet and donald duck magnets I posted last time. Anyway, here is the magnet I got from buying sweets and juices.

Haha. The photo is a bit blur. I think there's some built-in function in MATLAB which allows us to do image correction or whatsoever. Maybe I should spend some time exploring it when I'm free. Oh well, that'll be one month later. Sigh. I think I didn't do that well for my discrete optimization test, and I went to the library to zap the relevant chapters from two textbooks just now. Gonna find time to digest them. :(

2007-03-09T11:24:00.000+08:00

Long time since my last post. Haha. I'm half dead coping with the wavelets assignments, but... still alive. No time to blog. Haha. 5 more weeks of lessons. After which I'll have the luxury of having two weeks to study for one exam. Lol. For now, I wonder if I'll be able to survive these 5 weeks in the first place.

Everyone (in school) seems rather tired and stressed over their modules. Sigh. Oh well, it's a good in the sense that we're all struggling together and none of us is going through any torture alone.

I whined in class for the first time last night. Haha. That's when the lecturer wanted to extend the 3 hours lecture to 4 hours next time. There goes my image. Lol. But anyway, he promised that if he extends the lecture, we can end the whole class early by not having to go back on the last week. This sounds like a fair deal.

Hope everybody is doing well. Shall be going for retail therapy later. Haha. Hope it'll release my stress. :)

2007-02-23T13:27:00.000+08:00

My new toy:

When you press the button on its left hand, the torch light will light up for 20 seconds. Haha. In the comic, this torch light can shrink and enlarge things and people. Lol. Cute right!?

Is this my 10th Doraemon doll? Lost count. Haha. The more the merrier. :)

It's so good to have my brother and sister in law back in S'pore. Haha. Got people to fix my router, buy me toys and so on. Lol. More importantly, the family isn't complete without them around.

The recess week is coming to an end. Lots of incomplete tasks. Argh. Still got to read the paper and do my report. Why is masters so tough! An underestimation of its workload last time. ok lah, at least I still enjoy some parts of it. At least for now, I no longer rely on my lecturers to spoon feed me. I can go to the library and find out infomation on my own. It's a valuable skill. :)

Went back to tj recently. Oh my gosh, I'm year 8 now. How time flies. If I manage to go back to teach, I'll be year 9 then. Lol. Sounds so old. My identity in tj is like tied to my teacher's name. Hmm, haha, that's like I'm sometimes labelled as Prof Goh's student in math department. I guess it's not a bad thing afterall. Of course, I must try not to disgrace them. :P

Time to nap and then read the paper. Argh.

2007-02-16T12:57:00.000+08:00

It's another week. Sleepy. Couldn't sleep last night and I suspect it was due to over dosage of orange juice. Haha.

Was thinking of my past lecturers while lying in bed last night. And I recalled the funny things my friends and I did when we spotted our lecturers. ok, correction, basically I was the one doing all the funny things, and my friends were trying to get themselves entertained but not embarrassed at the same time. Haha. The good old days. Now that I seldom hang out in the honours library, I've fewer chances of spotting my idols. And because of this, I'll wave 'violently' at them and flash them my silly smile when I spotted them from far. :P

Lots of stuff to work on during CNY + remaining days of the one week break. For those who have graduated, yes, the CNY holidays coincide with the one week break this year. :( My idol threw us lots of homework during last night's lecture. Not to forget the paper I'm supposed to read for my presentation and report. For DO, I got to revise simplex method, which is basically half the notes for linear programming. And for my thesis, gonna find out more about the various kinds of transformations.

Oh yes, and there's something more to school life. Romance stories. Haha. I was in school on valentine's day. It was an exciting day, with interesting stories one after another. Haha. Some things are really beyond our imagination. lol. :)

Yawn. Gonna go now.

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

2007-02-10T09:35:00.000+08:00

My student finally sent me the photos we took during our last tuition session. Haha. No chance to nag at her now. 'O' level results were released yesterday. Oh man, her turn is coming soon.

It has been a long week. I guess unpleasant things just have to happen at the same time. Their combined force made my stress level shot up. I think it is now gradually dropping back to the healthy range. There are two kinds of problems: some can be solved whereas some cannot be solved. Haha, this sounds so duh. However, sometimes, it is not easy to identify one type from another. Reason being, we are affected by our emotions.

If a problem cannot be solved, practically speaking, we should not devote energy to it. It's like pushing against a wall, it won't move, and no work is considered done. Emotionally, there are some people or things that we hope to retain in our lives, and sometimes, problems arise because we are unwilling to let go of them.

In some cases, when we are being surrounded by problems, we tend to magnify them, for we do not see the world outside them. Try jumping out of these problems, and we may realize that some of them can be rather trivial in the first place.

I feel that last week is a test of how much I have matured over the years and how much good my past problem solving experiences have done to me. We all have to grow up one day.

Over the years, I am trying very hard not to bring family problems and friendship problems into school, and not to bring problems I faced in school beyond the buona vista station.

Just yesterday, I realized that my ability to multi task has improved. I was discussing my thesis with my supervisor, and I was making noise about somebody under my breathe. Haha. It's still a fruitful discussion ok. I gave my supervisor my full attention nevertheless. My curse for the other person is just part of my breathing, hence does not affect my other activities. Lol. Sounds so scary.

Time to get ready for my v.day celebration. Haha.

2007-02-04T11:40:00.000+08:00

Finally, I see signs of recovery for my flu. :)

While I was showering last night, I was thinking of what defines a good teacher. I used to think that a teacher who gives good notes, good tips, and ensures good grades at the end of the day makes a good teacher. And for the result oriented me last time, that's enough.

Despite having numerous teacher idols at different stages of my education, surprisingly, I only have strong impressions of the minority. To make it to my teacher idol list, I'm quite sure the teacher displayed a certain level of charisma and charm in the classroom. And for those who left a strong impression, it's not only because of their effective classroom management skills, but their concern and support for me at that time. They taught me skills beyond the content of the syllabus, and they pushed me to attain greater heights. These teachers made a difference to my life.

Talking about school life, like what I had told some of my friends in university, I had a fair share of both good and bad school days last time. Thankfully, no matter how bad things used to be, they all happened to be blessings in disguise. They made me learn, they made me grow up. It's both the good experiences and the bad experiences that shape the present me. Indeed, schools play a very important role in our lives. The people we meet in school play a role in molding our character.

I think everyone should always have something which he/she feels proud of. He may feel proud of himself, proud of someone close to him, proud of something he owns, or proud of his goal etc. It is important for us to think positively of ourselves, and at the same time, know our flaws and work towards improving ourselves.

Enough of my rantings. Time to take a rest and then prove some results for my wavelets module. BTW, I forgot to say that we managed to open the class with 6 registered students. Haha. Two engine students, one undergraduate, one part-time math graduate, one exchange student and me. Nevertheless, I am glad that class is opened. :) I had been planning for what modules to take in masters year, ever since my third year as an undergraduate, and wavelets was part of the plan. Planning modules is like a chess game, sometimes, one wrong move can make you lose the whole game. And since I can only spend one year for masters, I need to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Before I go, let me introduce two new friends from hk disneyland:

piglet

donald

Haha. They are magnets. But no where to stick them. They'll stand with my lego toys for the time being.

2007-01-29T15:17:00.000+08:00

Caught a cold. Was sneezing away for the whole morning. And slept hours. Now woke up to correct my thesis. I think I'm quite hardworking for my thesis this semester. Haha. But I guess this is a must, in order to graduate in time for NIE.

I've gotten a new blog in roodoo. My entries are in Chinese, in order to match its settings. I think it is a Taiwanese site. Didn't write in Chinese for a long long time, but the feeling of typing in Chinese somehow put me at ease. When I blog in English, I have to do a translation of my thoughts in Chinese to English. Shall keep that blog in private for the time being. Haha. I don't think many people wanna read Chinese these days anyway.

Went for the SHE concert last Saturday.

I think I got to buy a new camera when I am richer. Haha. That's probably some time from now.
January is coming to an end. I think the honours batch is going to hand in their first draft in three weeks time. Time flies.

Time to go and do some work before the drowsy effect comes back. :)

2007-01-28T09:25:00.000+08:00

Found the link on ms pot's blog. Haha. I think my analysis is not too bad...

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.4
Mind:	7.5
Body:	8
Spirit:	5.4
Friends/Family:	4.3
Love:	6.9
Finance:	7.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Your Life Analysis:

Life: Your life rating is a score of the sum total of your life, and accounts for how satisfied, successful, balanced, capable, valuable, and happy you are. The quiz attempts to put a number on the summation of all of these things, based on your answers. Your life score is reasonably high. This means that you are on a good path. Continue doing what is working and set about to improve in areas which continue to lag. Do this starting today and you will begin to reap the benefits immediately. (Read more on improving your life)

Mind: Your mind rating is a score of your mind's clarity, ability, and health. Higher scores indicate an advancement in knowledge, clear and capable thinking, high mental health, and pure thought free of interference. Your mind score is within a healthy zone. This means you have achieved a level of mental balance and harmony consistent with living a healthy, happy life. Continue doing what works, and keep your focus. In our fast-paced world, mental clutter is all too common. Be vigilant in maintaining healthy mental function.

Body: Your body rating measures your body's health, fitness, and general wellness. A healthy body contributes to a happy life, however many of us are lacking in this area. You have a rather good body score, which is an indication that you take care of yourself. There is room for improvement, however. Please keep doing what works. Eat right, exercise, reduce your stress, treat any illness. Doing these things will help ensure your body will be in good working order for a long time to come.

Spirit: Your spirit rating seeks to capture in a number that elusive quality which is found in your faith, your attitude, and your philosophy on life. A higher score indicates a greater sense of inner peace and balance. Your spirit score leaves room for improvement. Consider making a concerted effort to redefine your attitudes and focus your beliefs. Boosting your spirit will lead to greater life satisfaction.

Friends/Family: Your friends and family rating measures your relationships with those around you, and is based on how large, healthy, and dependable your social network is. Your friends and family score suffers, yet it does not need to be this way. Strengthen your social network by reaffirming old bonds. Seek out new friendships, and they will provide you the reward you need.

Love: Your love rating is a measure of your current romantic situation. Sharing your heart with another person is one of life's most glorious, terrifying, rewarding experiences. Your love score is in good shape, meaning that things are going well. Do all you can to maintain it, and continue to grow and move ahead.

Finance: Your finance rating is a score that rates your current financial health and stability. You have a rather good financial score, which is not all that common these days. Keep doing what works. Avoid common pitfalls and save for the future. You will be glad you did.

2007-01-14T18:17:00.000+08:00

Watched "Confession of Pain" last night. Really liked the movie. Haha. I think this is the best HK production of 2006. The brilliant Tony Leung versus the charming Takeshi Kaneshiro. What matters more is the heart of this movie- a soulful story which we can all connect to. :)

Tired to write a long movie review. Haha. My head is spinning after the wavelets homework. Throughout my undergraduate days, I seldom touch the books in the library, except those related to uncertainty principles. And in the past few months, ever since I started masters, I have to go to the library almost every week. In the midst of being buried under the thick books, I realized there's so much which I have to know, and so much which I do not know. Research turns out to be a long and lonely path. Reading and understanding a proof can be an intellectual challenge at times.

I enjoy what I am doing, but at the same time, I can be so stressed over it that I just want to stop what I am doing. Haha. It's like I admire my idol lecturer so much, but at the same time, I'm scared of him.

Relaxing for the night. Gonna start work on my thesis again tomorrow.

Went to take a look at my doraemon in taka last night. Haha. And as usual, I couldn't resist the temptation of taking a photo with it.

Haha. It seems like I'm converting my blog into a doraemon picture blog these days. Lol.

2007-01-13T09:54:00.000+08:00

First week of school is over. Was in school for almost everyday. Yawn. Night classes can be really tiring. As there's only one lecture each week (modules conducted in the day have two lectures each week) , the lecturer tries to condense the materials and cover as much of them as possible in the limited time. So most of the stuff are mentioned briefly, and on our part, we need to read up and fill up the details in order to gain a better understanding.

For one of the module, I was the only person on the class roaster. Yah yah, only my name was on the class list. Luckily when I attended the class, more people were present. I think there were 8 students. BUT, half of them approached me, and told me they would be dropping the class. I slept at 2am the next morning, because I was thinking of some of the proofs which the lecturer left to us as homework. And I went back to school the next day to read up on Riesz basis and frames. >.< Eventually, I was buried under 5 thick books in the library.

I find this kind of life rather fulfilling, but at the same time, mentally tiring. Haha. Of course I could have heck
care or something, but I feel that since I'm spending my youth on this masters course, I should try to gain some knowledge and acquire some skills in the process. And because I'm getting a higher stipend, I believe I should be aiming to achieve more than what my fellow peers are aiming for.

Went to have dinner with qy and ll last night. Haha. Sizzler is having some promotion. We ordered three full meals at the price of two. I was really full after the peaches, and had to give the ice cream a miss. So full that at a certain point, I felt like puking. Haha. Had a good laugh last night, I think that kind of helped in the food digestion. Lol. And I saw this 3-D doraemon jigsaw puzzle last night. Too bad the shop was already closed, and I couldn't go in to check out the price. kh sent the picture to me:

I heard the head can be rotated. Haha.

I got two jigsaw puzzles last Sunday. Hehe. Both 1000 pieces. $2.90 each. Lol. The last time I got a 500 pieces jigsaw, it cost like around $35. Of course the quality is better. But then, when the jigsaw is framed up, who would notice the quality.

ok, gonna go and do some work liao. Sigh.

2007-01-04T20:47:00.000+08:00

4th day of my slacking week. Haha. Too bad the gathering tomorrow is cancelled. Poor qy is sick. :(

Starting to feel bored. I'm doing things which I'm normally too lazy to do. Like going shopping on my own, watching anime, doing yoga, cleaning my room and even playing with nail polish. Lol. I'm trying to let boredom reach the maximum, so that at the end of the week, I'll feel super relieved to start working on my thesis again. Haha. This technique worked for the past few semesters. Hopefully it'll work for one last time. :)

And while shopping, I saw doraemon in a cage. Poor doraemon.

Haha. Back to my slacking...

2007-01-02T21:17:00.000+08:00

2 days into the new year. I foresee a busy semester to come, and after which, I'll be going to NIE. Going to say bye bye to epsilons, deltas, norms, operators and so on. No more theorems, lemmas and corollaries. Instead, I'll be writing essay after essay. At that time, I'll probably miss maths.

Everything has been rather peaceful for the past two days. No uncertainty principle. Haha. It clears my mind somehow. I know I shouldn't be slacking at this point of time, since I have got less than five months to the submission of thesis. On the other hand, I think I need a break. Partly due to the stress, my pimples on my forehead take forever to recover. Haha, I purposely ask the hairdresser to cut my fringe in such a way that it covers that portion of my forehead. On the afternoon I felt that my brain was being torn apart, I decided that it's time to take a break.

Met up with some of my friends from tkgs. Glad to see them after so many months. I think the previous time I saw them was in May, and I missed the previous two gatherings due to some problems here and there. Haha, I think we forgot to take a group photo today. My friends took lots of pictures of the food we ordered at sushi tei though. I must say it was quite an affordable lunch, considering the variety of food we ordered. I ate less than 1/6 of the rice in my rice set. Too full. Business must have been pretty good for the past two days, since many of the food we wanted to order weren't available.

Oh yeah, and I didn't spend any money after that, other than the candy I bought for my mum. Haha. I must reduce my spending this month! Going to keep track of my expenditures. :) Must not spend more than $50 every time I go out. This sounds reasonable right.

My junior finally uploaded the pictures for the IT club gathering. Here's the group photo:

We took this picture in front of the Christmas tree in bugis junction. Haha. The diamond tree! How I wish I've one in my house next time... lol.

2007-01-01T10:56:00.000+08:00

Post Results Celebration

2006-12-31T21:44:00.000+08:00

An unproductive week. I guess I'm reaching the point of feeling really burnt out from research and stuff. It is hindering my progress. So I guess I should put all the stuff aside and do nothing for the next few days. I hope this helps. I hope when the semester starts on the week after, I'm geared up for all the challenges ahead. :)

Received an email from the department. It stated some of the changes to our current graduate programme. For the 2007 cohort and after, completing masters in one year is next to impossible if one wants to obtain grades like A and A+ throughout. Not only is the workload increased, they have to take graduate modules in replace for our exposure level 4000 modules. Furthermore, from next semester onwards, seminar module is going to be more demanding. As for the changes in graduation requirement for phd, my dream bubble of doing phd burst. I guess I should make more concrete plans to climb my way up for my teaching career, or start up my own business.

Finally watched deathnote 2. Enjoyed the movie, although I must comment that the manga is way more engaging. I think they've a good taste when it comes to choosing the actors and actresses. They all have great resemblance to the characters in the manga. :) Forgot to take a picture with the big poster in cineleisure.

Dinner was great and was of affordable price. Haha. Just foot the credit card bill. Not forgetting the amount I paid using nets. I think I must reduce my expenditure next month. Haha. I miss tuition. Without tuition, both my heart and wallet feel empty. Lol. Will upload the pictures later.

Really glad to see my IT club juniors and CZ again. Haha. The last time I met up with my juniors was during my undergraduate year 1 or year 2. :P Glad to know that all of them are currently coping well and happy with their lives. I felt a bit uneasy talking to them at first, but it got better after a while.

Had a guest staying over in my house over the past few days. I think my mum is really happy to have her with us. Finally someone to talk to her at home. Haha. My dad and I usually ignore her when we're doing our work. That is, before she starts screaming at us. Haha. Brought her to walk along orchard road, all the way to esplanade on the first day afternoon. Brought her to the market for breakfast in the morning. And for the rest of the days, I gave her the directions and she went exploring on her own. Despite our different lifestyles and everything, I had a good time chatting with her. Sigh. Now that she is gone, I kind of missed her. All the photos are in her camera. Got to wait for her to send them to me.

Haha. It sounds like quite a happening week for me. Lol.

2006 is going to be over in less than 2 hours time. Here's wishing everyone a brilliant year ahead.

2006-12-24T17:53:00.000+08:00

2006-12-24T11:14:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy 2007!

2006-12-24T09:57:00.000+08:00

The last few days had been pretty relaxing. Haha. And I spent a lot this holidays. When the new semester starts, I'll have less chance to spend money anyway. Oh well. My mum used to pay for all my clothes, shoes, transport, handphone bill and even stationaries. Basically everything. Now I've to pay for all these. Fair enough, I should be doing so since I get quite a decent amount of allowance from the ministry and from the school each month. Haha. Now I'm trying to keep track of how I spend my money, and possibly reduce unnecessary spendings.

Blogging less and less often these days. Haha. Oh well, sometimes when I sit in front of my comp, I'll rather watch anime, or search for journal articles which are helpful to my research. And sometimes, I'm just reading my thesis, and thinking of what to add to it. I used to blog more frequently because I wanted a revenue to voice out my views and thoughts. Now, my opinions are heard. Another reason is, I've tuned my mindset, and somehow, I just have less to write. Haha. But all in all, this blog still serves a great purpose of letting my friends know how I'm currently coping and what I'm currently doing. So it'll stay.

I've slight regrets of not taking up the research scholarship. Haha. Dr. Ng is back, and he approached me to take up his lab classes. It's a really good way of fulfilling my teaching duties if I had taken up the scholarship in place of the minstry's. Not to mention the pleasant feeling of getting to work with one of my favourite teachers. Of course, it was a great feeling to have a teacher approaching and offering work.

Shall be spending xmas at home doing research. Argh. Now I think I need some group theory knowledge. I think I'm really stuck. I think it is going to be shorter than my honours thesis. Sob. I've too little time. :(

2006-12-13T10:13:00.000+08:00

Been two weeks since my last paper. Most of the time were spent on research. Had to go back to school to listen to talks and meet my supervisor. Also, I fell sick last few days, and before that, my computer got virus and I had to reformat everything and install back everything. Haha. So this explains why I've no time for blogging.

This December holidays is too short. Lessons are going to start in less than a month's time. Sigh. I must be well disciplined for my research, or else I shall have no break through this holidays. Looks like I've to sleep one hour later every night this week in order to revise my linear programming stuff in preparation for my DO next semester.

Next semester shall be my last semester in NUS. I'm not exactly looking forward to graduation. In a way, I'm starting to feel that I'm part of the department. I'm starting to feel the sense of belonging. But nevertheless, I've to leave and enter NIE next July.

Looking forward to the second episode of death note at the end of the month. The poster is already up. Haha. I think HK already showed the second episode in November! And the lead actors went to HK to promote the movie. Light looks so handsome in person. Haha. I was watching it on you tube. The fans were screaming when he appeared at the shopping centre for the autograph session. It had been years since I last heard this kind of scream. :)

But I bet I've lots of chances of listening to people screaming when I teach next time. Maybe I'll have a fan club screaming for me when I go on stage ah? Lol.

ok, time to stop dreaming and step back into reality. Must start work on research again. :) I called my supervisor yesterday. And he was promoting some of the restaurants to me. Hmm. I must have given him the impression that I love eating. Hmm.

2006-11-30T20:32:00.000+08:00

Exam is over. Haha. Had my first (and last) exam for the semester yesterday. I hope everything went well. :) I completed the paper in slightly less than two hours. Could have left together with qy and got a free ride home. Oh well, my kiasu nature made me stayed until the last minute. I just don't want to bang my head against the wall when my results don't turn out well and I start blaming myself for leaving the examination hall early. Haha. I just want to avoid having regrets.

So even if I don't do well, it's not because I didn't work hard enough.

One more semester in nus. Probably one more exam to sit for. At most two. Though the past semester had been rather hectic, I still enjoy studying. Sometimes, I felt that I'm really lucky, in the sense that I enjoyed most of my modules in nus, and I've made some good friends during my undergraduate days. Not many have both of these two conditions satisfied.

Went back to school today to attend a talk. My idol gave the talk. Haha. He became my idol ever since I realized he is able to communicate maths effectively in both languages. Of course, his research is quite outstanding too. Haha. I think he is a real talent. And he is quite good looking as well. BUT, before you try to find out more about him, let me add one more fact: he is married with a daughter. Lol.

I remember I used to feel jealous or unhappy when someone else did better academically, or is more successful in some ways. I'm glad that this belongs to the past, and ever since the later part of my jc days, I no longer have such negative feelings of those who did better. Instead, I thought that true friends should encourage and motivate each other to improve. For the recent two years, I have this sense of excitement when I heard of some outstanding individuals.

Having jealousy washed off is one of the best things which happened in my life. It added a new light to education and made me more keen to learn from others. It's the process of learning from others and reflecting upon ourselves which make us improve. The school environment and people I met all have got a role to play, and I'm really grateful for that.

Haha. I think I've talked too much for the day. Shall take a rest tonight. Have to start to piah for my thesis. Meeting my supervisor next week. Argh.

2006-11-26T17:39:00.000+08:00

A short update before I go off to write my helpsheet. :)

The past few days had been the most relaxing part of this semester. No stress over reports and presentations. All I need to do is to study. I used to complain bout studying, didn't I? That was because I didn't have to go through the chores of writing reports and preparing for presentations. Studying is really much easier in comparison.

My comp was down for the past few days. I'm glad it has recovered now. The most important thing bout my comp is that, I must be able to type my thesis and go online to do research. msn and webcam are important too, but secondary. I keep thinking my supervisor is going to throw me out of his office soon. Haha. I'm just guilty. He wrote an encouraging reply to my email. And I guess, it makes me even more guilty. A part of me feels that I should be spending more time on research. And because I'm receiving more money each month, I feel that my thesis should be of higher quality as compared to the rest.

On one hand, I hope exam will be over asap so that I can start work on my thesis. On the other hand, I hope this study break will last longer, so that I can relax longer. Haha. Oh well, face the reality, it is going to be over on 29th.

Time to go and write my helpsheet. I think I must get an A+ this time round. Otherwise, I'll feel that I've wasted my semester away. Oh well, it isn't within my control sometimes. Sigh.

All the best to those taking exams. :)

2006-11-15T10:14:00.000+08:00

One more presentation this afternoon. Two more reports to be submitted. After my aode exam at the end of the month, this hectic semester will be over. :)

Received my copies of the agreement letter and stipend, so everything is more or less settled for now. I'm finally bringing money home. Haha. And I look forward to the day when I can apply for my own credit cards and give a supplementary card to my mum.

Studies wise, everything is fine and well, except that I have not met up with my supervisor for a long time. I forsee I'll be working day and night on my thesis this coming holidays. Haha. But not to worry, for those whom I've promised a treat, I'll still treat you this holidays, and those whom promised to give me a treat, I'll still go for your treat.

I guess I'm much happier now, as compared to the beginning of the semester. Like every other time when I had underwent some form of setback, I've plans to undergo some kind of reform. Haha.

Time to do my reports. For those who are going to sit for exams, all the best and jiayou.

2006-10-28T16:54:00.000+08:00

It's another week. Counting down to the end of the semester.

My gosh. AODE is getting harder. Sigh. I thought I could use that to boost my morale this semester.

I feel rather demoralized by my low efficiency despite taking merely three modules this semester. A contrast to the days when I could handle six modules. Maybe I'm getting old. Or perhaps, a good timetable plays an important role. Wasted a lot of time on transport each day. And it's a great waste of money too. Transportation fee is on the rise these days, and each month, I've to spend at least $80 on transport. That's just bus and train rides. Not that I'm taking cabs or something.

I was really embarrassed when my supervisor asked me how I'm coping with my modules. I told him I'm dying. That's a fact. Computational harmonic analysis and AODE are interesting, and I don't mind spending time on them. Of course, it'll be million times better if I'm able to get my doubts clarified during AODE tutorials. The third module is nothing but waste of my time. I get really bored sitting there for three hours each week. I think it's rude to do my own work or doze off when others are giving presentations. Hence, I try to maintain eye contact with the presenter even though I don't understand. Frankly, it's a torture sometimes.

I'm pretty touched to see my supervisor asking the computational harmonic analysis lecturer how his three students are currently coping. Certainly, it's also pretty stressful. Apart from the two of them, the ex HOD was there as well. Sigh. I have to work really hard in order to be up to their expectations. Of course, on the other hand, I'm really pleased to know of their expectations. I think, I worked a really long way to achieve this. And I'm always grateful to all those who helped me out along the way.

Yawn. Sigh. Lots of stuff to be done. Before I go, here are two pics of the graduate office. lol.

I dump some of the books and papers on the side. Purposely avoided them when taking the photos. Haha. For those who had been to my table last time, yes, I changed table. Math department is kind to answer to my request. :) I think they all know that I'm damn problematic. lol.

ok, I think my phone camera is not bad too. Haha. And guess what, I have now a doraemon ringtone, doraemon message tone, and doraemon wallpaper. Haha. I was shocked to find lots of nice themes online. Most of them are for nokia and sony ericsson phones. :)

I guess I better go and do my work. Counting down to the end of the semester.

2006-10-24T19:37:00.000+08:00

Watched the movie "Death Note" last week. If you have some time and cash to spare, you should really catch this movie.

And I think Light is so handome. lol.

You may watch the trailer here.

Death Note- The Last Name will be showing in December. Looking forward to see the ending.

Time to work on my presentation slides again. Yawn.

2006-10-22T20:20:00.000+08:00

Whole weekend on just one tutorial. 12 pieces of foolscap paper. Argh. Pity the group conducting this tutorial tomorrow.

The slides for the seminar presentation are almost done. 29 slides. Hope they'll last me through, say, 40 minutes?

Finally purchased a new handphone. SE W700i. Got it at $108. The amount is still affordable for a poor kiddo like me. lol. I'm pretty pleased with the camera and mp3 player. It is user friendly too. Yes, so no regret for the purchase for the time being. Yeah, despite cutting my hand with the phone yesterday. Even though titanium isn't a favourite colour of mine, I guess the nice features and lower price kind of made up for the colour.

Nothing is perfect. I guess, most things come with a tradeoff.

Public holiday on coming Tuesday. I think I have to start work on the next presentation. And start work on the next aode tutorial if possible. Praying that xxw will not give tutorial 10. Haha. Then my group doesn't have to present. lol. I know this mindset isn't right. But I just feel tired bout having to solve and present the hardest tutorial problem. Of course, there's a great sense of pride at the end of it, when your lecturer thinks the tutorial is conducted well, and your group members give you credits, but the amount of effort I've to put in in exchange of these is probably too high a price to pay.

On the other hand, whenever I'm sad and depressed, I'll feel much better after doing my tutorials and after going for tuition. Of course, retail therapy works just as well.

I just feel like letting off a very long sigh. I'm tired. But then, I believe everyone else feels the same way too. :)

4 more weeks to study break. Woohoo. I must get a better timetable next semester.

Thoughts not very coherent. It's the fault of the aode tutorial. Argh.

2006-10-17T09:54:00.000+08:00

The aode test is finally over. Haha. So glad it is over. Three more presentations to go, plus one more exam before the end of this semester. 3 presentations, sigh, the crisis is yet to be over.

No more presentation of answers for computational harmonic analysis module from now on, till the final presentation of our project. :) This means more free time from now on. On the other hand, hmm... he stopped posting questions after I went through those mess on Fourier transform and Fourier series and started on uncertainty principles. I thought I could use some questions on uncertainty principles to pull up my score. Hmm. But well, I guess I'm still delighted to have more free time.

I think I need to spend more time on my masters thesis. Haven't been touched it for the past few weeks. Sigh. I have no face to see my supervisor. :(

Shall be going over to hq to sign my supplementary agreement. Hehe. I'm signing it AT LAST. Hope they'll transfer the stipend to me soon. Of course, what's more important is that they pay my school fees as soon as possible. I just received yet another bill from nus. :( But then, new handphone and new clothes will come after the stipend, which is certainly something to look forward to.

ok, shall surf around for handphones before I make my move. :)

2006-10-13T14:00:00.000+08:00

Social Life at Hogwarts

Lots of people like you, very few don't. You are nice, understanding, and don't judge people until you know them. You treat everyone fairly and make friends with practically everyone. You are very smart and cunning. You love to laugh. You have many admirers, but don't take notice.

Harry: He is in love with you, but doesn't know what to do. He's not sure if he should ask you out. He gets jealous very easily and doesn't understand how you can be nice to the Slytherins, specifically Malfoy. He wants to be the man of your dreams and hopes that you like him more than a friend.

Ron: Loves you as a friend and nothing more. He thanks you profusely for getting him and Hermione together and like Harry, he doesn't understand how you can be so nice to everyone.

Hermione: She thinks of you as her best gal pal and thanks you for getting her and Ron together. She's glad that you take your studies seriously and thinks you are great. She knows you treat people equally and respects your decisions.

Ginny: She doesn't like you because Harry loves you. She thinks you are great, but is really jealous of you. You two have grown distant, but you have hardly noticed with all the friends you have. Maybe one day you two will be friends again?

Neville: Has a little crush on you because you are the one who helps him with his schoolwork.

Fred and George: They think you are the best person in the world. You always come up with great pranks and laugh at their jokes. They love you and hope that you will always be there for a good prank.

Oliver Wood: Had a crush on you, but the age difference didn't work out right. He knows that you only love him as a friend and accepts it. He still has a crush on you, but has moved on. And that's okay with you.

Cedric Diggory: He thinks you're a good person who cares about everyone. You were the one who introduced him to Cho. He's glad you did and left this world with you as one of him close friends.Cho Chang: She is your actual bestfriend and thanks you for getting her and Cedric together. You are always there for her when she's crying about missing Cedric, and she appreciates it. You two are like sisters and she's grateful that you're her friend.

Lavender Brown: Thinks you are really nice, but doesn't like you because everyone likes you.

Draco Malfoy: He is also in love with you, like Potter. Him and Harry often fight for your affections. Is easily jealous, like Harry, and cares about you very much. He hopes that in the end you and him will be together. You are the only girl he loves and hopes you feel the same. He constantly worries about your safety and would give up everything for you.

Pansy: Hates you. Enough said.

Crabbe and Goyle: Have little crushes on you, but know that Draco would pummel them.

Dumbledore: Thinks you are a great person. Wishes you luck on choosing between Harry and Draco. He knows that you'll be a very good skilled witch in the future.

McGonagall: Also thinks you are a great student who has amazing skills, but worries that it might be very stressful to be as hardworking as you.

Hagrid: You are his favorite girl student because you didn't give up his class and always help him with the creatures. The creatures in the forbidden forest love you too. Odd huh?

Snape: He thinks you are an excellent student, doesn't like or dislike you. He knows you'd end up being a great witch.

Voldemort: Wants you to join him and hopes that you will end up with Malfoy. If you pick Harry, he plans to kill you instead of recruiting you.

Reputation: Girl who likes Draco and Harry.
Take this quiz!

2006-10-07T10:03:00.000+08:00

The air quality worsened over the past few days. The latest PSI (11am today) was 128. Sigh.

I was kind of stressed over the past few days. What's new right. But I guess with the environmental problem setting in, as well as the gastric flu bug striking more pupils, they highlight to me, what are the true problems and challenges.

Very often, we are bothered with our past mistakes, our fears of certain things, and as a result, we let ourselves be overwhelmed with emotions. Although life is filled with uncertainties, but to some extend, our emotions and abilities are within our control. We can make things better for ourselves and others. We choose the way to live our lifes.

When it comes to bugs and haze, we are all so helpless and vulnerable.

ok, time to correct the typos in my report, then revise for the coming AODE test. I have three presentations on week 13. Argh. All of which are 1 hour each. :( Gonna start preparing for them after my test. Sigh.

The sony ericsson w850i is released. Selling at $498 now. Shall wait for the price to drop. :)

2006-09-30T21:00:00.000+08:00

The recess week is coming to an end. ok, it's not much of a recess week to begin with. More of a work week.

Guess what, I finished my report. Haha. So I decided to give myself a break before the start of the second half of the semester. :)

Have been using Nokia 8310 for the past few days. An old model, but nonetheless, a good phone. Long lasting battery, easy to sms, snake, radio... I really regretted trading in my old nokia phone for the current motorola v878. Haha. When I looked at my motorola phone, I could understand why I bought it two years plus ago. Till today, I still think it is one of the nicest looking phone. Shall be passing the nokia phone to wq tomorrow. And I'll be back to the motorola phone.

There's tuition tomorrow. Haven't met my student for two weeks. I heard she got an E for her prelims. Sigh. I wonder what I can do for her. Hmm.

Surprisingly, my msn is working fine now. Haha. It's like outsmarting the machine to make it work. I hope it'll continue to work for the next few weeks. Yahoo messenger doesn't work too. So there's no replacement. Unlike IE and windows media player, I can use firefox and realplayer instead.

ok, shall go and surf around and watch a few episodes of anime... haha. take care people.

2006-09-28T18:29:00.000+08:00

For now, my computer is working fine. Except that I can't log on msn and can't get into internet explorer. The super old version of windows messenger is fine though. Oh well, I guess I shall live with it for the time being. Using firefox now. It seems good, for now. Haha. And like what some of my friends had previously commented, my nemo page can't load on firefox. Yes, so I have no choice but to change the layout to this doggie one. Haha.

Shall work hard to correct my thesis tonight. Hopefully, I'll be able to send the file to my supervisor tomorrow. Yes, and start working on my report for harmonic computational harmonic analysis as well. Sigh. Seriously, I didn't expect myself to have so many presentations and reports to do during masters year. But oh well, even if I knew all these, I would choose to do masters anyway. So it makes no difference. Haha. And I believe, after the problem of finding sureties, it makes me only more determined to take up the course. :)

Oh yes, haha, here are some pics of some cute mooncakes. Hehe.

Had been out for the whole of yesterday. Haha. Too bad kayjin is not around. I remember when I was in my third year in nus, I was telling my friends over lunch that I'm very impressed by this group of guys from the senior batch. True enough, this group of guys proved my conjecture. Haha.

Time to go. Sigh...

2006-09-27T00:02:00.000+08:00

Comp down with trojan horse. Using my dad's comp now. Sigh.

Can still type my masters thesis on my comp. As long as I don't go online, it'll be fine. On the contrary, once I log on, the hidden virus will start multiplying itself and I have to go through the trouble of scanning the comp again to remove the affected files. Sigh.

Just see this as a way to make me concentrate on my typing. Haha. I've typed more than 30 pages already. :)

AODE tutorial next week. My group is supposed to be in charge of it. Oh well, and unluckily, I've to present the first question, and basically, my group can't come out with the full solution for this question. I'll try to give the class my sweetest smile, and hope that they won't start bombing me with questions. Haha.

ok, I'm pretty stressed with the workload. There's like so much stuff to do. I like neither reports nor presentations, but I have to do several of them this semester. Sigh. Everyone is busy and stressed. So the good thing is, nobody is struggling alone. Though I feel sian and stressed, the good thing is, I'm not depressed over it. :)

I'll be productive this week! Or so I hope.

2006-09-19T11:10:00.000+08:00

Hardly any time to blog these days. Difficulty level of assignments increases. They take up more time. Started typing out my masters thesis. Everything is fine as at this point of time. Luckily I've more or less recovered from my 8 weeks old flu. :) There's like so many things to be done, yet, there's like so little time. Have to submit a report for the seminar module at the end of the semester. All the assignments for the computational harmonic analysis course will be due by then. Sigh. Masters year is more bout time management than anything else.

Still haven't gotten my stipend. Sigh. Which means I'm still dependent on my parents for free meals and free shelter at home. They have stopped giving me allowances though. And the phone bill is now deducted directly through giro from my account. I pay for my own transport fees. I just hope to be financially independent during my masters year. And it takes so long for this wish to be granted.

I guess this is hard for all to understand. It's fine. I just want to make some noise bout it. :)

It's amazing that we could be close friends last time, but all of a sudden, we're behaving like complete strangers nowadays. Maybe there's no longer any common topic? Mmm. At the same time as I try to figure out what's the problem between me and these friends, I truly appreciate all those who stayed by me all these years. Haha. As my mum was saying, there was so much difficulties talking to me last time, because I used to be so childish. Haha. She thought the turning point was after my second year in uni. Maybe mixing with people from the senior batch helps in maturity?

Surprisingly, I'm in contact with more people from people in the senior batch, as compared to my own batch. Mmm.

Sigh. Have to rush off to meet my parents soon. I don't know when I can find time to blog again. Gonna meet two of my lecturers for consultations this week. Sigh. Lots of typing to be done during recess week. Argh.

Haha. But, in the midst of these complaints, I think it's never a mistake to embark on this masters course. We should face challenges, and not stay in our comfort zones all the time. In these few months, I see many turning points. No matter how much we dislike such changes and how upset we get, at the end of the day, we always have to face them and adjust accordingly to the changes.

I've some cute pictures of mooncakes. And a picture of my new doraemon puppet. Haha. Shall post them up when I have the time. :)

2006-09-05T15:54:00.000+08:00

Had been sick for the past 7 weeks. Every time when I'm about to recover from a cough, I catch a new flu bug. The cycle of fever, sore throat, running nose and cough starts all over again. Promised my friend that I would attend his lecture to give him comments. By the time I finally recover and make it to his lecture, it'll probably be the middle of the semester.

My table in the graduates' office is finally clean and tidy. Haha. I'm kind of touched that the people in the room responded to my notice on the white board, and helped to clear all the junk away. I thought it was really nice of them, as they could simply leave the stuff there and pretend not to know anything. :) Yet to get to know them.

My friends are getting their next stipend in one to two weeks time. And I haven't gotten a single cent yet. The agreement signing has been postponed once again. >_< Oh well, things are just not within my control.

I just want to get well soon, so that I can quickly catch up with all those lectures and tutorials and start typing my new thesis.

Before I go, here's a picture of the new poster I got when I purchased the new Twins album:

I'll go and rest. Then study. Yawn.

Everything seems tough at the moment. But I believe I'll survive. :)

2006-08-26T22:03:00.000+08:00

Been busy and stressed recently. I guess I shall not start ranting bout my school work, for I don't know how to put an end to it.

Below is a photo taken during my parents' wedding anniversary:

Haha. I'm not sure how my parents will feel bout me posting their photos up, so I think I'll just make do with a photo of the flowers and cake. A closer view of the flowers:

Nice flowers right? Haha. I felt rather proud walking around toa payoh with that bouquet of flowers, despite having my hands full of stuff and carrying the heavy school bag. :) Yes, and despite having a flu.

I thought the flowers were really expensive when I went to place an order two weeks ago. But now I think they're worth the amount. :)

Some updates since last wednesday:

I'm still alive, despite catching a new flu and feeling really stressed about my school work.
My first presentation for seminar module was over. My throat was quite bad and I had to resort to using a microphone. Everything went relatively well.
Kay Jin left S'pore. Sob. :(
I'm still sick. My cough is 6 weeks old.
MOE finally contacted me. I should be signing the agreement letter soon. And soon, I'll get my stipend. :)

I'll sleep now. :)

2006-08-16T09:22:00.000+08:00

I have got 15 minutes to write about whatever I want to write.

Had two days of lessons. Though I could understand most of the materials mentioned in class, I couldn't help feeling slightly stressed over the amount of workload. I had been slacking too much in the past three semesters. Now I've to suffer a bit to pick up the momentum once again. Sigh. And the fact that my close friends in nus have all graduated, and I'm very much left on my own, and the thought that I've to finish the whole masters course by next early June kind of haunts me.

Still, it is heartwarming to see some of my friends in school in the past two days. At least, I am not alone. :) I forsee a busy year ahead, with little gossips and laughter. I was the one who chose this path, so no matter what, I won't let myself have any regret over it.

Time is up. I have to go and do something to my thesis. Haven't touched it for the past two days. Sigh. I'm going crazy.

2006-08-13T10:41:00.000+08:00

Tuition was called off (coz my tuition kid was unwell, oh my gosh, I hope I didn't spread my cough to her). I can now spend some time on my own, before the start of a new semester. Argh.

Went to watch limit of love yesterday. Great movie. :)

One climax after another. In the midst of the excitement and anticipation, humour was inserted at just the right spots and timings. There's a bit of romance in the air, but the main bulb of it was about the rescue of the four survivors. To me, the most touching part of the movie was the never-give-up attitude , as well as the I-must-go-back-and-rescue-my-team-mate belief posed by those carrying out the rescue operation. I was deeply touched towards the end of the movie, when all of them wanted to get to the sunk ship for rescue operation. Because four people were still stuck inside, and two of them were their team mates.

I tend to relate the movie to reality. And realized something is missing in my life.

Life is never perfect. I'll treasure what I have, and do my best to make life better. :)

2006-08-11T11:39:00.000+08:00

I've gotten all my modules. Haha. Gotten all the graduate modules one day after I registered online. And Dean's office approved the undergraduate module three days after I filled up the form manually. One of the three days was a public holiday. Haha. When everyone is cooperative, things can really go on efficiently. :)

Started printing out my lecture notes. Haha. Printed enough to cover the first few lectures. I'll print the rest in school, since they provide papers and printer for graduate students. Haha. Sounds good, isn't it? I'm feeling a bit excited over the stuff which I'll be doing this coming semester. Haha, this excitement is probably going to be replaced by stress when those assignments and presentations start coming in.

Still waiting for them to inform me about the agreement letter. Hope everything can be settled as soon as possible. Can't wait for the day when I can bring money home and say "hey mum, this is for you." Haha.

Yawn. The medicine is making me drowsy again. Argh. I'm still coughing btw. But feeling much better now. Hopefully, I'll recover by next week. Will be going out this evening and tomorrow evening. Shall bring my camera along and take more pics. I don't forsee much use of the camera in the year ahead. :( I have developed some of the photos I took during commencements, gatherings, the Hong Kong trips and so on. They turned out quite nice. Haha, so my camera is good. Nowadays, many places are developing 4R photos for 20 cents each. :)

2006-08-06T17:09:00.000+08:00

Was typing this long post bout wish list this morning. Error occurred while I press the 'publish post' button and the whole post disappeared. Erm. Too bad then. Things beyond our expectations happen. No matter how disappointed we are, or how reluctant we are to accept a fact, we still have to adapt and live with it.

Haha. Looks like I'm over reacting. :) But still, I believe most bad things which had happened so far are in fact blessings in disguise. No matter how bad a situation is, we can always benefit from it somehow. Like what my lecturer Prof Shen had said, a person is stupid, not because he makes mistakes. He is stupid, only if he makes the same mistake more than once. So the key is, we should all learn from our mistakes. By rectifying them, we benefit.

In studies, in work, we can do corrections. However, in friendships and relationships, if we had devoted trust and love to someone unworthy, the pain when we realized our mistakes might be unbearable. The question is, should we withdraw our input completely, or should we wait, and hope that one day, a miracle will happen, and the trust and love turn mutual.

Under all circumstances, I will withdraw the input. That's a logical choice, isn't it? What's the probability for such a miracle to occur anyway? If the probability is high, it won't be called a miracle. How much to withdraw? Depends on situation.

At the same time, think of the people who stood by us in times of trouble. Are we depriving them of a higher input of love and trust? Why don't we give up devoting more time and energy unnecessarily on people who are taking them for granted, instead, devote them to people who truly care for us?

In friendships and relationships, sometimes, it is difficult to say who is right and who is wrong. We can fault the other party for not inputing enough. On the other hand, it could be our fault for inputing too much. It all depends on where one draws the line between noble and stupid.

Recently, I was pretty depressed over some thing. I guess a good thing bout the damn cough is that, it forces me to spend time on myself, to reflect upon myself. Now that I have thought through everything carefully, I believe I'll recover from my illness soon. Haha. I think there's a link somewhere. I probably fell sick because I was too drained up mentally.

Week 0 starts tomorrow. Gotta get ready for a fierce battle ahead. I hope my fuel can last for one more hectic year. :)

Going off to revise my jap and listen to my new SHE album. :)

2006-08-04T10:24:00.000+08:00

Feel like getting the following sony ericsson phone:

Sony Ericsson W700i

Shall go down to SingTel to have a look at it next week. :) Looks like the classic plan in SingTel is still the most suitable. I seldom send sms, so 360 is more than enough. I only call my mum and my supervisor, so 200 minutes free talk time is enough too. Haha.

I'm looking for a phone with radio and mp3 player. Most Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones have both functions. Somehow, none of the Nokia phones look attractive. :( In comparison to the sony ericsson phone, the nokia phones in the same price range have smaller internal memories. Many of them do not provide free external memories too. And their cameras are 1.3 mega pixels instead of 2 mega pixels.

Shall see how again when I check out the phones. And wait till I get my stipend. :P

The cough syrup makes me super drowsy. And it somehow makes me hungry too. :( Sigh. I feel weak.

School is starting soon. And I have this disgusting 5-days week timetable. It's like donating money to smrt everyday. :(

2006-08-02T09:13:00.000+08:00

Matriculated. Luckily I brought my scroll. Should have reminded my friends to bring theirs as well, and they wouldn't have to make another trip down to submit their copies.

The cough syrup made me drowsy the whole day in school. Almost dozed off while waiting for my turn during matriculation. Finished my lunch in less than ten minutes so that I could spare some time for a nap before consultation with my supervisor. But couldn't sleep. Luckily, I was still kind of alert throughout the whole consultation. Energy was totally drained at the end of the consultation session. And before I could go home, I had to make a trip to co-op to photocopy stuff for my tuition kid.

Shall wait a few days before I bug MOE for the agreement letter and my lump sum allowance. Hehe. In two weeks time, I gonna stop getting allowance from my mum and start bringing money back. :)

Quite excited bout the modules I gonna take next semester. And at last, I no longer have a CAP to maintain. Haha. I'll be seeing some of my friends in the junior batch for AODE, Bertrand (and maybe Yanxin) for harmonic analysis and the rest of the masters students for seminar module. The only module which I'll probably be alone is computational mathematics. Haha. Maybe I should start advertising it to Nicholas again.

The drowsy effect of the cough syrup is working on me again. Argh. Before I go and rest, just wanna thank everyone who expressed concern over my illness for the past few days. :)

My friend got this for me in Disneyland. :)

2006-07-31T12:44:00.000+08:00

Finally done with the spring cleaning of my room. :)

Now trying to get rid of some of the lecture notes and books which I got for my breadth modules. Let me know if you know anyone is interested in having the stuff for EC1301 (Principles of Economics), EC2102 (Macroeconomics Analysis I) and/or CL2280 (Basic Translation).

Every time I do spring cleaning, I'll come across my collections of cards, handphone accessories, novels, cds, letter sets, and so on. Feel like putting some of the stuff on auction. Haha. But I doubt there'll be any buyer.

Maybe I should take up embroidery again to get rid of my box of colour threads. And start writing one letter each day to get rid of my letter writing sets. :P

Had a gathering with the uni girls yesterday. It was to celebrate sauwai's birthday. :) Great effort of xiujuan to arrange and coordinate everything. Really good to meet up with everyone and find out how each other is coping.

Going back to school for matriculation tomorrow. Will be meeting my supervisor in the afternoon. Rest of the days probably stay at home and rest. Still haven't recovered from my cough. :(

2006-07-28T09:18:00.000+08:00

The dolls are so cute right! :)

Mind wasn't functioning yesterday. I got confused with the bus routes of bus 151 with bus 158. Haha. And I had almost forgotten bout this girl from my senior batch.

The cough and the medicine are driving me nuts. There's slight improvement today. Hehe. Must be the curing power of the two dolls. :)

21 months is up. Can upgrade to another phone. Haha. All those complaints bout how lousy my current phone is. Surprisingly for now, I'm kind of reluctant to change to a new set. I guess I'll stick to it, unless it starts giving problems for smsing and calling, or I come across a phone which looks really attractive.

I'm more keen to upgrade my singnet to 1500kbps or 3500kbps. Too bad the contract is only due next year march.

Recently, I feel the need to do some financial planning for myself (not employ the need of any financial planner though). Like settling my own handphone bill, bringing money home each month, paying for my own clothes and shoes. In short, to be financially independent. Haha. It makes me feel more adult-ish. And it really brightens me up to know that I can do something I enjoy, and at the same time, be financially independent.

Maybe it is this brightening of my mood that's making me recover from the cough. :)

2006-07-25T22:50:00.000+08:00

Finally everything seems to be settled. Just replied MOE and NUS. A big thanks to all those who have helped. Your encouragement and support are very much appreciated. :)

It's just one week, but I reflected on a lot of things. I thought of my past, my present, my future. I analysed my relationships with the people around me. Sometimes, my mind was as if on a rollar coaster. It wasn't easy to come out with a decision which would somewhat affect my future. And it was even more tough looking for sureties.

I guess, it's an experience which I'll remember for a very long time.

Sometimes, I think I am not a fortunate person, because for me, nothing comes about easily. On the other hand, when I look at what I have now, I can't say I'm unfortunate. :) Some hardships and struggles may be blessings in disguise, for they taught me how to be strong, and to appreciate some people around me.

Now, I'm stuck with a result in my thesis. But I guess it'll be fine after more hard work. Or so I hope. Still, I'm quite glad to be back to my thesis at last. :)

Here's a picture of my new toy.

Haha. It got to witness my frowns over the past one week. Hugging it made me feel better sometimes. I'm really relieved that everything has been settled for the time being. :)

Had been coughing for a week plus. Sian.

Planning how to help my tuition kid revise through all her topics before her pre-prelims. Mmm. Heard from my jc teachers that it's now much harder to get a distinction for maths in A levels. Oh well. But I'm pretty sure she'll get at least a B if she works hard enough.

The other day, she was telling me she used to like maths during secondary 4. Because she could do the problems then, and she felt happy when doing maths. As for now, she gets stuck every now and then, and doing maths brings her morale low. There're so many things to remember, and she keeps on forgetting the right technique for each type of question.

I must think of something to help her. :)

2006-07-19T19:02:00.000+08:00

It has been a week since my previous post. A fulfilling week. Too bad I was sick throughout.

Commencement dinner last saturday. Still waiting for shawn to send me the photo we took on that day. All went well. Much better than what I expected earlier. I hardly spoke to hanmao during my undergraduate days. Somehow, he turned out to be a good company during the commencement interview and commencement dinner. :)

Went Sentosa on Sunday. I couldn't help but compare it with Ocean Park. Ocean Park is so much better in comparison. More fun. And cheaper. Haha. I guess I like Ocean Park so much that I didn't even complain after all the mosquito bites and sunburnt last time. :) Nonetheless, I've enjoyed my time in Sentosa. Watched the muscial fountain for the very first time.

me on the cable car

view from cable car (1)

view from cable car (2)

me in orchid garden

indian dance in front of musical fountain

audience at musical fountain

sentosa mascot?

And on Monday, I went for the sponsorship interview. TJ's ex-principal happened to be one of the four interviewers. The second I sat down and put down my bag, she started her first question. She questioned, I answered, and this process repeated several times. The pace was so fast that I had little time to catch my breathe. She left me tongue-tied for some questions. Seriously, I have not given much thought bout taking up leadership positions beyond that of a principal. The rest of the questions posted by other interviewers weren't as tough. Most of the time, they were just trying to pyscho me to give up the idea of going for phD.

I was probably too sick that day to feel stressed bout the interview. Thinking back, the questions were kind of tough. But at that point of time, I felt the strong urge and need to defend my masters course. And because I thought I have nothing to lose, I spoke out whatever that came to my mind. Till now, I'm still a bit unhappy bout their response when I told them my course officially end in august 2007, but NIE starts before that.

But I guess it all boils down to the difference in stand. Probably no right or wrong. I can't expect everyone to agree with what I'm doing. :)

Went out with wang fei for lunch + shopping + ktv + dinner yesterday. Now, I think China is a great place after retirement. Haha. The things there are damn cheap. And my parents love the beef he bought from his hometown. I think I should visit China one day. Been more than ten years since my last visit.

Visited TJ today. Yilin is already teaching there. Haha. Too bad ms faye tan and mrs tag weren't around. But we got to see mrs kay, who came back to relief mrs tag. :)

My teachers used to tell me that being a good maths teacher, one needs to have both good attitude and aptitude. I think they're maths teachers, because they like maths, and they like to teach. My teachers used to tell me how they used to enjoy their maths lectures in university. Many of them are hardworking individuals. During my jc days, I looked up to my teachers as role models.

But after I went to NUS, I began to wonder if my teachers are endangered species. The attitude and aptitude are no longer common traits among the students. Not even teaching scholars. Students are looking for short cuts and easy wayouts. They hope for minimum input and maximum output.

I'll visit my alma matter once in a while. Partly because, they always portrait a brighter side of education service. And it's a warm feeling to have teachers still remembering your name, 4.5 years after your graduation.

One of the teachers was saying that she saw my face at the science centre. Haha. And she seemed really glad. ok, next time if nus wanna film such videos, I'll be less reluctant to take part. Haha.

Long entry today. Shall be meeting my supervisor tomorrow. Argh. Mmm... have I done enough to show him. Mmm... I'm like kind of lost now. Haha. Hopefully he'll enlighten me tomorrow.

2006-07-13T17:13:00.000+08:00

Just realized that it is only a month to the start of the new academic year. Hope to make more progress with the thesis in this one month. The thought of having to cope with it in addition to my modules and my teaching/ grading duties is rather scary. Haha. I've forgotten how I used to cope with a 35-hours-week timetable. I was young and energetic then. Haha.

Will be going for the commencement dinner this saturday. I think it is going to be boring. I don't know anyone there basically. I'm going to satisfy my sense of curiousity. It sounds like quite a grand event and I don't forsee myself getting invited again. Haha. And 6.30pm to 10pm sounds reasonable too. So if you ever receive sms from me that evening, please reply. It means I'm really bored. Haha.

In return, I'll have to forgo the photo shot session with my peers in school on saturday morning. It's either I go to school twice that day, or carry my gown bag and extra set of clothes to the commencement dinner. Both of which don't sound appealing. Shall see how again. If only they can postpone it to another day.

And next week, there's an interview for the masters sponsorship with moe. The thing is I've gotton sponsorship from nus, but moe wants me to go down nevertheless. Consultation with my supervisor on thursday. And on wednesday, may be going back to tj for a visit. I think I have not been back for almost a year. Wonder if there's any drastic change.

Shall make a move to marina square now. Meeting qy and ll for dinner. Haha. Maybe we'll see the handsome waiter again? :)

2006-07-10T11:56:00.000+08:00

Commencement is finally over.

The bouquet of flowers isn't mine. Haha. It's for my mum's birthday. :P

Relieved that the ceremony is finally over. :) Uploading the photos now.

Nothing much to say bout the ceremony. I've thanked most of the people whom I wanted to thank during the interview yesterday. Hehe. No great excitement in fact. Partly because, I know there's another year of masters awaiting me. And if I'm to carry on with phD some day, I still have a very long way to go. Honours is like passing stage 1 only.

Too bad I didn't get to take a picture with my idol yesterday. She got her phD! :)

Didn't bring my doraemon doll to the ceremony yesterday. To compensate myself, I took a picture with this big doraemon outside my favourite toy shop in suntec city:

2006-07-01T18:23:00.000+08:00

Went to the nanyang girls' high school funfair in the day. A lot of people: parents, ex-students, families and students from other schools. There's even a booth set up for the student whereby hwa chong guys could go over to take photo with nanyang girls. And there's ghost house, game house and so on. In the hall, there was an auction of weird stuff, eg. old classroom furniture. lol. And it costs $200+. :P

Bought a cushion for $10.

A bowl of noodles cost me $5. Sigh. There's much cheaper burgers and hotdogs. I'll grab those instead if not because I'm on diet. Haha. And surprisingly, I managed to get 3 can drinks for my friends at a cost of $2. I saw a few stalls selling can drinks at $2 each. :)

Had a good tour around the school. I really like the school. Nice environment. The students seem well-behaved too. They don't give me the feeling that they're wild or crazy. Haha.

Finally received the letter from dean's office. Another item off my wish list. :)

2006-06-28T09:49:00.000+08:00

One more photo taken during the lunch gathering:

My mum mistook the guy in black, in middle, right in front, as a student. Haha. He is a visiting fellow, mostly teaching financial maths modules. And guess what, he is still single. We thick-skinnedly confirmed his status that day. ok, we didn't go up to him and ask "hey sir, are you still single?" We've other means of doing that. Haha. He certainly has stirred up lots of excitement among the female students in the department.

Click here for more photos.

Not many photos as you can see. Should have taken more pictures. Haha. Oh well, there's still the commencement. Wonder if we'll be able to gather all of them for a group photo on that day.

On Monday, I didn't get to follow my planned route. I didn't expect the health centre to be filled with people. It was packed from morning till evening. Scary. And after spending like 2 hours there, I've yet to take my x-ray. Gosh. I've to go back another day.

Gotten my graduation gown, the attendance card and invitation cards, and other brochures and magazines. The bag was heavy. And at the end of the day, my wallet was much lighter. Spent over $200. :(

In addition to the weight of the bag and its content, I have two library books. Luckily my friend offered to get his dad to give me a ride. For the whole of July, I can't borrow any library book. I've to wait until I get my new matriculation card. So these books are under my supervisor's name. Haha. Had a short chat with him on our way to the library. Details of the chat shall be kept confidential. Haha.

Went for tuition yesterday. Sigh. I hope my student gets at least a D this common test. And if she gets a B or C for her Prelims, she should be able to get an A or B for her A levels. After which, she can forget all bout complex numbers, vectors and all the various topics which she fears. Haha. In fact, I think she is of a slightly higher standard as compared to some of my friends who approached me and asked questions last time. Many of them got A for maths. So she has chance of aceing it too. :) -being optimistic-

2006-06-24T10:16:00.000+08:00

Gonna return three library books to the library on monday. All because they thought I'm graduating and I'm not allowed to renew my books. Argh. :( So when I go back to attend prof lee's talk on friday, I'll return the other two books.

So on monday, the route will be science fac, then YIH, then MPSH, then science fac again. Return library books, body checkup, collect graduation gown, book consultation session with my supervisor. ......

Anyway, the week flew past. Without emails to reply, without having to go back to school to plan this or that, without late night msn conversations bout how to run to games, without worries bout things going wrong. At last, it's holidays. :) Started working on my thesis again yesterday. Made some small progress here and there. Think I can meet my supervisor the following week. :)

Received this invitation card for commencement dinner. The dress code is shirt and tie. Erm. Hello? I'm supposed to wear shirt and tie too? Or they naturally think the female guests will know what to wear for the event. But other than this, everything else looks fine. The invitation card and envelope look decently nice. Haha.

2006-06-20T10:25:00.000+08:00

Laptop returned. Receipts handed in. Responsibilites unloaded. :)

It's FINALLY over!

Went back to school yesterday to return the laptop and photocopy some stuff from my overdued library books. Met my supervisor on my way to the honours library. I passed him the receipts, and he passed me my readings and elaborated on some of his ideas for the thesis. Haha. More work. Luckily, he sounded positive bout my progress for the thesis.

And there's going to be a 'free gift' from the math department. They're going to offer a module on time-frequency representations. And it is level 6000. Gosh. I suddenly feel that my honours thesis is so erm... non-trivial. The content is part of a level 6000 module. Probably, I won't have great difficulties with the module. Not only that, I'll probably be able to boost the content of my masters thesis. It's like killing two birds with one stone. *excited* Haha, and I heard the visiting prof is young and nice. Drop me a message if you're interested. Haha. I came across one of his papers when I was doing the subdivision project. Think he's some good friend of prof shen.

Now the gathering is over, gonna concentrate on building my new godzilla. Haha. :) Before that, here's some photos taken during the two birthday parties I attended last week.

Gonna go now. Shall upload more photos next time. Yawn.

2006-06-17T19:45:00.000+08:00

Managed to upload my photos onto the laptop. Haha. So I'll post some of them here. :)

prof tang and me

yunhui, suling and me

me and the two tai-tai-to-be (gwendolin and limin)

There ain't many photos to see. Coz there're only 21 photos, 2/3 of which don't have me inside. Haha. Must compensate myself by taking more photos during commencement. :)

2006-06-17T17:16:00.000+08:00

At last, the gathering is over. Hehe. It's finally over. :)

Didn't have time to interact with my friends. Didn't eat much too. In fact, it's next to eating nothing at all. There's little time to eat, coz I need to prepare the slideshow and prizes for the games. And after two sleepless nights, I don't have much appetite too.

Let me organize a few more lunch gatherings. I'm sure I'll lose weight. Haha. But don't do it now. I need more time for my thesis these days.

Haha. Now typing on the TOSHIBA laptop I borrowed from the department for the event. It's quite cool in fact. I'm so excited bout the laptop that I can't sleep now. :)

So relieved that everything is over. Will upload photos when I'm sick of this laptop and wanna migrate back to my loyal desktop with the doraemon wallpaper. :)

2006-06-14T23:34:00.000+08:00

Waiting for the photo slideshow to be sent over to Yen Chin. It is taking forever due to its huge file size.

Went back to school for yet another discussion on the gathering. Sigh. I'm getting really sick of the organizing work involved, and the responsibilities here and there. And I just can't wait for the event to end so that I can have more time for my thesis. On the other hand, I'm really glad to have the understanding of some of the people around me. Some of them come and help, while others shower words of encouragement here and there. The thought that some of them are appreciating what I'm doing really serve as a motivation to carry on with the tasks.

It's a learning experience nonetheless.

Schedule packed all the way till Sunday. Gonna return the laptop on Monday, and go for my body checkup for the masters enrolment. The laptop looks really cool. I'll take a picture of it when I bring it home after the gathering. Hehe.

Oh man, when can the file's transfer be complete? I wanna get some sleep!

2006-06-07T18:04:00.000+08:00

Haven't posted some pictures for some time... :)

summer school (two weeks ago)

On the same day, we took pics in the honours room:

kayjin and me

group photo for the day

sauwai and me

hoinam and me

And we had alon's farewell dinner that evening:

group photo

To be frank, I felt rather uncomfortable during dinner. There's this lack of chemistry. And the poor service at the restaurant made things worse.

That's all for the photos. Had been looking at over hundreds of photos to make the photo slideshow for the lunch gathering. The number of photos way exceeded my expectation. Haha. Probably no chance to take photos in school in the next academic year. It's ok, I guess. :)

Did some work for my thesis today. Better get more work done before I meet my supervisor next monday. :) It's one of the few odd days when I didn't have to get myself in any bit of the preparation work for the honours gathering. ok, that is, apart from replying one email. It's not easy to come out with results for the thesis, but, it's hundred times more enjoyable than organizing such events. I guess, they've chosen the wrong person to organize it.

2006-06-05T14:54:00.000+08:00

Now in math lab, blowing aircon. Have came all the way from home to submit the hardcopy of the booklet for the graduation lunch. I thought I should make full use of the school's facilities to compensate for loss time. Haha. I could have went shopping with my mum instead. Could have taken a nap at home too, as I'm quite sleep deprived nowadays. According to mum, lack of sleep will cause women to age. Haha. That's why my mother looks much younger as compared to women of her age. :)

I think I've inherited this impatient genes from my parents. The reason to why I seldom do last minute work. Once I get an assignment, I'll do it. Also the reason as to why I dislike group projects and organising of events. I can't do things at my own pace. Everytime, I've to wait. But despite much unwillingness, I've learnt to accept the fact that I've to wait.

I put my thesis aside to come out with the booklet and photo slideshow. And the sight of someone else putting it aside to read newspaper kind of put me off. In turn, I see that my so called sacrifice isn't worth it at all.

Well well, I guess I should place my thesis at higher priority from now on. It should be thesis above gathering and not vice versa. Sigh.

Anyway, time to go back to the honours room and get some serious work done. I can study on my own, and at my own pace. :)

2006-06-01T10:07:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, when my schedule gets too packed, I really enjoy the moments when I can stay at home to sleep, read a novel and do a bit of work for my thesis. I haven't gotten any chance to touch my thesis for the past ten days. Sounds bad, doesn't it?

It seems that, I have occupied myself with this gathering organizing thingy, attending talks in school, meeting up with friends etc. so much so that I leave no time for myself. One email after another. I sent email to gather feedback for the gathering. I sent email to give feedback for the gathering. The contact list, the photo slideshow, the programmes... And I have sent an email to MOE regarding the Masters Application confirmation. There's going to be an interview in July. I wonder if I should go. Things get a bit messy sometimes, because there's this lack of cohesion and communication between various departments in the ministry. Now, there's this commencement dinner. I have no idea what I should wear there. It's a formal dinner. I'm quite sure I'll be bored there. But then, it's going to be an eye-opener. Another free meal. Haha.

Really appreciate the free time today. It gave me room to stone and think. This is like some big luxury. For the past few months, I had been completing one task after another. Or rather, that was for the past few years. When I met up with my teacher last week, he asked if I'm good with webpage design. I used to like that. But ever since 'A' levels, I didn't have the time for that. I used to like jigsaw puzzles too, although I always popped by shops selling jigsaw puzzles, I never get one for myself, because I don't know if I can find time to complete it. 1500 pieces and above are normally quite expensive.

But at least, I managed to finished a chinese novel over the past few days. The last time I read one was before the start of my second year sem 2. Haha. I remember prof chua handing out this survey form, and one question was, did you read any book over the holidays, if yes, state the title(s). He must be expecting some math textbooks, but well...

Time to go...

2006-05-21T23:31:00.000+08:00

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:

You have medium extroversion.
You're not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party.
Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences.
But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your "down time."

Conscientiousness:

You have high conscientiousness.
Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life.
Most things in your life are organized and planned well.
But you borderline on being a total perfectionist.

Agreeableness:

You have medium agreeableness.
You're generally a friendly and trusting person.
But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism.
You get along well with others, as long as they play fair.

Neuroticism:

You have low neuroticism.
You are very emotionally stable and mentally together.
Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly.
Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure.

Openness to experience:

Your openness to new experiences is low.
You're a pretty conservative person, and you favor what's socially acceptable.
You think that change for novelty's sake is a very bad idea.
While some may see this as boring, many see you as dependable and wise.

The Five Factor Personality Test