1/01/2015
December 2014
During the Christmas week this month, my grandparents booked a villa in Changi. Each bedroom came equipped with a smart TV, which had a youtube app, which could be paired with a mobile device, so that you could queue up youtube videos. I was impressed. It was also the most relaxing event in the whole year. I really did feel better. It was also the 1st time I entered a swimming pool since injury and saying I would. I previously said I would but didn't because I was quite ashamed of my body (not that I'm happy with it now).
In that week, I also finished watching the remaining 3 books in the Legend of Korra. As a bonus, I managed to get my little cousin interested in it. She now wants to go through Aang's adventure, but she's got to go back to London, and we don't have enough time. I liked the series overall, but I tended to like the villains (particularly Zaheer) and not so much Korra. I also feel that she was less effective than Aang, and her avatar state bending abilities seemed a lot less powerful than Aang's.
At work, my design is coming to life, with fabrication and testing of one major part of it being carried out. I hope this goes well, and that I can iron out any kinks.
For music, I came across Logic's Young Sinatra mixtape. Right up my alley. Also finally caught up with Kanye West's MBDTF and his sampling and flow is as usual, top notch. Only thing some lyrics felt a bit misogynistic. My favourite instrumental from the album has got to be from Hell of a life. In the album you can still hear some influence from 808s & heartbreaks, but applied better this time in my opinion.
Also this month (but more like culmination of the past year), the girl I had grown to like in the past 2 or 3 years chose someone else. Perhaps I was not forward enough. Perhaps I was stingy with my emotions and their expression. Perhaps I'm severely lacking in certain aspects. Perhaps whatever. I wish I got it right. I haven't gotten teary over anyone in about 7 years. I'll write about this in a separate entry.
11/01/2014
November 2014
It's been 3 years since I last blogged. I do intend to start doing so more frequently, and maybe write about some of my recurring thoughts instead of just what's been happening.
Let's start with what's happening first though.
In March this year, I broke the 5th metatarsal of my left foot, by way of recklessness and misjudging distance. After resting it until about July or August, I began dancing again, and in September, I returned to contemporary dance class, where I fractured it again in the same spot. Apparently 4 months isn't long enough a time to heal. I am still paying for it, and it sucks big time.
The good thing about March though, was that I landed my first real job as a design engineer though this was after searching for a long time with about 7 months of bumming. (There's a whole story here too which I'll write about next time.) I've somehow managed to stay employed here.
As of right now, except for work, there has been absolutely nothing going on in my life. Whatever I have been doing (dancing, karate) has had to be suspended in light of this injury. I hope to return by early 2015. But anyway, I have just been working, watching friends dance and when not injured, attempt to dance. Okay, other than that, I've changed from using an iphone 4 to a Z3 compact, and gained a lot of, and then lost some weight. See mundane huh.
I do feel happy for some of my friends though. One has recently begun his career in auditing, and over the past year or so has become a really good street dancer. Wait a sec, he was good before that, now just better. Actually a whole bunch of them have become really good dancers, but while happy for them, I feel left behind and am getting pretty frustrated about it. Another dancing friend from another dancing genre also graduated from a course in dance, and just 1 year after getting her bachelor's degree. What's impressive about it is tht the course is supposed to be 2 or 3 years long.
While my friends are doing all these amazing things, I'm sitting here without an ambition and turning into a sack of shit. I don't like my circumstances, and I would like to do more to improve them. Maybe earn some weekend cash (but how to do so legally?). I don't know what to do. I feel stuck, and tied up. I can only envision a bleak future, if any at all.
Let's start with what's happening first though.
In March this year, I broke the 5th metatarsal of my left foot, by way of recklessness and misjudging distance. After resting it until about July or August, I began dancing again, and in September, I returned to contemporary dance class, where I fractured it again in the same spot. Apparently 4 months isn't long enough a time to heal. I am still paying for it, and it sucks big time.
The good thing about March though, was that I landed my first real job as a design engineer though this was after searching for a long time with about 7 months of bumming. (There's a whole story here too which I'll write about next time.) I've somehow managed to stay employed here.
As of right now, except for work, there has been absolutely nothing going on in my life. Whatever I have been doing (dancing, karate) has had to be suspended in light of this injury. I hope to return by early 2015. But anyway, I have just been working, watching friends dance and when not injured, attempt to dance. Okay, other than that, I've changed from using an iphone 4 to a Z3 compact, and gained a lot of, and then lost some weight. See mundane huh.
I do feel happy for some of my friends though. One has recently begun his career in auditing, and over the past year or so has become a really good street dancer. Wait a sec, he was good before that, now just better. Actually a whole bunch of them have become really good dancers, but while happy for them, I feel left behind and am getting pretty frustrated about it. Another dancing friend from another dancing genre also graduated from a course in dance, and just 1 year after getting her bachelor's degree. What's impressive about it is tht the course is supposed to be 2 or 3 years long.
While my friends are doing all these amazing things, I'm sitting here without an ambition and turning into a sack of shit. I don't like my circumstances, and I would like to do more to improve them. Maybe earn some weekend cash (but how to do so legally?). I don't know what to do. I feel stuck, and tied up. I can only envision a bleak future, if any at all.
4/28/2011
April 2011
Exams are really close. I'm definitely more prepared than I was at the same point last semester, but it is still not enough.
This pokemon, Archeops is really powerful.
Archeops has a very impressive base attack of 140.
It has access to many strong physical attacks with bonus due to it's typing.
Being a bit kiasu, it also has a base special attack of 112. (They've recently put in un-square numbers to break the domination that certain pokemon have over competitive gameplay)
And an a lot better than average base speed of 110,
as well as a base health of 75,
and both base defense and special defense of 65.
This adds up to a total of 567, which is 54th place out of 650 pokemon (after taking away the multiple versions of a few others). If you take away legendaries, he moves up to 7 out of 603.
Either way, thats an A+ on the bell curve
Unfortunately, Archeops has one major flaw.
It has the ability "Defeatist", which halves it's effectiveness when it's left with less than half health.
I must not be like an Archeops.
I will persist.
This pokemon, Archeops is really powerful.
Archeops has a very impressive base attack of 140.
It has access to many strong physical attacks with bonus due to it's typing.
Being a bit kiasu, it also has a base special attack of 112. (They've recently put in un-square numbers to break the domination that certain pokemon have over competitive gameplay)
And an a lot better than average base speed of 110,
as well as a base health of 75,
and both base defense and special defense of 65.
This adds up to a total of 567, which is 54th place out of 650 pokemon (after taking away the multiple versions of a few others). If you take away legendaries, he moves up to 7 out of 603.
Either way, thats an A+ on the bell curve
Unfortunately, Archeops has one major flaw.
It has the ability "Defeatist", which halves it's effectiveness when it's left with less than half health.
I must not be like an Archeops.
I will persist.
3/29/2011
FebruMarch 2011
I didn't write anything here for the whole month of February.I've been packed with stuff.
There was the the hall cheerleading followed by the hall dance thing. Major consumers of time, but I really learned a lot, even if not exactly what I had in mind. I get the feeling that this sudden deluge of physical activity might be me trying to compensate for the complete lack of it in primary and secondary school.
There was also rugby which is my first team sport since primary school unless you count those for fun basketball sessions in which I only occupied a slot in my team and committed technical fouls :/ . The downside is that i gained an ankle injury which still bugs me everyday, so I'm out of order. Can't wait to heal up. Needa get an ankle brace in the meantime. Also gotta watch what I eat or I'll balloon in no time.
Also, earlier this week, I had the first test in NTU that I was completely confident of doing. I am still pretty sure that I got full marks for that one. I guess there is a big difference between studying and giving my notes a stare down. Oh watching video recordings can really make a big difference. I need to keep at it. Actually, I also need to more disciplined and not let my mind wander to other topics that are only of trivial interest.
Speaking of trivial things, I played through the whole of Pokemon Black in about 2 and a half days. Faster than previous versions because they changed the experience point system. If your critter is of a lower level than the thing it just knocked out, it gains more experience than if were the same level. Vice versa for higher levels, which is nice because it helps to de-emphasize level grinding. I would like to see a pokemon game in which the AI or at least the boss AI uses decisive switch-ins (e.g switching in something with levitate when your ground pokemon is about to use earthquake) instead of just hyper potions in their strategy though.
My exams begin 7 May and end 20 May, so I'd better gain some studying experience points to level up. I guess that's why I like Pokemon, because you get to do stuff at your own pace.
There was the the hall cheerleading followed by the hall dance thing. Major consumers of time, but I really learned a lot, even if not exactly what I had in mind. I get the feeling that this sudden deluge of physical activity might be me trying to compensate for the complete lack of it in primary and secondary school.
There was also rugby which is my first team sport since primary school unless you count those for fun basketball sessions in which I only occupied a slot in my team and committed technical fouls :/ . The downside is that i gained an ankle injury which still bugs me everyday, so I'm out of order. Can't wait to heal up. Needa get an ankle brace in the meantime. Also gotta watch what I eat or I'll balloon in no time.
Also, earlier this week, I had the first test in NTU that I was completely confident of doing. I am still pretty sure that I got full marks for that one. I guess there is a big difference between studying and giving my notes a stare down. Oh watching video recordings can really make a big difference. I need to keep at it. Actually, I also need to more disciplined and not let my mind wander to other topics that are only of trivial interest.
Speaking of trivial things, I played through the whole of Pokemon Black in about 2 and a half days. Faster than previous versions because they changed the experience point system. If your critter is of a lower level than the thing it just knocked out, it gains more experience than if were the same level. Vice versa for higher levels, which is nice because it helps to de-emphasize level grinding. I would like to see a pokemon game in which the AI or at least the boss AI uses decisive switch-ins (e.g switching in something with levitate when your ground pokemon is about to use earthquake) instead of just hyper potions in their strategy though.
My exams begin 7 May and end 20 May, so I'd better gain some studying experience points to level up. I guess that's why I like Pokemon, because you get to do stuff at your own pace.
1/28/2011
January 2011
I think the word to describe me now is lackadaisical.
I know my work is not up to scratch, but worse still is that I have thrown what little determination I had left far away, and all that's left to do is to feel bad about it.
It's actually a new semester now, and I have failed thermodynamics, so I'm taking it again. I am seriously beginning to doubt my ability to make it as an engineer now. As a result, I've started doing layout in the campus newspaper. If I cannot increase the quality of my skills, then let me at least increase the quantity of skills.
For this period of time, I've had to cut out rock climbing and dance, so as to be able to practice Cheer every weeknight. We all know our hall isn't going to be number 1, yet the people are still so enthusiastic. Another way I've heard it being described was "fun-loving". My functionality as a base is rather limited, and despite being at a good height for shoulder stands, I'm not. My specialty is supposed to be gymnastics, which means I can do a decent toe-touch, cartwheel, and land front handsprings. Beyond that, my role is pretty limited and I just need to support other bases and get a 'liberty' up.
I need drive. I want something immaterial to look forward to.
I know my work is not up to scratch, but worse still is that I have thrown what little determination I had left far away, and all that's left to do is to feel bad about it.
It's actually a new semester now, and I have failed thermodynamics, so I'm taking it again. I am seriously beginning to doubt my ability to make it as an engineer now. As a result, I've started doing layout in the campus newspaper. If I cannot increase the quality of my skills, then let me at least increase the quantity of skills.
For this period of time, I've had to cut out rock climbing and dance, so as to be able to practice Cheer every weeknight. We all know our hall isn't going to be number 1, yet the people are still so enthusiastic. Another way I've heard it being described was "fun-loving". My functionality as a base is rather limited, and despite being at a good height for shoulder stands, I'm not. My specialty is supposed to be gymnastics, which means I can do a decent toe-touch, cartwheel, and land front handsprings. Beyond that, my role is pretty limited and I just need to support other bases and get a 'liberty' up.
I need drive. I want something immaterial to look forward to.
12/27/2010
November +December 2010
I haven't had the time to post for a pretty long while now. November and December was exam time. I don't think I did well. Whatever positive motivation I originally had seems to have been snuffed out in poly, and all that was driving me was fear and worry, which is definitely not a good thing. Also, I think I have fallen into the trap of mental laziness, which is when looking at a question, and instead of thinking about how to work it out, your eyes just sort of glaze over, and you just couldn't care less about it. Maybe my curiosity died and I don't care about how stuff works anymore. That seems like a road to ruin.The last day of exams was on 23 December, which I think was quite a mean thing to do on the year planner's parts. But I'm glad it's over. That's about all I'm willing to say about it.
I am currently in KL or somewhere near there staying at my Uncle's place, using their laptop to surf and type this out. We are going to Langkawi in a few days, and I'm pretty hyped up about it, because we get to kayak to some spot to see eagles. I hear there's a place for indoor climbing at a shopping centre nearby, so I'll go by and check it out if I get the chance. This is also the first holiday in a long one where i've sat down to read a book in a long time.
Christmas was spent here with family, and we paid a visit to my grand-aunt and grand-uncle's grave, and also had a really big dinner, and heard stories of cane toad golf, and camel spiders in the gulf.
As for January, which is just a few days away, I'm going to change my sleeping pattern so that I can have more time per 24 hour period. I haven't chosen the exact sleeping pattern to follow, but all of them have multiple short periods of sleep at set times. I can't decide if I shall go for a period of core sleep with multiple short naps, or just multiple not so short naps, or breaking my sleep into 2 periods of core sleep.
Also in January, will be the inter-hall games, so I'm making sure I don't fatten up too much so that I can still run at a decent speed, jump high enough and throw well. (Throw flyers up, opponents down, and balls far) Yes, flyers for cheerleading. They didn't have enough guys, I swear!
My idea for this month, would be to have chemical suits with zip ties, so that in case there is a tear, the person in the suit can quickly isolate the tear by pulling the zip ties, and preventing further exposure to the environment.
I am currently in KL or somewhere near there staying at my Uncle's place, using their laptop to surf and type this out. We are going to Langkawi in a few days, and I'm pretty hyped up about it, because we get to kayak to some spot to see eagles. I hear there's a place for indoor climbing at a shopping centre nearby, so I'll go by and check it out if I get the chance. This is also the first holiday in a long one where i've sat down to read a book in a long time.
Christmas was spent here with family, and we paid a visit to my grand-aunt and grand-uncle's grave, and also had a really big dinner, and heard stories of cane toad golf, and camel spiders in the gulf.
As for January, which is just a few days away, I'm going to change my sleeping pattern so that I can have more time per 24 hour period. I haven't chosen the exact sleeping pattern to follow, but all of them have multiple short periods of sleep at set times. I can't decide if I shall go for a period of core sleep with multiple short naps, or just multiple not so short naps, or breaking my sleep into 2 periods of core sleep.
Also in January, will be the inter-hall games, so I'm making sure I don't fatten up too much so that I can still run at a decent speed, jump high enough and throw well. (Throw flyers up, opponents down, and balls far) Yes, flyers for cheerleading. They didn't have enough guys, I swear!
My idea for this month, would be to have chemical suits with zip ties, so that in case there is a tear, the person in the suit can quickly isolate the tear by pulling the zip ties, and preventing further exposure to the environment.
10/31/2010
Unigrind
I'm now about two thirds of my way through this semester, and I'm still not confident of my abilities to do the questions in most of the modules. It's probably a sign that I'm not trying hard enough. Zoning out is still a major issue, and it's starting to snowball because I'm beginning to not know what the lecturer is talking about even when I do pay attention! Right now I really don't think my report card is going to look good, so I've really got to work on it. Also I need to put together a proper resume.
For a lot of (thankfully not all) subject content, I find myself turning to the notes and lectures of other universities to grasp new concepts and their nitty-gritty details. One example would be matrices with things like subspaces and eigen vectors. Also new to me would be 3D graphs and integration and differentiation of 3 planes. So now I'm really grateful for all the universities who have made their course materials available online (e.g MIT's opencourseware), and also as my senior dubbed it, the "University of Youtube", which can teach in 10 minutes what a lecturer may take half an hour to explain with us still not getting it. As all this happens, I believe that I still enjoy learning, unfortunately as we hastily rush through the lectures, I think this enjoyment is being stifled.
For the last couple of weeks, I find that it has been mainly non-academic things that I have been looking forward to, and also these things keeping me going. And I believe I have over-committed myself a bit. I've got some physical activity everyday of the week except Sunday. So between the 6 days, it's either rock climbing, dance, or karate, with karate being my anchor activity. That means if I ever become so incredibly busy that I have not enough time, I would still make time for karate. During my meal times, I usually have the same company or none at all. I thought I could go around my hall and make friends with everyone, but then I realized that my skin isn't thick enough, and so within my hall I guess I have a lot of new acquaintances. This also means that I have less people to group study with, which makes things a lot less fun, on the upside a bit less distracting. Yup, a bit because I still get distracted. >.<"
Here's a summary of how I think I'm doing and what needs to be worked on for the various activities:
Karate
Landing combinations - I tend to break away and retreat after landing a good clean hit, instead of following up with more. Also during my combinations, I need to take over the spot which my opponent was standing on.
Throwing feints when breaking away - this would discourage my opponent from coming forward as I retreat, usually something like a blind jab would be sufficient, but the foot work still feels very unatural,
Triangle kicks - When throwing these, I tend to land my instep on the chest, when ideally I should be using the ball of my foot, so as to penetrate the solar plexus or ribs.
Keeping my guard up - I tend to drop my guard when throwing just about any technique, but I tend to open up even more when throwing kicks.
Facing the opponent - I think I need to get in closer to my opponent because if I overextend myself to punch, I actually expose my back to hooks from tall opponents.
Dance
I don't really know what to look out for in dance, because I don't know what technique is considered good or what points to look out for. I'm still at the monkey-see monkey-do stage, except that I probably move more like a gorilla . =X
Rock climbing
As for this, I'm going to keep off the high walls outside first because those have entry fees meaning that my wallet will take a big hit. So I'm working on making it worth it by gaining some basic techniques and wall sticking endurance. That means staying on the low school wall, and practicing first. Not that I'm very good on the low wall anyway. Also rock climbing is not something that is very cheap to get into, and thus I've yet to buy climbing shoes, but that's okay, because I believe I can adapt.
Other than that, I've been wondering whether it would be good for me to take a year's break and during this time, go learn the stuff that I'd be learning when I return, so that I can kick ass, and score a really shiny GPA, since a lot of the content can be found online anyway. The thing is that I'd need to find out what topics our version of the modules contain. The crux of the issue then would be my discipline I guess.
Oh and my idea for the month would a be a tablespoon with markings for the 5ml and 10 ml levels, with the markings done like the contour lines of a topographic map, this way people who cook, or people who need to take medicine can accurately measure out a teaspoon (5ml), and tablespoon (10ml), and the more common dosages of liquid medicine which if I remember correctly come in increments of 5 or 10ml as well.
For a lot of (thankfully not all) subject content, I find myself turning to the notes and lectures of other universities to grasp new concepts and their nitty-gritty details. One example would be matrices with things like subspaces and eigen vectors. Also new to me would be 3D graphs and integration and differentiation of 3 planes. So now I'm really grateful for all the universities who have made their course materials available online (e.g MIT's opencourseware), and also as my senior dubbed it, the "University of Youtube", which can teach in 10 minutes what a lecturer may take half an hour to explain with us still not getting it. As all this happens, I believe that I still enjoy learning, unfortunately as we hastily rush through the lectures, I think this enjoyment is being stifled.
For the last couple of weeks, I find that it has been mainly non-academic things that I have been looking forward to, and also these things keeping me going. And I believe I have over-committed myself a bit. I've got some physical activity everyday of the week except Sunday. So between the 6 days, it's either rock climbing, dance, or karate, with karate being my anchor activity. That means if I ever become so incredibly busy that I have not enough time, I would still make time for karate. During my meal times, I usually have the same company or none at all. I thought I could go around my hall and make friends with everyone, but then I realized that my skin isn't thick enough, and so within my hall I guess I have a lot of new acquaintances. This also means that I have less people to group study with, which makes things a lot less fun, on the upside a bit less distracting. Yup, a bit because I still get distracted. >.<"
Here's a summary of how I think I'm doing and what needs to be worked on for the various activities:
Karate
Landing combinations - I tend to break away and retreat after landing a good clean hit, instead of following up with more. Also during my combinations, I need to take over the spot which my opponent was standing on.
Throwing feints when breaking away - this would discourage my opponent from coming forward as I retreat, usually something like a blind jab would be sufficient, but the foot work still feels very unatural,
Triangle kicks - When throwing these, I tend to land my instep on the chest, when ideally I should be using the ball of my foot, so as to penetrate the solar plexus or ribs.
Keeping my guard up - I tend to drop my guard when throwing just about any technique, but I tend to open up even more when throwing kicks.
Facing the opponent - I think I need to get in closer to my opponent because if I overextend myself to punch, I actually expose my back to hooks from tall opponents.
Dance
I don't really know what to look out for in dance, because I don't know what technique is considered good or what points to look out for. I'm still at the monkey-see monkey-do stage, except that I probably move more like a gorilla . =X
Rock climbing
As for this, I'm going to keep off the high walls outside first because those have entry fees meaning that my wallet will take a big hit. So I'm working on making it worth it by gaining some basic techniques and wall sticking endurance. That means staying on the low school wall, and practicing first. Not that I'm very good on the low wall anyway. Also rock climbing is not something that is very cheap to get into, and thus I've yet to buy climbing shoes, but that's okay, because I believe I can adapt.
Other than that, I've been wondering whether it would be good for me to take a year's break and during this time, go learn the stuff that I'd be learning when I return, so that I can kick ass, and score a really shiny GPA, since a lot of the content can be found online anyway. The thing is that I'd need to find out what topics our version of the modules contain. The crux of the issue then would be my discipline I guess.
Oh and my idea for the month would a be a tablespoon with markings for the 5ml and 10 ml levels, with the markings done like the contour lines of a topographic map, this way people who cook, or people who need to take medicine can accurately measure out a teaspoon (5ml), and tablespoon (10ml), and the more common dosages of liquid medicine which if I remember correctly come in increments of 5 or 10ml as well.
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