Of Self-discovery
Dear TomHa,
Kia Ora

I am back from NZ after some successful conquers of mountains along the Southern Alps of New Zealand. How am I feeling right now? I am not sure if there is any words that can describe this feeling. I am feeling extremely elated and yet I am feeling really disappointed that I am right smack in civilisation right now. However, man are a bunch of greedy folks and now, I am embracing the comforts of urban life, cursing the hassles that comes with it (refer bathing and keeping clean). Haha.

Oh yah, New Zealand. Well, New Zealand or Aotearoa (Land of the long white clouds in maori) is a country that is really blessed with gifts of Mother Nature that not many other country can rival. Well, perhaps it is due to the fact that we come from low-lying, geographically-boring Singapore where the mention of our highest peak being 164m never fails to bring astounded looks on those Kiwis' faces. The Southern Alps is just beautiful. I just cannot stop exclaiming. So, over here, I shall chronicle my trip to New Zealand and back, starting and ending with mishaps that kept occurring in Singapore's very own, Changi international Airport.

After saying goodbye to my family, I proceeded to have my passport checked and make my way to the boarding gate. Really simple process that never fails to turn complicated in my hands. Somehow, as it still remain a mystery until now, my boarding pass made its way to Faizhal's bag and blimey, I was freaking stunned when I couldn't find it anywhere on me. Team mates said that my face then had turned so pale, they thought I sudden;y died or something. Trust me, with the amount of money spent on the tickets, I sweared I would have had a heart seizure next had not been for the boarding pass dropping off Faizhal's bag and catching Sau Yee's attention. Alas it is found and I can make my way to take the plane. Phew!

10h flight is not funny and fun. It is about the most boring thing that you can do. Watched the plane's movies, Must Love Dogs, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dukes of the Hazzard. The first one was a romantic comedy that was kinda nice. I fell asleep on the second one, and the third is just a stupid movie that I happened to have watched before in a Singapore theater on my birthday. Could not have a good sleep as all of those sleeps are just 20 min naps. Very frustrating. The return flight was the same. I hate aeroplanes.


So after transit in Auckland, we took another flight to Christchurch which would be where we would be for the next couple of days. Stayed at some backpackers lodging. Lots of gear shopping and my, Christchurch is such a boring city. We could not find things special to keep ourselves entertained. Lucky for us, we only had to stay there for 2 days. I cannot imagine having to stay there for another couple more days. Mount Cook Village next.

Stayed at Unwin Lodge where we met our guides. Unwin lodge is a hut that is situated right smack in front of mountains. You wake up in the morning, rub your eyes a little turn your heads around the corner and look through the window and there you are, a mountain right in front of you and you feel just so zen. Very picturesque. Makes you feel like everything that you had fret about in the past are rubbish. I was just lucky to be there.

Met our guides and the journey began! Mount Cook Village is already at 800m above sea level, so we started rather high. Not very high though. We had to go to Kelman's hut, which would become some sort of our base camp plus all the luxuries of a bed and tables. Kelman's hut is at 2460m. Long journey but nothing much happened, which is a good thing. Kelman Hut became a major camp for us as we often make a summit push or do some other snow experience-thing and then retreat to the comfort of a good shelter. Temperatures above the snow line is amazingly cold. However, as we kept moving, our gore-tex and fleece managed to keep us warm and to think of it, I was sweating at some points, which is an incredible thing since the temperatures are so cold and the humidity is so low. Nights were the worst. You feel cold and wet and even the warmest down jacket doesn't really keep you THAT warm enough. Can die. My fingers and toes still felt a little numb. Must have been a little frost nipped. Common injury. Staple food up there is expired bread and peanut butter and ham. Spaghetti is a luxury and so is meat. Mountain life is about suffering, and the sadist in me likes that. Ha.

Snow cave living is one of the interesting highlights of the trip. Building one highlights it even brighter! However, somehow, our snow cave looked more like an ice kachang with a scoop of ice cream on top. Dang! no matter. On the mountains, nothing is a certainty. As long as it works and is safe, it is ok. Risk Assessment. The skill that all mountaineers must possess if they wanna stay alive to tell the story.


We summitted 2 mountains. Mount Aylmer and Mount Sebastapool. Mount Sebastapool is something like a recreational climb as it is below the snow line and is rather low, at 1490m. Aylmer almost killed me. In case I had forgotten to introduce, the first picture you see in this entry is Aylmer. It had really narrow ridge line and frankly, given that the snow then was rather soft, I was cursing about the guides' decisions for us to wear crampons, spiky things that you wear under your boots to walk on ice properly. The summit push was ok. The guides built really strong anchors and guide lines that we were able to follow with relative ease. However, it was perpetually whiteout conditions at that time,

I could only barely make out where my rope up buddy was. It was in effect, a rather traumatising experience. No matter. as I made my way down, I stepped on some snow which collapsed and I fell. It was a 1000m drop and boy was I glad that the anchors held. From then on, it was all ice axe and crampons and again, I am grateful that I had worn my crampons. If not for them and my ice axe, who knows, I might not be telling the story today. A really frightening experience although I kinda felt more like "Woohoo! here I go!" sort of thing then. Guess I was too confident of my ability. Must really remember that man are nothing in the eyes of MN.

Shan't blog more, rather lazy to do so. I got enough in my travel journal to last me a lifetime. Shall tell when I see you. Hence, here is a night view of the Southern Alps (yes it looked more like sunrise. Guess I had adjusted too slow a shutter speed already.).

And this is me.

Clemency
Dear TomHa,
Check this out It is funny how the foreign media is labelling Singapore in response to the impending death sentence dished out on Nguyen Tuong Van, a Melbourne International who trafficked drugs while on transit in Singapore. Or is it that he wanted to traffick the drugs in Australia and was found to be in possession of the drugs while in transit in Singapore. Hmm.. it seemed the same to me. All I am wondering is what the big fuss is about? That pro-freedom countries is condemning the rights of countries from executing people with heinous crimes? Afterall, the amount of heroin that he is carrying is enough for 26000 doses. Imagine the number of lives that it can ruin! Afterall, I believe that that when the when the buying stops, the selling stops and vice versa. Since it is difficult to approach it bottom up, ie from the buyers part, a top-down approach in cutting out the supply is more effective for a drug free society. Afterall, drugs are bad...

Anyway, this reminds me of the GP discussion I had while in HC. Apparently the topic is about whether death sentence or a life sentence is more preferable for committers of heinous and unforgivable crime. Being a pragmatic and stingy or however you want to call it, I joined the group that is in favor of the death sentence. Life sentence means that more tax payers' money is being used to pay for that person's black bean rice! Why should we do that? I mean, why should we, the supposedly upright people who had been following the law closely, pay for these commiters of heinous crimes? I mean, I don't care what the circumstances were that made them commit these crimes. Drama and movies don't really work in real life. Death sentence on the other hand is much more pragmatic. Just get a rope with a strong enough elasticity factor and a chair and a high enough ceiling and that's it.

Haha, think I sound so evil...

Exams Are Over! Phew!
Dear TomHa,
Yesterday marks the end of semester 3 and boy was I so elated. This semester had been a drag. It just went on and on and on, I thought it might never stop! But, it ended with thermodynamics yesterday, although I must comment that it just seems that those stupid sick invigilators would purposefully let you off very late whenever it is your last paper. Yesterday, they let us off at a freaking late time of 3.30pm! Freaking hell, half an hour more of unneccessary suffering in the cold of the multi-purpose sports hall (In my opinion, it is only there for the purpose of examinations). And it is like they were on purpose yet again, to turn the air-con to such an agonising cold temperature and then test us on all the stuffs heat engines (Heat engines are the exact opposites of air-cons). What? They were afraid that we might get too hot from the questions and thus had to turn down the temperature of the room?

Oh yah, Wenyang and Benedict came to see me off into the examination hall yesterday. It was rather funny, like I am embarking on some journey into the unknown and had to be seen off by some well-wishers. Haha. But, it is always good to have people wishing you luck, especially when it comes to subjects like thermoDIEnamics.

After the exam, the only thing that I did and wanted to do was to go home and sleep and sleep I really did. Went home around 4pm and slept till around like just now? Haha, it is like almost 24 hours of sleep. Quite a record time I guess. But then again, Mum said that she woke me up for the meals, although I seriously do not have any recollection of all those stuffs. But I guess what she said was true as I do not feel hungry when I woke up. So it is sleep, eat, sleep, and again and again. What a piggy day yesterday and today had been. Guess I must had been so sleep deprived.

Another week to mountaineering in New Zealand!

Of Sleep
Dear TomHa,
Heaven knows when was the last time I had some decent sleep, but all I know is that today, I had one of the nicest sleep for this whole darn semester. This semester is so wretched. I had not sleep for more than 5 hours for more than 2 whole months! Gosh, whoever told me that university life is much more relaxed than JC life is a big fat liar. Toiling like a dog is not what I had imagined an undergraduate to be looking like or doing. I kinda expected that an undergraduate is someone who is bustling with life, very energetic and happy everyday, something like those wayang SMU posters look like... Not like me, drinking coffee because of my lack of sleep and then the overdose of caffeine making me to energetic to sleep and then I can't sleep and end up doing something else, day comes and I feel too tired to do anything and I drink coffee again. Wa kao! I feel like a freaking drug addict caught up in a freaking viscous cycle of caffeine merrying. This is bad, real bad. Whatever, somehow, my addiction always manages to curb itself during the holidays... all I can say is that THIS IS PSYCHOTIC!!! Period.

Exams were great. I just love exams. They just signal THIS IS THE END... Drowned in fluid mechanics, experienced gigapascals of stress in mechanics of materials, cannot sense anything good out of my sensors, and thermoDIE is coming up next. Well, good semester. Really good.

Ok, back to the heat of thermoDIEnamics....

Of Eons
Dear TomHa,
I guess it had been a long time since I last wrote seriously, or had I ever written seriously, not that many people can tell if I was writing seriously or not though. Hard concept to grasp. But anyway, the past few entries were like nonsensical ramblings for me to type around to vent some stress in light of the impending exams that would be starting on Monday, evening, 5-7pm. I wonder how am I going to survive that as 6.30pm is usually then time when I start to get really hungry. I wonder if food is allowed in the examination hall. Hmm...

Started looking at my exam time-table seriously the past few days and somehow I just felt that something was missing. Not taht I could quantify that 'something', but you just know that something is missing from it. Perhaps it is that given that I had been taking 6 modules all the time, it feels weird to have only 5 examinable ones for this sem (not that I am complaining), perhaps it is the weird timings of all my subjects, but somehow, fitting in these variables into the picture does not seem to make it complete. Was thinking about it today again and I suddenly got the answer. There are no examinations in MPSH2 this semester! Argh! i am like so screwed now, given that it is at this venue that I had got all my As! Does this mean that there are no As this sem? Oh gosh, somehow, I would just factor everything except hardwork for examination success all the time...no credit to reading too much Foxtrot though.

The thought of going to New Zealand this coming December is proving to be a major distraction. I just can't take my minds off the snowy mountain (I am going to see snow for the first time! Yeah!), the things that I am going to visit (Rohan?) and all the things that I am going to be doing there. It is an adventure of a lifetime! What brilliant chapter to add to my university life. Whoever that set up this club should be awarded a Nobel. He's such a laurette. He just made us believe that we are just part time students, full time mountaineers. Haha, once again, another paragraph to illustrat how screwed I am for this exam.

Why am I saying that I am so screwed for the exam time and again, despite the fact that I had finished my revision for everything? In fact, I should be feeling good, confident, raring to go! That's because I had started too early! Anyone with some decent examination experience would tell you that it is not advisable to start too early. I made the unthinkable mistake of doing so. Now, I am just too lazy to go through the notes which I had gone through n many times. So screwed. I know that I had forgotten something, but I am just too spent to go read it up again! I seriously hope there will not be a repeat of my A's.

Yeah! Liverpool won, albeit against relegation threatened Portsmouth, and the All Blacks won against England! How nice, the teams that you support winning in the eve of your examination. What a good omen. Let's just hope that I had done enough good deeds in my past life to get through this one with flying colours!

Tata! =p

Of Why? Why? Why am I here?
Dear TomHa,
Why am I here? I am like supposed to be studying for the exam in like 2 days time but here I am, day dreaming about what I am going to do in 2 weeks' time! Oh my, I think I am so screwed. Haha, now all my inspiration is to wait for the orange juice in the fridge to expire. Its expiry date is on my last paper. Cannot wait to throw that freaking thing away.

You know that stress is getting into and affecting a lot of people when you attempt to eavesdrop on conversations by lesser people like me and his fellow friends in the library.
Me (Squashed dead an ant with my bare fingers, gloating with pride at the apprent supremacy of my species)
Vincent: That's so barbaric, can you imagine how you'll feel if you get squashed like that?
Me: Yeah, I could.
Vincent: Then why do it?
Me: Because ants don't have the sensory organs to feel pain?
Vincent: How about you trying to superimpose your feelings on the poor ant which sole purpose is to forage for food for her queen?
Me: No, I can't, I am human! Why degrade myself?
Stares at each other, then hit back at our books...
Can you imagine yourself speaking such nonsensical things? I guess that only happens during the exam period.

Oh and that just brings me to another point. Don't you think that essentially, education is just another brainwashing activity under the guise of an activity that would bring you more socail good than harm? For me, as I walk about aimlessly anywhere, do you think that my brain is resting? I don't think so. I see pipes everywhere and then what that comes to my mind is why is this pipe system designed like that? Would this design encourage more head loss? What is its friction factor, what is its roughness element, what are the variables needed for me if I want to analyse this flow using dimensional analysis? All sorts of cheem stuff. Then you walk into an air-con room, and what that comes to your mind first is not shiok but hmm.. I wonder how much heat is rejected, what is the working fluid inside this air con, what is the isentropic efficientcy of the compressor, the valves, the evaporator... and then you walk along some place and you see hanging structures and you wonder if its Young's modulus of elasticity is great, what would the deflection curve look like, how would you quantify the loading? By summation or by singularity method. Or, you just simple wanna relieve yourself and you look at those automatic sensors and wonder what is its measurement characteristics, what is its sensitivity, what order system is it... Yeah, I about summarise (albeit very very briefly) what I had been doing this past semester. It gets pretty scary as I think about it. Would a psychologist look at me as a subject, would a law student look at me like a rape criminal? I guess professional subject do really turn you into what they wanna train you into. Scary. Imagine what a business student would do...

Oh wellzz back to more fluid mechanics!

Dear TomHa,
BBC is starting to eclipse my choice of CNN for sad and depressing stories 24-7.

Check this out..

When a stay in jail is actually better than a stay in reality, I guess it gets kind of perverse...

What has the world come to?

Slacking off a while..
Dear TomHa,
Taking some time off studying sensors and actuators which progress is much slower than I had anticipated. Had actually expected myself to finish preparing the helpsheet by now but I am still 2 chapters behind. Sigh, guess I would not be able to watch Date with the vampire III... Oh well..

Some people say that they do not believe in luck and things as such. However, I seriously do not agree. They say that if luck actually existed, there would not be any need for people to study anymore. All I could reply was that luck favors those who had put in effort, and it could do so much if you do not prepare yourself well. So, do not blame luck for your lack of results. It is usually, more often than not, a lack of sound preparation. However, given that I am one of those lazy fools who does not work hard enough when there is already a serious lack of intellect in the first place, I need all the luck that I can get. Thus, whenever I go for examinations, you can be sure to catch me in the same attire for every paper, the same stationeries, and a lot of things that I am very pantang about.

Nothing funny happens in this period of storm... Why like that? Sigh...

Of 1000
Dear TomHa,

Check this out!

Haha, Beijing had finally unveiled their mascots for the 2008 Olympics. Not one, not two, but five in total! Oh my gosh, I know that China is extremely good at producing toys with all those Made In China marks but do they have to bring it to such extremes? This is not all, the mascots are named Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Yin Yin, Ni Ni, i.e Beijing welcomes you if you combine everything together and divide by 2 each. I do not know how to react. Should I laugh? It seems rather rude though. Heh.

Anyways, 26 days to New Zealand! Oh my oh my, I just can't wait! And everytime I think of it, I just cannot concentrate on my work! Haha. I am going to visit Rohan, Caracas, and so many middle earth sites. It is like a dream so coming true! I just cannot wait...

Short entry, lazy to write more...

Nonsense of the day:
Coldplay must haven been Engineers..
'Coldplay' - Thermodynamics
'Speed of Sound' - Fluid Mechanics
'Fix You' - What all engineers do
'Clocks' - Mechanics of Materials
'What If' - Question engineers always ask.. actually I think only engineering lecturers
'X & Y' - Algebra....

Nonsense of the day:
Argh..
I am at saturation, reaching superheated liao!!!
(You need some thermodynamic knowledge to understand this...)

Construction Worker

Construction Worker
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
Don't you realise that the caucasians are really good at glamorising every single thing that they do? I mean, just look at their construction workers. They are so technically endowed in equipments that are so cool, I want to be a construction worker, although I must admit that the appeal applies really much to me since the gears they use at height is basically the same as what a mountaineer uses at altitude. I mean, all those karabiners, ropes and ascenders and descenders, not to mention those really nice headlamps (Hey, I have a weakness for headlamps alright?), what the heck am I doing in school? I do not want to become an engineer already! I want to be a construction foreman! Oh yah, back to the point, the caucasians are really good at glamourising everything they do, which is a really good thing as basically it makes every job equally cool, unlike Singapore where construction workers are just perceived to be lowly-paid foreign workers who does not like to study! (My mum threatened me this ever since I am a young young boy...You better study hard, or you would become like them, sweating it out at work..Unknown to her, that's what her boy wants...) So yah, that's my point. Xinpei calls it the power of photography. Perhaps all good photographers should help a bit! Let those Bangladeshi have more pride.

I wasted the whole of yesterday and a good part of the last 3 hours. At the end of it, I was spiritually happy but productivity wise, I swear I can cry. I did not touch a single page of my textbook or notes or whatever yesterday, the day before yesterday and on Thursday! What the hell was I doing?? Climbing around, slacking off, running and then more slacking off. I have no mood to study! To add to my misery, I have a test tomorrow and exams in 2 weeks time! Wow! Sometimes I just amaze myself. Wake me up when November ends...

Watched Tom Yum Goong, one of the best no-brainer action flicks I had ever watched. Come to think of it, although I am a hard core chinese kung fu fan, Muay Thai is not bad either! I mean, how many action stars fracture at least a limb off like 50 baddies in one single scene? How many can fight for a single take for a full 4 min action sequence from 1st storey to the 4th storey? OMG, I think Tony Jaa is better than Jackie Chan with all due respect! But, it is easily the most violent film you'll ever watch. Wen wei was shaking his head all the time throughout the movie! Haha, it is certainly not for the peaceful loving. We Thais love peace, but we do not like it when we are taken liberties of...

Nonsense of the day:
Dad, talking to those parking coupon enforcer, Fatimah! No need Hari Raya today meh??

Nonsense of the day:
They did not come to play football. They might as well hire a bus and leave in front of the goalposts!
--- Something like that, by Jose Mourinho, Chelsea manager

Of Sentimentality
Dear TomHa,
I should think that I am a rather sentimental person, even though my actions and my crudeness and however I act in front of people always seem to suggest otherwise. Saw one of those swivel chairs with wheels in some desolate corner of my block and I recognised it instantly as the one that I had sat through my adolescence and now that it had finished serving its term and is too old and dilapidated to withstand my indomitably crushing 670N of weight, and that there is no longer any space left in the house for it, it has found its way to a desolated corner where someone will take it away to meet its maker. Somehow, it just makes me sad enough to stop doing Fluid Mechanics and sit down and blog about this. In the end, the conclusion that I can really draw is that I am really sentimental towards non-human things. I am still keeping the G2 that I had used for my PSLE, still keeping the G-Tech that I used for O'Levels, and still using the Pilot Rex Grip that I had used for my A'levels. Am still using the same pencil since sec 3. These are things that I hold dear to, having gone through difficult times with me, and given my shy and reserved and introverted nature, I guess non-living things are the ones that interact with me the most, coupled with the fact that I am too lazy to care for any pets other than the cactus which requires only some water per week, if you would even call it a pet. Sigh.. sometimes as time passes by and things get lost or get worn or torn, you'll just feel old. Please, somebody stop the passage of time? Alright, after I graduate please? I can't wait to go out and work. Schooling sucks big time, and please, if there is any NS freak who is going to disagree with me and talk about how good schooling is right now, I am going to freaking curse and swear at you. I don't go and say you have a good life there and you don't come and talk pleasantries about uni life with me, for you have never been to uni before. I have been through NS, albeit for 4 months only. Anyhow, I am in a better position to say which one is worse.

There was no nonsense yesterday, except that Chelsea lost through a crappy goal and L'pool thrahed their european competitors flat while still languishing at 13th position in the league. Football is getting so nonsensical. Roy Keane is even more nonsense. Sometimes, I just fail to understand the workings of the world anymore. Perhaps I will take a philosophy module next semester..

Adios.

Nonsense of the day:
Why did the butter jumped down from the 30th storey?
Because it wanted to become a butterfly...

Hmmm..

_40967378_militantafp
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Somehow, I find something perverse about this scene that I cannot explain. FOund it on the BBC and what that it is portraying is the people were actually taking pics of a dead militant with their 7610s! Something is really provocative, but I just cannot put words into it.

Nonsense of the day:
Friend: Hey Qingwei, wanna anything to drink?
Me: Yar, mug....

Nonsense of the day:
Friend: What business do u have in business?
Me: Ermm...Just here to do business loh...(hands pointing to the toilet...)

IN VIEW OF THE INCOMING EXAMS, I WILL TRY TO UPLOAD A NONSENSE A DAY TO TRY TO LIFT EVERYONE'S MOOD. HOPE IT HELPS, AND IF IT GETS TOO LAME... HEY YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN ME PRETTY WELL TO KNOW OF THIS BLOG ISN'T IT?CHEERS!!=)

NONSENSE OF THE DAY:
If you think life is hard, check out the iron rods...

Of stress are building up?!
Dear TomHa,
Aiyo, now that everything is milding down, the real Halloween starts. No more labs, no more Auto-CADS, no more tutorials, and my week is going into a 3 day work week, not considering the 2 public holidays next week, you'll think that I am going to have life easy.

FAT HOPE

Team selection results for the Make It Real Student Mountaineering Program is only to come out this coming week, if I get in, I will have to start paying the vast amount of money for the New Zealand trip, a 50% weightage quiz is coming up, and to top it all up, I have 5 modules to prepare for the exam. Sounds exciting? Wow, bloody hell, please wake me up when the horrid November ends. Terrible month.

Actually I am really not sure what to write for this blog entry. You know, it had sort of becoming obligatory for me to write something online that sometimes I just come online and stare at the blogger dashboard thinking, geez what the hell am I doing here? What the hell am I suppose to write? You get serious blogger block when your life becomes as monotonous as a black and white erm zebra whose only hobby I suppose is to eat, sleep, shit and run as fast as they can away from those lions and hyenas. I seriously do not know what to write. And then, when something creative comes up when I am sitting alone in the bus listening to my mp3s, I just simple forget about them when I get home. It is just great. You go home feeling happy that you had thought up of something great only to find out that your screen is empty and WILL remain empty. And then you go complaining about how hard life is, standard blogger writestuff. I do not want to complain. But, there is seriously a lack of stuff to write if I don't complain. A viscious cycle starts, and you just want to complain about it. And then it goes on and on....

Been listening to a lot of Green Day these few days. A very good band, a very good blend of rock and soothing ballads. I like it. Check out wake me up when September ends and the marathon 9min++ rock song Jesus of Suburbia, two of my favourite songs in the album. The rest are great as well, but these are the 2 that made me go ga-ga about.

ARRR....

Of Risks
Dear TomHa,
It's been said that those French climbers who, while attempting to summit Mount Kanguru in Nepal and met with an avalanche are all but dead. My heart goes out to them as even their foreign minister is accepting the fact that they are dead, given the scale of the avalanche. A miracle is unlikely, but I hope that it does happen.

Thus is the beauty, majesty and cruelty of mountaineering as a sport whereby you are not fighting with anybody but Mother Nature. It is a sport wherby any wrong decisions on your part can get you killed. Have you heard of any athlete, whether he is canoeing, running, playing soccer, basketball etc getting killed in their pursuit for an Olympic Gold? Highly unlikely, except for those sad cases of sudden heart arrests and wrongful intake of drugs I guess. However, all I can say that at least they can get out of what they are doing at the snap of the finger. Giving up would not take your life. But in mountaineering, it is different. Going up is optional, going down is mandatory.. You climb Everest and you give up at 7000m but you still have an even arduous path of going down. That is perhaps why no one will label you sissy or whatever for giving up in the mountains. You give up only when you had reached your limit. However, you still have to face the elements again at that state of physical condition while going down. How tough is that?

Another example, of all those who had climbed K-2 and died trying so, more than half died during the descent. Sad but true fact. Thus, another aspect of mountaineering would be in risk assessment. You can't say you are a good climber if you can't assess the risks that are presented to you. You are flirting with death and really, the god of death is more than willing to send you to hell. It's been 51 years since K-2 was first summited. The number of climbers who had survived it is only a tenth of those of Everest. Imagine, there were NO attempts on K-2 in the 2001-2004 period. Such is the beauty of the world's hardest climb. And with a casualty rate of 26%, compared with Everest's 9.3%, it is an Olympic Medal meant to kill.

So enough crapping and back to studies. Let's hope that Miracles do happen.

Of Pre-exam Period
Dear TomHa,
Just right, I lost what I had typed and really, damn it, it was one of the funniest blog that I had ever typed. Just great. Stokes of genius don't come by so often you understand not, Blogger... Triple damn it.

So, I really hate the pre-exam period. If there is anything that I hate most, it is the pre-exam period. The madcap rushing of syllabus, lecturers and students alike. This is the period when the only definition of being productivity is to go though even more pages of your textbooks, even more pages of your notes, drain even more pens and foolscap paper. However, friday, saturday and surely now, sunday were wasted through going for tuitions, climbing, runs, painting of the Make-It-Real storeroom, alumni band, and of course, tuition again. My textbook are as new as those that are lying in the Co-op(ie our NUS bookshop) as remarked by Vincent (thanks man!) and my notes are as crisp and neat as though they were just printed (come to think of it, they were really freshly printed, oops!), and my pens and foolscap papers are still full of ink and in unused state. Wow! Sometimes, I just amaze myself about how I can waste my time...

Watched the newest Apple promo event 'One More Thing' on friday and first of all, I must really compliment Steve Jobs for being such a incredibly charismatic speaker that I stayed fixed on the computer screen for slightly lesser than 2 hours (Told ya I am terribly good at wasting time)watching him dishing out all his ever cooler gizmos that had me salivating at the end of the thing. I want the new iMac G5 and the new cool and chic black iPod! Partly, I should think that he is such a good speaker because of his confidence in his products. Afterall, if you had survived cancer, Bill Gates and Sim Wong Foo would be nothing. Argh... I think Daming deserves to be shot. He bought the new iPod and he like don't know anything about it and he was like taking it so nonchalantly! I would have gone heads over heels had I got one! What a waste iPod is on him! Haha..

Played Cartoon by Paul Hart at Alumni Band yesternight. Must say that it is a rather looney piece especially the series of trombone glisses at some parts that reminds of some cartoon that I cannot remember. Never mind, I don't have those parts.. only the first and seconds got it. Dang! That is like so fun! Never mind lah, can forgive Paul, afterall, he gave me a solo! Haha, albeit it is only 2 beats. Dang! Never mind, Ailin wasn't there yesternight, so I had quite a lot of solos as a result. Hehe. Impersonating Andrew, 有听到我的solo吗？Haha.

I want MovieOKE! Haha, there is this person in school who shares the same level of liking for LOTR as I do and we were like playing out the scence of the movie in boring lectures all the time, whenever we were sitting beside each other. Whether it is the gaying between Frodo and Sam or just simply the Rohirrim Charge along Pelennor, we done it all. However, what that makes me sad is that at the end of the day, I realised that I am a really good Orc actor compared to him who played the Rohan horsemen really well. Dang! And then I keep getting killed by him! We promised that should we have money in future and if no Singaporean has the brains enough to bring in MovieOKE (think KaraOKE), we will do it. To quote Russel Peters, Be a man, do the right thing!

Oh my, wasted another 2 hours... Ding Dang Wham Bang....

Of X
Dear TomHa,

She called me yesternight.

Haven't had her call for damn long a time.

Not much to say except for asking about each others' happenings.

She is not having it well recently.

Stress from school, work, family.

We reminisce the days we had together. Short but sweet, I must admit.

Afterall, how many first loves can you have?

Now, I can only love her as a friend.

Hope that she will survive these ordeals healthily.

All I can do is to cook herbal tea for her and wish her the best.

Just a change in the name of relationship that you share with someone can mean so much signisficant difference.

Sigh.. Yes, I know this entry is shocking, but don't ask too much questions about it.

Of 19th Oct 2005
Dear TomHa,
Somehow, I am going to remember this date for a long time to come, and generally, when someone says somthing like that, it only means 2 things: that too many bad things had come to him or the reverse. I am the lucky bastard who got the latter. Feeling so high from all the good experiences.

Why was I so high yesterday, as you might ask. Perhaps it is the 6 cups of caffeine (forgot how many coffee and how many tea) that I drained with fantastic effects as it kept me awake throughout all the lectures that I attend! A considerable feat, considering that I had NEVER been awake in those lectures and that I slept at 4am the previous night and woke up at 7am. Stupid lab reports and a looming examination equals no liberty to sleep for an engine student. Would not have slept much earlier anyway. Haha.

But this isn't what that kept me in a good mood for he whole of yesterday. What that made me really high was the fact that I was able to complete my unseen tutorial for the first time in history! Oh man, the last time I almost did it, the computer hang and time's up and I forgot to save.. So yah, very happy.

Next up was training climb adventure. Did abseiling and prussiking. Abseiling always sends your adrenalin rushing while for prussiking, somehow, I remembered how to go up but forgot how to come down! Was like hanging there for 10 min sweating my way trying to loosen those stupid prussiks. It was a good experience though. Since I was there already, decided to attempt the wall that I failed last saturday. And gosh, I don't know what is it with me that day or perhaps there were steroids in my food or something, but I completed it without breaking a sweat. Somehow, the relative ease was too scary to be true. But yeah, I was like happy like mad and jumping up and down like a monkey.

It was also yesterday that I finally decided that should I pass all the assessment and is allowed to go to New Zealand and stuff like that, I would definitely go all the way for it. Decided that I am going to part with my hard-earned savings and achieve something since I am like still freaking young. Wait for me.. NZ and Nepal and please let me stay healthy for the assessment...

Now that I had made the decision, did good for a test, climbed difficult walls and had the famous peanut ice-kachang, there is still something more that really made my day. I went home hungry after supper with the team (Oh yar, did I mention that I am starting to bond with them liao?) and there was leftover curry chicken! Ar.. the sweet things in life makes people really happy for a good long time.

Of Shuffle..
Dear TomHa,
I find it really funny somehow, that mp3 player, the Creative ZenNano (Alright, it came out before the Ipod nano, and seriously, it is not really good..)when switched to the shuffle mode, only churns out songs from 3 artistes: Linkin Park, SHE and Robbie Williams. I mean, of course I like these artistes but the point of the shuffle mode is such that I won't have to listen to those songs over and over again and have some variety in my quest for some entertainment on boring bus rides? How to overtake Apple like that, Mr Sim?

Got the photo from one of the North East line train and somehow, I find that the parallels between the father and daughter and the emperor penguin and its chick very cool. Now for some revelation, my favourite animal is actually the emperor penguin since I was a very young kid. Afterall, it is by far the only animal whose parenting touches me the most. I mean, imagine you braving the harsh colds of the ANTARCTICA for weeks with an egg between your eggs! I would have freaking cramps all around me and screaming like a whiny young girl! It is just so unimaginable! Jia gave me a pictorial of these birds on my birthday and all I could say is just 'Wow'. One fine day, I am just going to stalk those National Geographic photographers...

Discussed with Jiarong yesternight about tree climbings as she is like designing a clubhouse for the Sunshine tree climbing club (The club which I climbed trees with!) for her architecture project. I was like.. wow.. you have projects??(Typical mechanical engineering student I am..) Haha. But, seriously the chat evolved into a deep discussion of nature in the end (As I am totally screwed in designing that needs aesthical appeal) She said something along the line that in the end, we are the ones who needs nature, and nature does not need us one bit, BUT, we are the freaking ones who are spoiling it. Isn't that ironic? That we are spoiling things that we rely on to ensure our survival. The discussion went on and on so much that in the end, even I am rather ashamed of myself, a self proclaimed nature lover whose regular outdoor campings are just another mean, no matter how careful I am, for me to toy around with nature. We agreed that in the end, maybe humans should be locked into some huge asylum that can take 6billion people and let some tsunami drown all of us, for the sake of nature. Haha, sounds diabolical, but yet all so true.

Sigh, bore a huge hole in my climbing shoes today. Another thing to buy, over 100 bucks gone, money money money

Forgive me.. I am not exactly working well at this time..

Of Devastation
Dear TomHa,
Another Earthquake, thousands more dead, tens of thousands affected. So, in a space of like a month or 2, Mother Nature had unleashed its wrath on the lowly beings of earth, killing everyone and affecting anyone who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistan got most of the tremor of a 7.6 earthquake yesterday and like what all geography textbooks say, it ain't pretty for a developing country to experience deadly disasters. Lack of expertise, money, amenities, but a whole lot of problems and sufferings left hanging in the air.

It is comical isn't it? Just last week I was discussing about the Himalayas with Wenyang, trying to get some physical geography knowledge which I had accummulated in my 6 years of geographical study about plate tectonics and how Everest gets its height and how, amazingly, the fact is there that Everest is still growing upwards. And yet the same place and boundary is wrecking havoc now this week. The same principles applies anyway for plate tectonics. You have plates moving about and they either collide, pull away from each other or rub against each other. Every kind of motion has a chance to release vast amounts of energy which the plates accummulate as their motion against one another is never smooth. And the longer it takes for them to release this energy, the larger this amount of energy gets and, sadly, the greater the destruction that it can unleash. Plates in South Asia had stored and contained their wrath for too long and it really appears to me that they are starting to release them now. Pray for those people.

Of Schizophrenia

Solitude
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear Qingwei,
Sorry that this came rather late but...

Happy 20th Birthday to You!

What a terrible person I am isn't it? You have been writing to me for goodness knows how long and yet all I that I have been doing is to chuck your sentimental entries into some desolated, and godforsaken corner in my vast palace of the Internet. But, now that you had reached the next phase of your life, I feel that it is really time for me to speak up and advise you a little on what you should or should not do as you step dangerously close to the grounds of Adulthood.

So, what that I had observed from your intimate confessions to me these past few years is that you are a terribly wishy-washy guy when it comes to admitting that you like a certain girl. Not that you are awfully great at making decisions when you are at work or in the army, but at least you won't deny yourself of your rights and am able to express yourself feelings rather sufficiently and diplomatically. Although not quite there yet but at least some effort was there. However, when it comes to matters that might affect you decision as to whether your career lies in the mundane world or in the delivering of sins in another different world, you are just such a pussy. Come on, be brave. What? Say that again! You think that being friends is enough? Hmm.. to quote one of your friend, Xinru from her blog, "I can only like you this much as a friend" Oh please, Qingwei, when you like someone, it is not enough to be only a friend, cause there is a limit as to how much a friend can do to his/her friend.

Another thing, why are you so terribly shy and reserved? It is not going to help you in anyway. If you think you know this person, but not sure if he/she is the right person you had thought he/she out to be, just go and say hi, are you blah blah? People would not call you a crazy kid or a siao ding dong just because you got the wrong person, or would they? Anyway, just go up and say hi or anything. It would not hurt. Don't give people the chance to say you are the 'dao kia.'

Still not convinced about the major character overhaul that you should undertake to become a better person? Look at the picture above. What does it show? Solitude as what you would name it in Flickr? Hell no, I don't think so, in fact, I think that old man is enjoying his time in the spotlight. Although I must say that this would have been a better photo if the background were dimmer, but, anyway, I think he is feeling more happy than moaning about his loneliness. He knows that once the spotlight is off, he would be off home, to his loved ones where he can spend some moments of family bliss that should be the happiest thing that man can have. So, yeah, I presume you are clever enough to get the rough idea.

Another thing, I find you a strangely bad friend, now you better dig deep and think about what's needed to be done or else, you will be much more lonely than just a man without companionship and offsprings in the future.

Till then..

DISCLAIMER!
THERE IS AN ENTRY WRITTEN ON THE 25TH OF SEPTEMBER THAT IS IMPORTANT. READ IT, FELLOW READERS!

CHEERS!

Of Friends
Dear TomHa,
Wanted to blog about this yesterday but it sort of slipped off my mind amidst all the hustles and bustles of this weekend which saw me do so many things in such a short period of time. Kind of reminded me of those crazy madcao rushings in Army.. Haha.

Well, friends, I presume that I do have a lot and I am not sure about how i treat them, I mean, I seriously tried my best to treat each and everyone of them well, to the best of my ability. Whatever result that comes out is not going to be my call anymore, so yar, you get the idea.

So, there I go again, the number of friends that I have never troubles me one bit, but it is the variety of friends that I have that I find to be rather amusing sometimes. I mean, some of them have personality that are so conflicting that I find it rather strange that I actually got acquainted with them! I mean, if you look at it, I have friends who likes reading books so much that he actually idolises Li Ao, the madcap speaker who always raises provocative cross Taiwan straits issues because he reads 10hours a day and has over 10, 000 books at home! Wow. ok.. this friend of mine really likes reading and he reads academic textbooks for fun, can you imagine? I cannot even stand having textbooks within 10m of sight. They make me wanna puke. All I want to read are books with stories and are funny. How different, and how freaky.

Well, I have some other friends who enjoy punishing themselves so much that I find it really hard to understand why they are doing this sort of thing in the first place! I have a friend who revels in having pus flowing through some wound on his butt as a result of engaging in some sadistic racing sport that involves some Kayaks and waters. Eeew.. Freaky..

I have friends who are actually artistic. Hmmm.. you would understand this much more if you should have a look about the things that I drew. Some are already good drawing for fun, some further their studies in this field all the way till the tertiary level, some are even making their living in this field! And it always gets really embarrassing when I got invited to have a look at their masterpieces. Haha, me and my big mouth.

I even have a friend who although the whole world is telling him how good he is already, just can't seem to stop feeling depressed and engaging in self-pity. I mean, if I can like talk Haiku in his normal conversations, make you feel worthless in one sentence, write over 400 words to describe his barber experience with only the last sentence telling you that he IS cutting his hair, and is RICH and can go watch concerts, performances live when all I can do now is to wait for arts central to broadcast them some 4/5 years later, I can go die a peaceful man.

But, then again, I am not them. I still like them as friends! Wahaha..no offences.. this is the sort of thing too much thermodynamics can do to you..

Dear TomHa,
Sunday
Well, I just love freelance work. Was asked to head down to climb adventure today to supervise a level 1 course for budding climbers. Must say that the fact that they looked fitter than me certainly gives me all the shudders. However, all I can say that it is easy money, earning $100 in like 4 hours when all you do is stand there and wait for the instructor to finish giving his instructions and you go up to the students and check up their knots and belaying tachniques and blah blah blah. Must comment that not all that were taught would be very relevant in climbing. Theory says it does anyway. Think it is something like what you learn in BMT, pretty pointless especially as you step into a unit, or so, as all my friends told me.

Next Sunday
It is the 2nd of Oct!! Yeah! I will be turning 20 on this day next week. Although I must say that I am actually feeling rather sad about shedding down the heavy responsibility of being a teen but well, it is a path that everyone has to take. Sigh. Guess that I will be hating the idea of turning into an adult next year even more ba. Below is a list of obnoxious things that I would want for my birthday. Take you pick and if you have spare cash to ermm spare, buy one for me? I wouldn't mind double of triple of anything in the list. Hehe.
1) Bike Helmet (Haven't bought a new one since the last one broke into 2, courtesy of my brother..)
2) Bike Shoes (Mine is too old to be seen on the road.)
3) A sling bag, a crumpler would be nice.. hehe.. (Or rather those kind of imitation ones also can.)
4) A casio g-shock with all those kind of metal straps.
5) Climbing Shoes
6) A trek pole
7) Climbing Ax, rated T, straight
8) Carribenas, lots of them, screw gates, aircraft grade aluminium
9) Juma Ascender (not sure of spelling)
10) The obnoxious of all, Snow Goggles!!
Haha, I wonder which one I would get.. So exciting.

Nature
So there was Rita, engulfing the Gulf Coast of America. They say that the damage that it had inflicted on it is not as great as those that were inflicted by Katrina. During my Geography days, I was always fascinated by the power that Nature is able to unleash on us, and that no matter how smart or how able humans are, there seems no power to overcome this force of nature. Either you survive it or you die. No two ways about it. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, floods... natural disasters that makes you think twice about the power of the atmoic bomb and how small we are when we are placed to endure the wrath of nature. I guess Katrina gave the American Federal Government a suitable wake-up call and despite the deaths and all that, I think I will be bold and say that it is not all-bad. At least Mr Bush et al has come to realise how feeble they are and that in the end, America is not going to be the infallible fortress that they had built.

Music
Yesterday's band practice was terrible. We were playing the Incredibles and gosh, from the first day since I played around with music, I had never hated any timings that were normal. I mean, I always hated 6-8, 7-8, 3-2 all those funny funny timings, never 4-4s, 5-4s, but yesterday I cuoldn't count 5-4 properly at all! Argh! In the end I had to depend on the basses' rhythm to play my stuff properly. Another thing, guess I forgot to teach my juniors how to cao-geng sight reading in sec sch days. It was one of those never-wrong skills that my seniors taught us. But of course, it only works for desperate situations as should the conductor wants to test the section only, then you are in for deep trouble. Haha..

Uselessness
Am feeling so useless in front of thermodynamics and sensors and actuators. Alamak. Maybe I should really start getting serious about this semester. Adios!

Of Life

Dear TomHa,

Watched Brothers Grimm with LiJia yesternight and gosh, I just cannot stop remarking how long it has been for me since I last entered a cinema. I mean, it might not be very long for other people but for an avid movie-goer like me, with the last movie being Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it certainly felt long. Brothers Grimm was not too bad a movie I guess, given that there were many references to those fairy tale stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and there even is a reference to an enchanted axe which I cannot stop commenting "Isn't that from a chinese fairy tale?" Hmmm. Wellzz. There was Monica Belluci as the evil mirror queen in the end which provided more than eye candy to the show of a very GRIM atmosphere. Wellzz. Quite ok ba, 3 poppcorns out of 5.

Did not do much this holidays. Lucky me, my holidays turned out to be more than a week given that it was Engine Day last Friday (The organisers were so proud they got the Vice-Dean for the gues-of-honour...Big Deal) and there is no lesson tommorrow. Did not do more than a quarter of what I had set out to do, which is to catch up a little on all my modules (Yes, I lagged behind for ALL modules), call up more sponsors (Only managed one), run more (Alright I achieved this), climb more stairs (Did only 3 sets of 28floors.. think I sure cannot make it for assessment this sat liao..sigh). So what exactly did I do then? Went on a fishing trip with Malaysian cousins, and we caught only 1 fish after sitting by the pier for like 5 hours? Kaozz.. Watched so much TV, it was almost as if TV was just invented. Other than these, all I did was to stare blankly at the ceiling on my bed or playing table-tennis with the wall. Was too lazy to move.

Am contemplating to quit mountaineering after hearing about the cost break down and the amount of money which we had to fork out ourselves. It is a humongous amount of money to fork out for a CCA. To add to that, you would not even be sure that you'll be using those things that you had bought. Sessions of ceiling staring always churn out questions like should I be contented climbing Bukit Timah or trekking along Macritchie, which are really puny compared to what I had set out to achieve. I don't know. Mum always say, don't worry, money can be earned back one, but after you had been through the rigors of earning money, you understand the magnitude of the amount of money that is lying in the bank at present. I guessed worked like shit is a major understatement to what I had been doing for the past few years. Wellzz.. let's see how it works out..

More thermodynamics beckons.

Canoeists gather!

Canoeists gather!
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
Ar.. Mid-Autumn, my all time favorite chinese festival, where the moon is round and bright, the mooncakes are sweet and high in cholestrol, when the tea is just so bittersweet. The festival of all time, when I spend time with family, playing with my siblings around in the local playground while my parents go chatting up with the Bangladeshi sweepers doing their jobs (HUH???), where lantern riddles becomes lame jokes in the end, and also, of being able to catch up with people whom you have lost touch with, for a while.

We had canoeist gathering of some sorts at Daming's house, where I wanted to have some sort of a Mid-Autumn celebrations over a hotplate, but perhaps the sauna and the jacuzzi had cleaned out too much toxins in me that I forgot more than half the things that I wanted to do. But never mind, we were a bunch of joyful people who indulged ourselves in the joy of being able to laugh at each others' achievements, or rather, the lack thereof. Joseph was there, a delightful sight, I presume to actually see your coach outside training hours. The weird accent which I presume that everyone of us were able to imitate to some level of perfection. Haha. The cranky people remained cranky, the fat remained the fat, but the muscular became a bit nuah. But most noteworthy is the fact that wenyang created a stir in the pool when he arrived showing off his singlet tan with all the pecs and muscles. Beware, I think the guy in purple trunks already have you marked loh.

Indeed, I must comment that we had toned down a little as most of them had some transformation in the Army. They had grew up to be almost man-like, though I am not sure if that will last after their ORD. I hope it will, but please, let us remain as childish, sarcastic individuals in front of each other ok? Afterall, any actions on your part to act like a mature and serious man would only result in you being labelled as a wayang king, refer Bryan Yip..(I dreamt to become a policeman since I was a child).

A joyful day of festivities. If only Liverpool had won the battle with Manchester United, today would have been even sweeter.

So..much...death...
Dear TomHa,
I do not know what to feel at this present state. Today was supposed to be a happy day, given that it is HC MAF and it is a saturday. Was planning and saving up for the taxi ride which I was going to take from Yuhua to HC after alumni band for the whole week and then, POO, everything that you had planned for did not survive what fate had in store for you. Grievous things happen that take you by surprise. I was REALLY surprise today, or rather, yesterday night. On further thought, surprise should be meant for good things, so I think some change is in order. I was SHOCKED, by the apparent fragility of life and how fate can really play a cruel joke on people. An uncle of mine passed on to the other world yesternight, exactly 2months after my Grandma's death. Personally, I was not as shock when grandma died. It was a natural life cycle, and she was really old. However, this uncle of mine is only like 2 years older than my dad??!! Experiences like this really makes you contemplate life in a different fashion.

The past few weeks were a killer. They were so stressful that I wonder if I would ever be happy again. Lab reports, CAD drawings, and many many more things that exterminate brain cells in a single swoop came flooding on us. Next week is going to be worse. But, the consolation is that mid-term break is coming and I do not have a single mid-term test for a change.

Ar..go sleep liao..

Of Happy! Sha LaLa...
Dear TomHa,
I guess it has been a long time since I felt so happy like today. Monday, too, was a happy day. Why? Because the sun was out for the whole day, and I just love the way which those sun rays filter through the windows in the evening. Lovely. To add to that, sunny days meant days of activities and everybody's mood seems to turn for the better, no more the sullen atmosphere of dark, rainy days. I could swim, I could run, could do my work in better light, and breathe in fresher air from the environment. What more can a human being want?? Haha, realise I am a really simple person.

Another thing! Got for myself a new phone! A Samsung X640C, a clam shell phone with camera! I guess everybody who had received the mailer asking them to collect their phonebooks should have heard about this incredible deal! However, I suppose in the end, I would only use it in the weekends due to the fact that I am a really rough user. My Nokia 3210 had survived dives into the toilet bowls, free fall from 4 stories to give it more than enough credentials to join the Naval Diving Unit and Commandos. It is really made of stern stuff and I am not going to let it go. Besides, the camera only serves to be my voyeurism tool. Hehe, those with a secret better watch out.

Read Kang's blog and I don't really know what to say about her appeal to all parents to hijack their child's supposed plan to get into RV and vice versa. I don't know. Afterall, as I think about it, I had the most fun in my secondary school days! I love classroom life as compared to the drudgery of having to adapt to like a dozen classrooms and LTs everyday. I love my lower sec life. Those childish years of adolescence as my class played endless hours of block catching (No wonder I had never failed my 2.4km). I love my upper sec life as I got into a class crazy with basketball. I miss those thursdays and fridays when we would play basketball until the teachers come chasing us home (Well, I got more than that cause I was a councillor..). I miss the exhilaration of pon tanning band. Those kind of feeling which, when you go JEC when you should be in the second floor of the technical block emptying your lungs of every kind of gaseous compound into a Mozart invention (In case, you still don't already know, the trombone was an invention of Mozart..). High.. that is the only word I can think of to describe.

Besides, you make friends that stayed with you. I am still on close terms with my lower secondary classmates, although I must say that I had lost contact with like 99% of my upper sec classmates. I don't know why leh. Perhaps I did too well in my O's and scare the hell out of them away from me. Also, there are those who ponned band together with me in those days of hardships under the baton of the indomitable Pek Suan. Argh.. I miss Yihan suddenly. Haha, the one person who never fails to make you happy during your 'low' day. Also, there is also the trombone section which I had never try to get to know until sec 4? But no matter, it is the end result that matters eh? Cheers!

Naturally, my RV exploits were endless and it would not be possible to list them all down one by one. But all I can say is that the one drawback that RV might have would be the teachers (Oops.. that sounds rather major though..) I had lots of arguments with teachers, especially after I rised up the ranks in Council. Would not talk about them. But, given that the teachers are too result-oriented to care about your quest for a happier teen-age to serve as your stories for the grandchildren, they really sucked. Some were really good. They do care about you and there are those who are really funny. But, like what I always say, it is always up to the individual to make his or her life happening and fun. The environment might be stale and boring, but if you really feel so put off by this atmosphere of inactivity, change it. Do everything within your means. Until nothing changes even when you had tried everything in your means, then can you say that that environment is really like a vaccumm machine... IT SUCKS..

I wouldn't say that JC life was bad though. It's just comparatively, I had a much better time in RV than in HC. HC, the stories were there, that the people there are clever and thus, mug less than schools like the infamous NJC (not Nautica Jeans Company anw..). If you have heard stories like that too, then you can call the story teller bluff. HC people mug A LOT... except the canoeing people perhaps. Haha, come to think of it, it is spending time with these bunch of crazy sarcastic people that had enabled me to get through my JC life smoothly. I had never been in a group of people who derived so much pleasure critisising each other and still don't mind it. We can ridicule each other's lack of physical attributes so much that I think if a passer-by should come across us in action, they would really freak out. "你猛男？肚腩还差不多啦。。“　It is one liners like this that kept me going in school. Haha. Can't wait for the gathering that is coming up!

Aiyo.. haven't read my newsweek for 3 weeks. Better start reading or all the silverfish will start coming! Cheers!

Of hmm... can't think up of a title leh
Dear TomHa,

Student's Sketchpad!
Haha, you guys, especially all you RV people should take a look at this! A rather funny and interesting webcomic that is posted online for quite sometime I guess but only just discovered it surfing around the net!Check out the Ms Ek picture! Arh.. reminiscence.. THE RV school song. Let me see if anybody has a mp3 version of it. Haha. 海云漫漫，碧波荡荡，立德立功，化愚化顽。Haha.

Realised that there is no one student that is happy with the education system in Singapore. Well, some might say that it is the education itself, is a service oriented industry and thus no one can be truly satisfied. Fine and well, but recently, after reading a book, Freakonomics by I forgot who, I realised that this might not even be due to the unlimited wants of human beings that is creating this scene of perverse distaste for a public good. For all we know, it might be due to the incentives and disincentives that had propelled this reality.

Confused? Try reading this with a pinch of salt or sugar or any flavoring (Alright, this is lame. But this why I prefer writing essays in blogosphere than in GP lessons!).

For a good long period of time, economists had been saying that to achieve productivity and good results, CEOs, bosses, Presidents, all the leaders should inject incentives (Monetary, off-days, discounts on company's products etc) or disincentives (sacking, punishments, jail, etc) to encourage their units of production to produce even more, and to discourage them from doing anything less. Fine and well. However, what the Freakonomics author contends is that this encourages cheating as a result, drawing upon examples from the education scene in America (Well, he is an American) and Sumo Wrestling (Well, Americans like everything big don't they?). Teachers cheat by artificially inflating their student's marks so that they won't be shown the door and also, to pave the way to opportunities in the upper echeleoons of the school's chain of command. Sumo, though, is harder to explain, but I will try.

If you research a little into sumo wrestling, you'll realise that the wrestlers are actually ranked, according to the number of matches that they win. And, to maintain this rank, they have to meet a certain quota of wins. Those ranked highly are paid ostensibly while those who are ranked lowly are paid ostensibly low(Maybe it is already very high, but sumo people had to EAT, you know...). So anyway, there is this hidden courtesy or maybe practise is a better word that everytime a Sumo wrestler had met his quota and he can be comfortable with the rest of his year, should he meet another wrestler that is about to meet his quota and is already in his last few matches, statistics are that the lowly ranked wrestler, who statistics tell from matches in the earlier season whereby everybody is fighting for their quota have less than zero chance of winning, will, actually win. Cheating and courtesy and being Mr Nice guy. What that incentives and disincentives had set out to do had actually made everything even more complicated. Increased productivity? I will say it just gives a false sense of optimism.

So, what has this got to do with the education system in Singapore. All I can say is that like what I had commented in the preceding paragraph, the incentives and disincentives to be the top school, the best student, the elites, the creme of the crop had marginalised the problems which students from the rest of the school or rather the problems which the rest of the schools actually face! Principals giving talks that always paint a rosy picture are actually, cheating. Minister giving talks that always talk about how programs will build up a base of excellent thinking pupils are just, cheating. We, the suppressed individuals are rarely interviewed and even if we do, the disincentives present (expulsion, marginalisation, a cut of fundings) will just give standard TYS book of HOW TO ANSWER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS answers. Pretty perverse. Yucks. No wonder the blogosphere had become a great venting ground for a lot of students. And now, disincentives are present to make sure that we don't speak the supposedly wrong things. Sigh. How to be creative like that? Only those who are really creative knows the answer I guess...

That's all for now!

Carnival@Yishun

DSCF0276
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

I do not know why.. but I really like this photo. Taken on the 11th floor of some block which offers me a bird's eye view of the celebrations. Haha. Although this is rather late, but Happy Birthday Singapore!

Of Balance..
Dear TomHa,
Of course, I am not going to talk about my balancing on a kayak over here.. I had oputgrown that. Neither am I going to talk about my balance on land, which I must say is still rather good after training in WuShu when I was young. So this balance just means balance. Just that. How many times have we heard that everything is good if it is in moderation? For so long in my life, I figured that I am a rather nice person, given that I can take criticisms lashed at me with a laugh and just forget it. However, there are POEPLE who abused it and there comes the question of being too nice. Am I allowing myself to be a topic of ridicule so that people can satisfy their longing to feel superior? Crap.. It is time that I find some balance in my life and fight back. Ar.. but it is tiring to act like that, so I guess I would just continue what I am.. Haha, what a pointless paragraph..

So first week of school had gone by. Nothing much had happened except loads of really funny things. First of all, I have nothing to talk about the Sensors lecturers except that since he is so good at building robotic sensors, or so he claimed, perhaps it will do him good to build some sensor that measures just how boring he is. He just rattles on and on in broken english about things which are interesting but sadly, made boring. Acchually hor, sensors are really impotant in our fild of NG-neering leh... ME2143 for you..

Thermodynamics was a disaster. To think that one of the reason why I had chosen Mechanical Engineering as my choice during streaming was that I don't want to have Indian lecturers, which by the way, is in abundance in electrical engineering. These Thermodynamics lecturer was the worst. He speaks with a Indian twang that is so.. ermm.. Indian, that I think that I am watching a Bollywood documentary on Thermodynamics without any subtitles. In the end, I was to make notes like Prof said sth about the slope of this graph.. read for it from txt.. At least the Indian lecturer from last sem produced good and detailed lecture notes to make up for his lack of verbal communication prowess. However, for this one, everybody reached common consensus that the textbook is a must. Sigh.. $50 gone... PV = nRT anyone?

Nothing much to say about the other modules. Standard boring stuff that local lecturers in their middle ages give. But at least they were comprehensible and audible. So anyway, had lunch at Engine canteen since a long time ago. Could not really recognise it as so many new stalls had overtaken some of those inedible cowdung which we were forced to eat when all other queues were so long, I thought I had to go to Science Fac to join in the queue. Anyway, there is a new Indonesian Grill stall, a new Kway Chap stall (so happy, requested for it in last sem's feedback form!!) and some which I had not investigated yet. (Busy camping in Arts you see...) But then, Joo Chuan just cannot stop giving weird comments. Like after I commented that the Kway Chap is only so-so, he retorted that alamak, so-so can already lah. I don't want to q...in his usual heck-care attitude. Haha, pretty funny.

But then again, one of the meals there just make me laugh when I think about it. It was on the same day I had the Kway Chap for lunch. We went back to our seats. JC and I were occupying a four-people table so two Malays approached us for the seats which we gladly obliged. They sat down, but for the whole of their lunch, they were looking at me and JC with this great look of disdain that I thought they had glued their eyebrows together with their frowns. It was quite a funny experience actually, but the main poiint is that it certainly highlighted the amount of racial tolerance that Singaporeans have towards each other. Although we were being blasphemous to the Malays with our diet, they accepted the fact that we believed and were brought up in an entirely different environment and so, we were really not being blasphemous.. What crap am I talking about? Yar.. Racial tolerance and consideration everybody!

Cool huh?

Mac in my glasses
Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Wenyang took this photo during his NCC. Found it to be rather cool. He must have had some inspiration from the spiderman 2 posters. Should have asked Jianfeng to stand in front.. haha

Of an Annum...
Dear TomHa,
Tommorrow is the first day of the new academic year and I guess I will do a little reminiscence here in this entry about the past year, in case i get some serious case of senile dementia in the future when I am nothing but a frail frame of wobbly muscles and bones. But then again, should I get senile, would I even remember how to read in the first place? Ar.. no matter..

First, I disrupted from a rather disinteresting stint in MINDEF HQ, at the Air Logistics Department, which I would really sadly say that I am nothing but a too-higly-paid office boy who really did nothing more than to buy coffee and printing restricted material, and to take 3h breaks. Alright, I am really repenting over this apparent wastage of tax payers' money but given that those in the higher echelons of command knew that I would only be there for like a week before i clear leave, they also had nothing important to assign me for such a short time frame.

So I cleared leave and went into an exile into the civilian life. Nothing of a cultural shock actually occurred to me given that I had only been in the SAF for only 3months? Haha. I disrupted too late and missed all the camps and stuff which I did not want to go anyway. So, year 1 started with me knowing no one in the university. Which is kinda pathetic. None of the girls I knew were in Engineering. So, yah, I was rather lonely and feeling rather apprehensive about having to handle all the administrative materials myself with no apparent help. Did not know that modules are classified into ascending level of difficulty and took a Chinese module that is apparently intended for year 3s... Freaked out after a few lectures. But I managed to get through it anyway. Got a rather good CAP. Nothing to complain about in Semester 1. Just another undergrad grudging about my apparent too much time to spend usefully. Oh yar, took up fishing, which by itself, is just another kind of activity that humans invent to help them waste time. All the cultivating patience talk is just cowdung...

Ran marathon!! A perverse activity which punishes the body to the utmost limit. But I crawled, walked, limped, and ran a little to the finishing line. Rather happy about it. 42.195km.. How many people had actually travelled that distance in one shot without any help other than your own mind willing you to the coveted finishing line?

Semester 2 is a really sick semester. I do not know, until now, how I managed to come up with the perverse idea of joining Wenyang in the punishing regimes of NUS kayaking sprint team. Had to wake up at 5am (Wenyang did not turn up for those trainings anyway...hahaa)for the weekday trainings to get to the training grounds on time to punishmy body. I think some time into the future, my body would just swear a little and crack a little before breaking into pieces cursing and swearing at me... Come to think of it, it is really sick. I am better at being a Kaya - King than kayaking...

Haha, Semester 2 also saw me, the shy and reserved Qingwei attempting to jio a girl. I would not say that it had been a failed attempt. Just that at the end of the whole thing, I found out that the girl, being really outgoing and stuff, is just not my cup of tea (I only drink sugar-less tea anyway). So, the jioing ended in mutual understanding and consensus that we would be better friends than being a couple (eh, alright, just me thinking).

Sighz... Is school really starting tommorrow? I don't want....

Dear TomHa,
What an exhausting weekend, although I do not seriously think that I had done much things. Haha. Well, finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday (at Borders. $40.60 is just too much) and I must say that it is really much much better than its predecessor, the Order of Phoenix, which portrayed the protagonist as more of a spoilt, whiny and arrogant brat than The One of the wozarding community. Beware.. Spoliers ahead. Somehow died, or rather, D died, which is rather sad, going by the events that had occurred these few weeks and that they were rather associated with me. No matter. Potter became rather powerful, coupled with the fact that he had associated himself with some rather powerful dark spells invented by the Half-Blood Prince who happened to be the "teacher he had hated most in his term in Hogwarts." However, what that had actually left me feeling rather appalled was how liberal the wizarding community actually was. Ron apparently found himself a girlfriend with an apparent ease (to spite hermione and to prove that he knows how to kiss to his sister) that just filled me so much disgust. Lucky them...

Anyway, after finishing my read at Borders, I set out for a walk along Orchard Road, jostling my way through the bustling crowds to Plaza Singapura where 190 had always been rather empty and I could sit my way home. Along the way, was contemplating how I was to write this entry, whining about how lonely and apparently how unsociable I am when I got picked out from the crowd by my secondary school classmates who were with their Junior College friends and were going to meet their upper secondary classmates. Complicated ar? No matter, decided that I was really feeling rather hungry and joined them for supper, at subway, where I solemnly swear makes nasty tasting sandwiches. Walking with them just means that at the end of the day, my displacement will be 0 many many times over. No matter. It is always good to have company in a lonesome night where the moon is so obscured by the looming red clouds. Made many super lame jokes. Guessed those whom I newly met weren't taking it rather well. Well, what to do, was really on form yesternight. Then, they decided to go for a spin in my classmates' car which I gladly obliged. Realised that I can really become a taxi driver should I ever get retrenched or what. My knowledge of the roads was rather, hmm, how should I say it, extensive. Reached home at around 2.30am. Goofed around, slept at 4.

Hoisted myself out of bed at 8 and made my way for the Civil Defense Volunteering course, where I learnt some first aid which is quite elementary and some firefighting, which is, er, not the most exciting of things. Had free buffet. Perhaps that was why I did not enjoy the 拉面 later. Then, like always, doing what I and perhaps every of my friend that I know well do best, goofed around and joked around and like always, I am always the one who get 鸟. Hmmm... Perhaps I am too nice. Ha, had my first coffee bean since A's. Felt rather high after all the caffeine.

Been thinking a lot about the London bombings these few days. Yes, it is a very tragic event to happen to a place which I really want to go 7 years later (started saving already, and hopefully, can get a partner to go with me??! Haha). No matter about the Olymipics, which by itself is a rather 'future' thing, but what that really bothers me is the lack of press release that actually dwell into why those terrorrists actually contemplated to even think of such hideous acts of violence in the first place? Was it an ideological thing? Or was it just another sort of sadistic act of revenge on those who are apparently richer at the expense of someone else getting poorer? Looking back, could still remember that particular geopolitics lecture which actually dwelled into the minds of these terrorists. Not that the lecturers agree with what those people are doing, but somehow, the lecture stuck with me. It talked about the Israel and Palestinian conflict (again). Israel, with all the backing from USA was much much superior militarily than the Palestinians who were by and large, AK-47 wielding peasants. Knowing that going head-on with the Israelis can only mean instant defeat, the Palestinians set about commiting acts of violence in the form of suicide bombings and random acts of terrorism to exert their stand on this long standing feud. Hence, Sharon build a security barrier that is just another of those barrier that sets about to encroach on Palestinian land, much much beyond the assumably agreed Green Line border. Naturally, the Arabs were incessed with this move by the Jews but the barrier of high walls with tanks and big weapons guarding it proved to be a much formidable opponent. Acts of terrorism dropped but however, can you sya the same thing about the oppression faced by the much poorer arabs living behind the walls where some of their basic amenities like the hospitals and markets lie behind the wall, on the land which was formerly agreed by their leaders to be theirs. There was this feature on this terrorist who was the elder son of this lady who, though pregnant, was denied entry to the hospital on the other side due to her lack of papers. She was forced to stay behind, denied of the amenities to ease her delivery of a new life into a rather troubled and violent world. Yes, the Israeli Army was cruel and never realised that such acts would only serve to offer more recruits to the terrorists network. Yes, the son became a terrorist and blew himself and dozens more up in a bus during a prime time weekday in Israeli land. But could we really blame him? Was he being morally or mentally unsound to have done all those acts of unforgiveness? I doubt... The Jews on the other hand, being homeless after WWII, were given a land in the form of Israel, were, however, oppressed by the surrounding Arab states and fought back with a formidable ally-The USA, in the six-day war to beat those states soundly and then they became the oppressor, in revenge for how they were treated. Were they right then? Again I doubt.

2 wrongs does not make 1 right. However, before we call for the heads of those terrorist, shouldn't we be trying to understand what propelled them into these violent insanity? The Londoners affected were tragic and my heart goes out to them. But before the rich goes on another culling of the maligned, can't we at least spare some moments of serious consideration for what went on in the minds of those terrorists? Do not turn them into villains without first looking into the matter deeply with some sympathy. Perhaps last week's Newsweek or newspapers had looked into what I had said. I hadn't looked at them. But then again, look at the whole picture before passing judjment. I never believed that man's basic instinct was to kill.

On Maturity
Dear TomHa,
It just suddenly occurred to me that I had or rather, have a blog which I once update with so much fervor. Then why the lag in updates? A lack of events? hardly, the few weeks had been really purposeful and boy did they pass by so quickly and so fast, I just cannot believe that July is actually ending soon. Darn, which also means, school's reopening soon and boy am I hating this dreadful feeling of 背着书包上学堂. The feeling is just irksome. Sad events, meaningful events, funny ones, and also, some that makes you see your true self in brighter and clearer light.

Of course, if you actually think that I am actually going to recount all those events one by one then you are darn wrong, because some are just too sad to be recounted and when you look bad you wouldn't want to have anything to do with it. Yes, tribulations, turbulences, birth, sickness, and death are part of life and I suppose that when you look back, you wouldn't want to be looking back in the first place. Forgive my murmmurings over here.

So I am just going to go back to the topic which this title actually suggests, on maturity. All my nineTEEN years of life, the only definition of maturity that I had come about and felt deeply most about would be taking responsibility. Afterall, you would not be called a matured person if you can't even complete the task of being responsible to yourself and the people around you.

Responsibility encompasses a lot of things. It involves you taking responsibility for your actions, what you speak and even, what you think. It really involves in you being answerable to not only yourself, but also, those around you, whether they get affected or not. When you make a decision, can you be answerable to the fact that you had done whatever in your might to please the people around you and yourself. Thus, it is never easy to be a matured person and of course comes a price tag. That you would be sacrificing your freedom to excercise whatever you want, whenever you like it. That should be a part of maturity, whether you like it or not.

So in the end, after playing around for one full circle, we come to the point of being accountable. Does it mean to be irresponsible to quit a society by issuing a letter of resignation to everyone in that society or would you rather someone who never appears in that place ever again and changed his handphone number to make himself uncontactable? Does it mean to be immature or worse, childish when you go all out to make sure that the people around you have fun by acting stupid and giving nonsensical jokes that aren't even funny? Does it mean to be a responsible person when you can't even be responsible to your family needs when, your kins aren't able to provide the kind of life that you seek and yet you still go about seeking it? Is it even responsible to act like you do not give two hoots about the whole wide world, when your friends just wanna hang out with you and take a peek or two at how you are getting on with life and yet all they get is rude comments?

All right I am done with questioning. So in conclusion, maturity just means being accountable to yourself, and the people around you. In my opinion, my brand of maturity is to try and make people laugh with my brand of humor which is rather unfunny. Laughter makes the world a better place. For that, I think that comedians who can actually make people laugh their hearts out are just great people. Jack Neo, Stephen Chow, and many others who had make you laughed till tears and stomache come acalling to give your white blood cells a battle are just great personalities to emulate. Sure there are times to be serious. But if you think about it, in the end, the reason why people are serious is so that they can relax in the end. So in the end, is my ambition going to change albeit again from being a firefighter? Perhaps not, in fact, it just strengthens my resolve to be one. One who is serious in rescuing the people from the fires and disaster, and also, one who is able to cheer the survivors up. Afterall, I supposed that it is considerable harder for survivors than those who, unfortunately, passed on to the other world in the aftermath of the disaster.

Cheers!

There was a time when Batman was funny...
Dear TomHa,
The Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, people had called him names that are made him more scary than funny. No, I am not going to talk about the Batman Begins film. Ihaven't watch it yet. I am going to talk about the Batman of the past when the theme of Batman, the Da da da da da da da da signals the arrival of Batman and Robin. Yes, I am talking about the Batman movie of the 50s or 60s.

Cheesy lines, lousy costumes, so that is what people of the past watch in the theatres. For a good laugh at the Dark Knight and Boy Wonder. When the batmobile can have tyre puncture and Batman giving out lame lines like "I think we better stop and check!" When Bruce Wayne asks Dick Grayson lame jokes like what kiind of people are forever in a rush, "Russians", when their Batcopter crashed inexplicably luckily into a pile of foam rubber which happened to be in exhibition on a busy road, when Robin dishes out funny one-liners like "What should we do? Hail a cab?" and Batman dishing a more powerful one-liner like "Luckily we are in tip-top condition, it's better we run.." You know you are in for a treat. Haha.. this is every bit a superhero comedy whereby Robin runs around in his swimming trunks.

Another thing, why does the Human Torch looks so much like Ironman from afar?

Of Bus rides...
Dear TomHa,
I guess it had been a long time since I last wrote a serious entry, since the last one was like last saturday? Quite long for a frequent blogger like me. So today, I shall blog seriously, recounting to you the some of the rather interesting and embarassing events that happened to me. Isn't it strange that I would always have embarassing accounts to blog about? Hmm..

Today, I went swimming in school, as what I had always been doing these past few weeks as I just can't find the legs to run and cycle along Bt. Batok. There are so many construction projects goinig on recently that the air is so polluted that I just feel that I am sucking in as much tar as a smoker. Cycling is worse. Cycling on the road means jostling with the stream of traffic and jostling with the traffic means that you will have to smell whatever that is emited from the car's butt. It is like being forced to inhale someone's ermm gas excretion directly from the source! To make things worse, there seems to be a mutual silent agreement between all truck drivers that cyclists should never be allowed on the road as they try to jostle to knock you out of your seats! Cycling is dangerous activity considering the presence of all those noisy polluting speed maniacs out there. Think I am going to boycott Initial D...

Anyway, that is not the point. The point is after a good swim of 30 laps in 31:46min, which I feel rather happy about (I shall swim faster than Phelps one fine day...) After the swim, I proceeded to take a bus to Bt Panjang Plaza to go to the library to read the comics there. The bus was quite packed, and then a pregnant lady came aboard and stood beside me. We were standing quite in front, near the spot where there are 2 seats facing the back, and there sits 4 handsome young man who apparently can see well and I seriously don't see any disability in them that disallows the giving up of their seats to a lady who is carrying a baby. In any case, just to be sure, I tried to be polite and requested that this person sitting in front of me give up his seat. Excuse me sir, could you kindly give up your seat to this pregnant lady over here? He snubbed me, and boy was I in rage. What the heck has this world evolved into. Forget about chivalry to the ladies, here we have a lady who is carrying 2 lives in her and there you are, happily talking away with your buddies. Wanted to whack him so much, luckily, there was a middle aged man behind who gave up his seat. But the indignance never die.

After my comic reading stint at BP, I decided that I will go to JP's Toys'r'us to see if there are any new toys. Thus, another bus ride and like always, 180 is rather empty but as it gets to BB, the people started coming in and whoala, a chiobu wearing tube top came and sit beside me! Ar, my hair looked more like a mushroom crown than hair especially since it was after swimming! Darn, but apparently, she was rather tired or I don't know what, she fell asleep and the tumblings and turnings of the bus swivelled her head to lie on my delts. Oh my Oh my, the feeling of romance. Feeling so in love. The indignant of the past bus ride was fast dissolved into the tide of tender loving care that my masculinity is showering upon her little shoulders.. Ar.. then I reached BL.. Darn, time nv freeze when u want it to. Sighz..Still indulging in this experiece..

Blanket love

Blanket love, originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
Haha, realised that I really cannot draw a blanket, a crumpled one at least. Tried my hands on line art yesterday, but it appears to me that this is really not line art. Check out the guitar I had drawn, it should be the better of the 2. Hehe, and check out the hidden meaning behind those quavers and bass clef!

Adios! Shall draw more when I am free!