Dear TomHa,
So much is happening around the world that seems to evoke my sense of uselessness around the spate of things that is going on. I wonder why, but there is always this innner urge in me to be where the DART team of the Civil Defence is whenever I see them on a humanitarian mission of search and rescue. But what to do, as I would like to stress again, I am just another useless engineering undergraduate still worrying over my programming and exams which is just around the corner. I mean, 20 years old already and nothing that I know is useful to inflict a direct positive impact on the people of one of the world's poorest country? It's just frustrating..
None of that matters anymore as my mum would never let me go to Nias due to expert's warning of another earthquake around the same Sundra plates. Sigh. Sometimes, you just aren't able to do things that you want and yet being forced to do all the things that you do not want. I mean, why would I want to do programming, physics and all the modules that I am taking now? For the degree, for the pay in the future? Nothing academic that I had been doing all these years is what I had wanted, but I had to do that. That is just the sad irony of my life.
Oh yah, just watched a House of Fury, a rather crappy chinese movie about secret agents and whole lot of kung fu fighting. Rather funny and should help in de-stressing. Must say that Gillian Chung is really chio! Haha, overtook Jolin in my list of chio-bus! Yah, that is like the only high of my life this week.. Sigh..

Not all who wander are lost..JRR Tolkien
Dear TomHa,
Went for some Singapore Mile Run which involves racing over a mile(1.609km) around Chinese Garden. I didn't win anything as expected, afterall, there are so many good runners out ther in our sunny island set in the sea. Never mind that, but I was not expecting to lost to a fifty-two year old ang-moh uncle over such a short sprinting distance! He was like behind me all the way until the final 400m when we sprint duelled all the way to the finish which he like won by a stride. Arghh! Was so devastated. However, I still managed to run in at quite a respectable time. Hehe, guess that is my only consolation. Oh yah, my brother won the junior races, beating the second by 30-odd seconds, I think. Great.. Now he has more medals than me. Sigh..

Dear TomHa,
I suppose that bloggers has this very interesting feeling when they pen down their thoughts and feelings for the day(at least for me..). Somehow, you would like your tagboard to be full of comments and praises and to have your blog surfed by like a thousand million people and be granted the status of a most read blog in the world. On the other hand, you would like yourblog to be as private as possible so that you would be able to pen down your thoughts and feelings without fearing the wrath of another party or people to inquire into your deep down secrets. I would love to call this phenomenon a blogger's dilemma, a spin-off from John Nash's prisoner dilemma. Nash's equilibrium talks about companies would not cooperate and in the end achieve a less profitable outcome in the end as compared to the point when they cooperate and reap off greater dividends(or something like that.. must revise my econs liao..)(although after a long period of time and deceit, Nash equilibrium would tend to the one which gains more dividends.. Man are learning animals! But that is beside the point). In my CaoKheng equilibrium though, I feel that readers and bloggers should maintain this invisible treaty of cooperation to achieve greater dividends. Keep everything you read to yourself(afterall the blogger must have trusted that you are the entitled one or two or three.. to read his blog) and the blogger can trust this mutual agreement to spell out more of his thoughts and feelings and the reader would be able to gain more insights to the blogger's life.
What happens when a person becomes disillussioned with what he is doing already. Make him something important of that club and whoala! He wants to quit also cannot already. Yes.. I am describing about myself. Was forced into becoming someone rather important I guess in my Uni's canoeing team just when I thought that that would be my last day squeezing into a kayak rowing up and down a designated place. So sian, yet my friends are feeling so happy. Sigh.. What to do? I just hate myself for being so weak. I could have been stronger and rejected the post outright and resolutely, but guess that I am too much of a nice person, and sensing that the day had already been rather long partly due to some other person forcing a re-election and that it was already really tiring for everybody, I accepted it reluctantly and what have you got? Another year of incessant suffering and pain and 5ams. I feel so sad. Feel so out of place, like somehow I just don't belong, like no one understands me.. Yah.. I am listening to Simple Plan..
Sorry for such a gloomy and heavy entry today. Promise next one would be something light and funny. Haven't written those kind of feel-good entries for months...

Dear TomHa,
I think it is pretty amazing how with some shrewd marketing and a clever knack for fashion, one could do so much for charity.. Don't know what I am talking about? Well, I am talking about the wristband thing which I think I would be correct in saying that it had taken the world by storm. It was first started by Lance Armstrong( who happened to be my idol ever since I watch cycling on tv..) who himself is already a great marketing tool for his charity aid organisation that does research on cancer and also, to help out those needy cancer patients in US. Lance Armstrong came a long way from surviving cancer to triumph in 6 consecutive Tour de France.. Thus, this legendary story of extraordinary human will when the odds are all stacked against him serves as itself, another marketing tool that help in the sales of the wristband, LiveStrong. Since then, Standard Chartered, and some other charity organisations had all churned out many different coloured wristbands to help out other charity organisations like the blind and the tsunami victims, with yellow being the one for cancer, red for tsum=nami victims, and green and blue(standard chartered colours) for the blind. Must say all these are considerable efforts made to capitalise on the fashionability of the wristbands for a good cause. Well and good.
So, why in the world am I writing this entry about wristbands that I don't even have(Hey, I don't have credit cards to order them, ok?)? Today, I went WestMall to buy some cheese fries(Buy 1 get 1 free) when I walked past the Giordano outlet. From what I can see, they are selling wristbands too, in support of the tsunami victims, albeit in an array of colours that serves more to confuse you than to enlighten the bearer of its use. No matter. What pissed me off is that in very fine fine lines underneath, it wrote, $2 with any purchase. Clearly, they are capitalising on the consumers' sympathy towards the tsunami victims as a way to bolster their faltering sales! I find that seriously unethical as the common perception is that the wristbands are really cool and since I can do some good buying such a cool thing to put on, why not? Add that to a with every purchase tag, you get a revenue maximisation strategy.. great..

Dear TomHa,
I guess it is high time that I wrote a little about my maths tutor who is like the funniest tutor I ever got in university thus far. So, he is quite short, at most 165, wear specs, has a round face, and combs his short hair backwards as far back as he can. He carries with him this stack of markers which is forever contained in a Watson's plastic carrier bag and a sling bag which is a free gift from some family day(couldn't make out the words). He always wear the same shirt and pants which could just mean that either he has a very efficient washing machine with a very good tumbler dry, or he has many of the same cloths in his wardrobe, or he just couldn't be bothered to change out of his clothes. In any case, at least they don't small. He walks in into class with those sort of unwilling look, something like sigh-darn-undergraduates-again look. Then he stands in front of the OHP and waits for 2 minutes before he begins class, having unpacked and tested his full bag of markers for those with ink. Lessons then begin..
Well, today we are going to do double integrals... Here I show you the summary for the whole chapter(then he explained a little and told us what to look out for..) So, as you can see, like all the other chapters, this tutorial you just look at the question and sub in all the values for the various questions and then you get it.. Any questions? Don't ask too much lah.. engineers no need to understand too much maths theory one.. just learn to apply can already..
(Then a China girl asks some weird question abt alternative ways of solving and then he always gives the unwilling scornful look at her before saying.. Can.. you can do like this but nobody gives you marks..Engineering maths do blindly can already.. need to understand so much for what? I don't understand why you don't understand... Use the formula can already what...
Practise sessions which is like a mini test: I show on the OHP the formulas, you all just use can already.. sure get full marks.. then I pay rise.. you all happy.. I happy..
Haha.. funny guy, maybe you will only find it funny when I re-enact his actions.. haha.
This week is still not bad.. Up to schedule with most things, although I missed a tutorial and 5% as a result because of really bad scheduling in row times in the morning by our vice-captain. In anycase, I realised that like the year before, I trained more on other crafts than the actual craft which I am supposed to be training on. Sigh.. lazy to update liao.. goodbye..

Dear TomHa,
Education is about the opening of minds to the world beyond that which we see through our eyes. It is about the empowering of individuals with the power to seek greener pastures and to stand up for what that is wrong or right. Education is about the transferring of knowledge from one genration to the next. It is about how humans maintain their civilisation and through it to continue their dominion of the Earth as the primary species. It is about teaching about what is right and what is wrong. About enabling us to differentiate between the two and not to commit the wrongs that the human race had deemed. Education is sacred and it is a enables people to understand the world, their individual communities and themselves better as it sheds a different light through the passing on of knowledge...
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rubbish...




Education is a big torture. It is a process which empowers the academics to put us into trouble, to make us feel lousy and make us feel that we are not worth a thing. Education is a medium through which crazy theorems, laws, rules, definitions, methods, questions, answers, thoughts are enforced upon the students when they do not wish to learn, to memorise, to answer and to, yes, memorise again. Education is this sort of thing that gives you worse memories than coming up 20 seconds later than ALL other competitors. Yes, education is like this. It kills you, it devours you, it makes you sick, and yes, helps in the recession of hairline thus helping Beijing 101 thrive in the market of hair therapy. Education....

The day my life came crashing down...
Dear TomHa,
I should think that it is rather funny that I am writing this under one of those melodramatic Jay Chou songs, those kind that always gives you a tinge of sadness and the sense of inevitability that sad things are coming or rather, arrived...
Tommorrow is the release of A level results and I wish those who are receiving the best of luck as I perceived that however good they maybe in JC, they should need it. Anyway, if you guessed it right, it was my turn to receive it and golly my world came crashing down on me literally, and no, I am not one of those who would treat the clouds above as my blanket.. no.. I never was an optimist.
The day before began like any other post A's, pre Army days. Woke up early to cook my breakfast and lunch, packing it to bring to work in the Orchid Garden. Thoughts about me not making it and having to enroll for polytechnic filled my mind for the whole day. In fact, I had also thought up of what to say to my various affiliates, various reasons and excuses to bring myself out of the slime that might cover me should I fail badly. In fact, the day went so bad that I got scolded by the package department for cutting orchids that were so bad, they don't even qualify for housewives to bring home to pray, let alone export! I guessed the idea of doing really badly really got drilled in so deeply into my brain. In any case, the day still ended safely and soundly. Went home, eat dinner, surfed some net, lied down on bed doing nothing.
THE DAY arrived to my dismay. Took leave some weeks ago.. so no work for the day.. Woke up and I decided to go for a run. Did not run much, only 6km but it was such a humid weather that I was soaked through. I could still having to change my route because Swiss Cottage was having their cross country around Bukit Batok!!?? In any case, I was wearing the dragonboat singlet and the Hwa Chong shorts and a pair of asics shoes. My socks had holes near the toe region. I went home, had breakfast, read the papers(although nothing went in.) My mind was more blank than a blank sheet of paper. Time flew past, bathed and changed. Wore an adidas polo tee and diadora shorts and my very broken adidas tennis shoes. Went to Cute Chicken to have lunch and to meet Felix and I forgot who.. Should be Yewei and gang who happened to return from Orchard. Did not discussed much about A's, talked rubbish and nonsense as usual.
Went to school, sat at S60's class bench and talked nonsense, waiting for the rest of the canoeists to arrive to talk even more nonsense. Delai was wearing some John Little polo.. Very funny.. made some fun of him, then talked about army and what was it like inside.. Somehow, we were able to make everything we talked about funny... funny.. Then 1400 came, we were herded into the execution room in the guise of the Auditorium.. My relative some 500 years ago made speech, gave statistics, and congratulated the top achievers. Well and good. Sat beside Daming and he gave a comment like those who did not even get 3As' are really losers or something along the line.. Sweat started accummulating on my forehead in that frosty auditorium. Then we were herded to another site to get shot or be granted amnesty one by one.. Went to my Ct, Mr Tan to await my verdict. I was the first along the lines of suspects and I was the first to be shot.. so dead.. Became a 'loser' as Daming described. World came crashing down, and walked away... alone, seeking some peace and quiet.. alone.. to feel sad and pity... alone. I sat at the porch of the staff administrative building. Nobody walked past that place.. I was... alone. Calls flooded in and I rejected them one by one.. I was devoured by the darkness of my world and started analysing my results.. What I saw in the beginning did not change.. I was still a 'loser...'
Walked out.. dreams crashed.. hopes shattered.. Saw my two geography teachers and came to learnt that I was one of the 3 who did not get A in the whole level.. My abyss dug deeper.. It was one of those days to forget....

Dear TomHa,
One day I am going to be a clown...
Haha.. don't you agree that I have too many ambitions.. One moment I am saying that I want to be a PE teacher then I say that I am going to be a forest manager then I say that I want to sign on with army, then I want to be a firefighter, then I say that I want to be a chef, now I want to be a clown. To wear a big red nose, to ride on a unicycle, performing juggling tricks to make people happy is actually quite a good job. After all, making people happy is not as easy as it seems and the therapeutic effect of making people is not just beneficial to the receiver but the presenter as well.. I hope I get into the tsunami aid team or something like that that leaves on June and that I can really start to juggle well and sculpt my balloons well enough to make those children over there happy. Haha. Somehow, children's smiles always makes me really happy.. dunno why.. but please don't miatake me for a paedophile.
Sighz.. know what, TomHa? I just failed my physics test and it is all due to my carelessness. Darn! Sometimes I really hate(love) MCQs. Once you get the wrong answer, you are gone. Open ended and essay questions are better as they give you more chance to impress the marker albeit saying a bunch of nonsensical ramblings along the way. Somehow, SAF labelled this as wayang.. well.. in some way, yes, I would agree with that. To put up a front of impressario so that they can make you go to the next stage of your education. Sigh.. The sight of books somehow pissed me off.
Alamak.. I just realised that I haven't rowed for like one and a half weeks and SDBA is like next saturday.. Oh dear oh dear.. Guess after the maths test this saturday will be a little period of insane rowing that makes the onloooker say..."xiao!" haha.. bye! training in half hour and I am still at home...