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....