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.