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...