Wednesday, July 27, 2005
there have been days in the past weeks where i've semi-permanantly attached myself to the bed... those chilly windy mornings... developing into cold rainy afternoons... ending with nice cool evenings... u noe the feeling u get when u sleep too much... yes... that loss of energy in ur limbs... and no matter how hard u tell urself to get it... remaining "comatose" always seemed the more lucrative option... haha yes how aptly the words "the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak" really encapsulates that feeling...school's about to start... and once it does... there'll be load of things to do... haha including the much anticipated dim sum dollies... haha... nice to treat pple and get treated back... haha esp when ur short on cash (hint to moe) haha...
tonight's the night for csi fans in singapore... haha... season 5 finale on axn... haha 2 hour special... and being a massive fan... i've already watched it by means i shall not mention... haha... and still i'm waiting for the show tonight... haha i'm a nut aint i.... haha
oh yes.. did i mention that now... to do honours in math u only need a cap of 3.5... dropped from 3.8... ya so now this year there are abt 50 pple doing hon thesis and the dept is so short on staff they had to offer group projects... 3.5 in my opinion is too low... 3.7 sounds like a more reasonable option...i mean a change by 0.3 points is riddiculously drastic... but yet... at the same time.. it would mean that the once average hon students now have even weaker stduents to push their grades up... and as sad as it sounds... that is the reality of they cap system in nus... the point about having quotas for the numbers of As per module is understandable... but yet i feel cheated by it sometimes... where getting A in some ivy leagues is the norm... getting As in departments in NUS with small intakes of students is a rather daunting task... i've had my fair share of As but somehow i always feel that it wuz at the expense of someone... u noe.. someone had to get a B- or even a C in order for me to get my A... and at the same time... i've gotten B+s or below for modules i felt i had better mastery of... simply because there werent enuff As to go arnd... perhaps this is just sour grapes whining but i guess u see the cons of having such a system... but i do agree that having the quota for As is a logical way to ensure the quality of the degree given out by the university...
i wuz chatting with terence hoinam and limin the other day... yesterday in fact and we were saying that in asian societies... the name of the university u attended bears more weight than the degree u carry... how true it is i'm not sure... is a normal degree from one of the ivy leagues really that much better than a first class hon from NUS?? it's true that foreign institutions have greater historical and academic achievements when compared to NUS... but is that a legitimate basis for such biasness? i dunno... haha but if u were to ask me if i would rather study in NUS or a foreign uni... i'd be with 90% of the population on this one... haha...
will most asian institutions always lie in the shadow of their foreign counterparts?
{2:23 PM}
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
life's been good to me... with the exception of the fact that moe still has not given me my money.. haha...spoke to tkm a few days ago... that restored alot of self-esteem i must say... so i shld be starting on my master's thesis soon... but will prob do most foundation work this year so that i can actually publish something more significant (hopefully)...
hanmao want to go on a grad trip in decemeber... which technically is when i shld visit sweden afterall... but i wanna go to rolland garros next year too... tough decision to make... but i have... haha shall buy toto later... haha and with some divine intervention i'll be able to have the cake and eat it... muahaha...
last night... as i wuz about to sleep... i dunno wat overcame me... and i took out my dusty sing singapore cd and started playing it... haha guess national day is approaching... but it still doesnt explain the sudden urge to listen to the songs... haha then i started to think abt stuff... as stifled as we are in singapore... as "oppressed" as we are... haha i'm happee with the way things are... sure life aint perfect and the grass always looks greener on the other side but somehow... around this period every year... i always feel so fortunate to be born here... i guess to me wat really matters is stability and even though we hafta sacrifice certain liberties to achieve it, to me it's really a unbeatable bargin... so for me... migration doesnt exist in my dictionary... i mean seriously... wat would be singapore's worst characteristic? the mindless citizens who simply follow instructions given by their almost-corrupt-free governement? the fact that we are not as liberal a state as we claim to be? the fact that we are not a welfare state? the fact that the death penalty exists in singapore? kiasu-ism? honestly it's really difficult for me to pen out any more flaws... perhaps because i see singapore thru self-constructed rose-tinted glasses... but compare all these with the political decadance of the states... the corruption in china... the volitility in israel... the scarcity of food in ethiopia... the racial disputes in australia... and on a slightly lighter note, the fact that movie stars get elected as presidents in the phillipines... members of parliment throw themselves (and occasionally glasses of water and shoes) at each other in taiwan... policies that favour certain ethnic races in country X (ahem i really dun haf to spell this out right?)... but i mean u get my point... even if it is a bit myopic... i noe some pple say that happee singaporeans are just oppressed to the point they are made to believe they are happee without these rights... and i guess to some extent it is true... but really... in the matrix... i would have chosen the blue pill...
19 days to national day!!!
{2:39 PM}
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Tuesday, July 05, 2005
it's been a while... yeah a long while... here's wat happened...
went Glutton Bay for meals.. i think i've been there like 5 times in the last 2 weeks.. haha
hiked up to to the treetop walk with jason xuanjun and terence... pretty good stuff man... reminded me of tekong... dun ask me why... haha
here we are in teh middle of the bridge.. haha sor somewhere there lah...
took from above some tower... see those dots on the track... they are ocs cadets tracking here... haha doing some navex i believe.. haha it wuz then i started to remember that i once did a navex her too!! and it wuz the one with weiwen jason and ruhong... haha and our good strategy paid off cos we were the first to arrive back.. haha
haha lousy cadets who got lost... oops... haha and there wuz a map right in front of them for tourists!!! LOUSY...
having terence's bdae lunch with the other "di-s" haha... caleb just returned from france and i'm still only slightly darker than him... arrggghhh... haha
poor ns boys having lunch in between their national day parade rehearsals... outside suntec marche where terence jiaen caleb and i had our sumptous meal.. haha after we started saying how poor thing they were... we realised they only need to do 2 yrs of ns... poor thing for us arrr.... haha
aviva open 05 finals.. look at the crowd man...
francis calls him the BFG.... xie zhongbo's his name... not that famous (and i reckon i'd say YET) but famous enuff for gerri to take a pic with him.. haha luckily i din take... i dun wanna look that short man... hahaha woops...
oh one of my favourite adverts outside bt shopping centre...
been rather busy recently... going for stuff like the treetop walk(more like hike...) errm aviva open... errm and of course visiting the dear dentists who will be surgically removing my wisdom teeth... yes for those who dunno... i've decided to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth at once... going under GA but its only supposed to be 2 extractions and 2 surgical removals... haha... and can u believe it... it's so excited... cos i get to go under GA (always wondered wat it wuz like) and i get to stay in a hospital ward (yes i will be warded for a night...) it's just really one of those things u want to experience in a not so severe condition and i think now's my chance... my only qualm... i wun get to try real hospital food so i can be the judge of the army vs hospital food argument... it will be porridge porridge for me for a while after this friday... haha but i dun mind having tiong bahru porridge everyday man.. haha no liver pls.. haha
anyway school's going to start in a while... so gotta make full use of the rest of the hols... haha looking for a part time job that i can take up during term time... must save up for my grad trip.. haha so anyone got lobang pls tell me.. haha... oh ya must have no cpf ahhh...
oh ya... on my way to see the dentist for my pre op checkup or something liddat... guess who i saw in dental clinic 1... my OCS platoon 3 section mate and ex bunk neighbour MAOJIE... and lemme type out wat he sed to be... the irony in it all.. haha he sed to be in shock when he turned and saw me stiing in the waiting area "hey JONATHAN... u remember me or not... maojie! wat r u doing here..." hahahha but on a more serious note... i think i do look like a jonathan rite? i mean countless pple who have just sorta forgotten my name but remember my face have called me jonathan... and i'm like talking like somewhere in the tens or twenties... only my french tutor who forgot my name started to call me anthony.. cos in french nicholas and anthony are the 2 most common names spelt without the "h" a la nicolas and antony... haha or smthing liddat.. haha
anyway... i told maojie i wuz going in to remove my wisdom teeth... under GA so he asked who wuz gonna do it for me.. then i sed.. probabaly prof loh... and to my surprise (a few moments later horror) he sed he'll be assisting him this friday... which means he gets to look at my horrible dental exrays and badly decayed and cavity ridden teeth... haha so embarressing... hahaha now i understand y my sis refuses to go to nuh dental centre for her checkups... haha well i wonder if dennis will be there too... but at least i think he already noes the horrible state my teeth are in... hahaha
haha okie... time to have my herbal chicken soup... for the last time this month i believe... boo hoo.. haha
{6:51 PM}
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