had my first bout of tutorial this week. went pretty ok i hope. 5 new students to my class. i guess that should be a good thing right? haha. jialiang sat in my class today and kept on laughing to himself. oh and i think my classes were pretty duh-ed out by how i could say the phrase "y multiplied by the integrating factor equals to the integral of the integrating factor multiplied by everything on the right." try saying that really quickly. i got a kick out of it (that's how sad my life is now haha).

oh and did i mention that i got a cubicle in the graduate office as well? haha spent the whole day there. well most of it i guess. did quite a bit of work. or at least tried to. hope i can get some progress on results. i feel as if tkm has been really patient with me. well he has always been. that's why i think he's a great supervisor.

today is gerri's bdae too! happy bdae!! haha. and tomorrow's dinner with her run'er weiquan and jamie is something to look forward to. havent seen wq and jamie for ages!!!

can you believe i'm still in the lab typing this now? haha. my sis wants me to go back and play fifa manager with her. apparently it's... errm... how should i put it in a politically correct way... it's now on my computer. haha.

OH OH OH!!

i must say something about what that silly girl did. haha. yesterday, she was printing her notes in central library. being very early in the morning she was first in the queue. so as she waited for her print job, a queue started to form behind her. but the printer just didnt print. so she was wondering what was going on. then after that, the girl behind her in the queue decided to go ask for help, and the lady arrived and said "oh someone is printing A3 ah?". my sis thought to herself "no not me." but when the lady placed the A3 sized paper into the printer, out came these totally blown up tutorials in A3 size! seriously, if i can take a photo of her with it, i'll upload it. haha. she'll never agree though. haha. but i'll try later. haha.

need to get some shut eye tonight. tomorrow will be a long BUT enjoyable day. haha. good nitez!

{11:56 PM}

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yesterday i had a good game of badminton. haha. wq and i managed to push herk and fran. haha. it's always tough when i partner wq. i guess our playing styles dont really match up that well. haha. so it always feels good when we are able to win or even push our opponents to the rubber.

also on badminton, lee yong dae/jung jae sung finally won the korean open! haha. perhaps this is a new dawn!

They beat compatriots Lee Jae Jin/Hwang Ji Man 21-16 21-15 in 29 mins!

not sure if i can get a game this week. badminton and tennis are like the only things keeping me sane these days. with most people being to busy to hang out, sports proves to be the best excuse i can give to meet up with my pals.

gerri's birthday this week. meeting roon and her for dinner this thursday.

my korean teacher has emailed me saying she understands my predicament but that she hopes i can still go for the remaining classes so that i won't feel so bad. hmmm. i don't know how i can not feel bad when i don't understand anything that's going on. haha. ok time to mull over it again. haha.

was talking to gerri the other day and we were on the subject of wanting things and sacrificing time for the things we want. is it really a proper gauge of how badly we want something? perhaps. the man who really wants to climb the coporate ladder will sacrifice time with his family to achieve his goals. the boy chasing after a particular girl will sacrifice as much of his time as possible in order to spend it with her. the single mom who wants to send her kids to the most expensive universities will sacrifice her time to take on 2 jobs just to make enough money to realise her dream. yes perhaps this is an indicator of how much one desires something.

it's common for everyone to have dreams. i want to do well in my studies. i want a good job. i want a happy life. but the question is this: when does the 'want' become so strong that you would sacrifice another part of your life for it? life's all about discovering for yourself what you value most and how you go about protecting your interest.

does one value money over love?
does one value freedom over companionship?
does one value fun over success?

these are things we need to sort out, before we can move steadily along the course of life.

heading to school now to sacrifice a bit of my own entertainment time for working on my thesis. haha.

{10:53 AM}

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What constitutes the notion of sacrifice?

Today, my team and I will convince you that the term 'sacrifice' has become overexposed, overused, antiquated and totally passe.

So a single mum wants to send her kids to university. So a guy lists ladder climbing as his CCA. They set different priorities. These are not sacrifices! They are standard operating procedures! You choose this path, you aim to complete it. Don't talk to me how much you have to sacrifice your own mahjong time just to do something else you CHOSE to put priority to. Can't do it, don't aim for it. Do it another time.

A guy not watching man u vs liverpool, just so that he can accompany his girlfriend. I don't call it a sacrifice.

A sergeant jumping onto a hand grenade with split seconds left to explosion, saving most of his platoon. Perhaps that's sacrifice.

Due to time constraints, my team and I shall now end with a beautiful quote from Mahatma Gandhi: "The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats' teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice."

(No time to talk about the relevance of the quote. It just sounds deep. =x )

*ahem* And so with that, clearly our notion must stand.

Thank you.



[wah lau now I gotta rush for my grammar class BORING!]

By  Anonymous, at 9:32 AM  

point of contention sir...

the definition of the verb "sacrifice" is to give up something for the sake of something else according to the OED.

as such, technically, whenever we make a choice between two things, we will inadvertently end up making somesort of sacrifice.

certainly it makes sense to say that in most cases we rarely have to actively decide what to do because among the options presented to us, we already have a natural preference.

however, in making a specific choice, a guy choosing to spend time with his other half will losesthe chance the watch man u vs liverpool LIVE. Even if, to him it might not be considered a loss because he would rather spend time with his gf anyway, the fact remains that he can no longer catch the match life, and in making his decision, he has given up that option for the sake of another.

AKA a sacrifice.

and so the house must agree that the motion cannot AND MUST NOT stand.

Thank you!

[haha... i get to play badminton later... haha...]

By  20 sec interval... fire!!, at 11:28 AM  

I'm back!

Round 2 fight!

First, arghghg no oed I hate oed please don't mention oed =x

Anyway, I know what the word means lah!
But is it just as simple as giving up something for something else?

Examine this scenario:
There is an apple and an orange on the table. Mummy says, "Boy boy ah, you can only take one fruit today ok?"

So Boyboy chooses the apple.

Does that mean you are sacrificing the orange? (I mean in that moment. Please don't tell me boyboy can choose the orange tomorrow.)

Minutes later, boy boy smses his best friend : Wah lau just now I had to sacrifice my orange just so I could eat the apple. Sigh.

Boyboy has given up the option of the orange, for the sake of another option - the apple.

The word has increasingly become more trivialised.

By  Anonymous, at 4:51 PM  

haha... haduken!!! sonic boooom!!!

no seriously. it may sound as if the word has become increasing trivial, but the matter of the fact is, it is. That's why people don't usually talk about the sacrifices they make, they talk about HOW GREAT the sacrifices were.

choosing between an apple and an orange. well if the boy liked the apple better and he chose the apple, then the sacrifice made is minimal. if he liked them both equally well, then he would have to lose out on the tasting an equally tasy fruit. if he prefered the orange, but chose the apple, for whatever weird reason, then the sacrifice is great and these are the thing we talk about.

what is important is not the sacrifice, but rather the magnitude.

if we were to only call sacrifices of great magnitudes sacrifices, then we could argue then that there is no such thing as a sacrifice. the sarge throwing himself on a grenade made a choice to protect his men, something he put priority to over his own life.

hence we can only take the word in its most trivial and basic form, and leave the discussion to the degree of the sacrifice.

K.O.

By  20 sec interval... fire!!, at 5:19 PM  

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today i made a terrible decision. i decided to stop studying for korean. with everything that's been happening to me, i need to really focus all my attention on my thesis and my own mental sanity.

i feel as if i've let many people down. but most importantly, i feel as if i have let myself down, because i've given up. what a terrible way to do things. to give up. no honour, no respect.

i just hope that things will get better. phew! i certainly hope so.

had an interesting chat with jialiang in the consultation room today. haha. he was trying so hard to speak in english. haha. learnt quite a bit about chinese history from him. haha. i realise he's a pretty nice guy with no airs and certainly not very opinionated. basically just a good friend to chill with. haven't spoken to him much though.

let me try a message my korean classmate sent me when i told her i was dropping out. she's the 아줌마 (auntie) of the class. haha.
"Uncle how can u abandon us!? You are our pillar of strength and the only 'flower' in the midst of all the thorns leh... so heartless lor! No nam ja hak saeng, our dear eb wil no longer be able to hold her firey temper liao! Can u imagine the flaming fire coming our of her nose? U serious quitting at this stage? Complete lvl 2 lah... another 3 more su oup to go only."

haha. even though i felt terrible today, this sms brought a smile to my face. haha. it feels great to have a friend like her. haha. i'm lucky i have friends who are truely friends not just in name, but in action as well. there are people who willingly call you their friends but only look for you when they need u. these people i shall not be bothered with.

anyway i'm going to get some shut eye!

{10:35 PM}

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my first tutorial of the sem starts in 1.5 hours!! haha. hope i prepared enough. haha. the first class you step into usually doesnt go so well. haha.

oh well. i'll see how it goes. will blog later! haha.

{7:39 AM}

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had korean class last night again. the pace is picking up quite rapidly. initially i thought that this semester i would be able to catch up after last sem. but after missing 2 classes, 1 due to a holidaying trip and another due to the wretched flu bug, i found the going a little bit tough this time. i should either put in more effort, or not proceed on to level 3. haha. we'll see how the next 5 weeks go. everyone in class is feeling the stress. and this 아저씨 here is practically drowning in it. haha. oh and speaking of which, i've now been relegated to be the ONLY SOLE male in my korean class!!! haha. scary thought.

had a great supper with wu liang at clementi after class. the stresses of korean class always makes me hungry even if i had a full dinner. i must say that the prawn noodles at the coffee shop next to ntuc is much better than the one at the hawker centre!! haha. so wq u shld stop queuing up for the one there. haha.

helped jialiang edit his brother's personal statement for entry into ntu yesterday. haha. been a while since i've done some editing and boy was it tough. 2hr 45min was what it took. and it was 2 pages before i made any changes. editing is a tough job because you can freely express yourself. you're always constrained by the original author's intent. so it's tough to find a balance between making the sentence as good as possible and retaining the original meaning of the sentence.

it's raining again today. which makes it good for sleeping. but i think i should spend my time more wisely. haha. life's not all about hard work for sure, but it certainly isnt about sleeping as well. haha. i think the most important thing about life is that we must enjoy it. sure, for some of us, in order to enjoy life, we need to work hard first in order to achieve our dreams. however, i think sometimes we get too caught up in working and slogging away, all in the hope that someday we can just kick back and enjoy life fully, that we dun realise that life itself is slowly ticking away. even though hard work is something that should be embraces, we must always be sure not to lose oursleves in it. time for loved ones, time for friends, time for oneself. even though many people say it is important to be disciplined enough to work when it's time to work, i feel that it's equally important to play when it's time to play.

so when is it time to work or play. well, it really depends on one's priorities in life. if someone values $$$ much more than he/she values friendship, companionship and company, then naturally he/she would me more inclined towards a greater percentage of time spent work. the same is true conversely. for me, i'm the sort that needs to be around people. when is why i'd so often sacrifice almost any time i have for work just to hang around the people important to me. no doubt this means that i'm usually behind schedule when it comes to work, i feel that this is a very acceptable trade off.

anyway, thomas has lost his match against david ferrer. oh well. and then there were 2. haha. hopefully they both make it to the finals. haha.

dementieva 6-1 6-3 over elena camerin.

nalbandian 5-7 4-6 7-6(4) 6-4 6-1 over grosjean. phew!

well. the rain has stopped and i shall head on to school! haha!

{1:21 PM}

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after the withdrawal of Justine, Lindsay and Tim, (which half spolied my Australian Open 2007 experience), i'm glad the other 3 have made it through to the second round.

Nalbandian 6-7(5) 4-6 7-6(2) 6-0 2-1 Ret. over Tipsarevic.

Dementieva 6-1 6-2 over Foretz.

Johansson 6-4 3-6 1-6 6-4 6-2 over Chiudinelli.

no more interesting matches for me to watch now, so I'll be heading over to school. haha. think some people don't want to see me there, so I shall keep a low profile. haha.

submitting thesis for yongquan today. you know. when people recognise you by mentioning you to someone, by explicitly thanking you, by including you in the acknowledgements, it feels good because you know you've made a difference in someone's life. it spurs you on to do better things. some people think that it's pointless to yearn for praises from others. but i think, life is about making yourself and others happy, and no matter how one can try to deny it, it feel really good to hear someone praise you.

i'm honoured to have been included in the acknowledgement sections of the theses (plural of thesis) of 2 friends: yongquan and wanmei. haha. after reading it, i feel glad that i've been a good friend to them and have made a positive impact on their lives. i'm happy they made it through part of life's journey, with me beside them.

ok short post today, will post more tomorrow when francis gives me the photos. haha. slow coach. haha. in the meantime, take care folks!

{1:34 PM}

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must drop by to see tkm today. otherwise i'll be branded a usless bum if not by him, then by myself!

watched the debate programme on channel 5 last night. well just a teeny bit. i didn't think the debate went too well. the motion was something like looks triumph over effort the proposition came from loyang decondary. the opposition was from RI. all in all, i felt they were not really debating. it was more like a sad slugfest with each one of them completely missing each other. Iimean I really did enjoy the SIA JC debates when they were still telecast on television.

the first speaker from the proposition sounded a little contrived. she was over-enunciating every single word which made her sound as if the proposition had very little points to cover and were dragging for time. this was made worse when the first speaker from the opposition, an RI boy who is kind fo like me, able to speak when prepared but start forming very grammatically questionable sentences when in the spotight, started his bout of interuptions. he spoke with a monotonic matter-of-fact voice, that when juxtaposed with the girl, almost seemed to run at the speed of light, and efficiently took his opponent apart. for me, i lost interest right after the first round and didn't bother to even watch the remainder of the competition. i left the television on though and from another room across the hallway, i could hear that the tensions rose as the second and third speakers took positions. interestingly enough, everyone seems to just be debating about beckham. the proposition claimed and reiterated possibly 20 times (i kid you not) that the extra cash in beckham's wallet as compared to the wallet of someone of the same calibre as him was due simply to his pretty boy good looks (AND they then went on to say that this means that looks triumph over effort). i never saw the link and got increasingly irritated when they mentioned it again and again. i mean if one wants to compare the effects of looks and hard work, one needs to start with a base: 2 people of similar standings, on who does nothing more but has good looks, and the other without that aesthetic gift but who works at bettering the situation. so in the beckham case, who are they comparing him with? who in the soccer industry work hard at getting endorsements? i mean you can't just say that beckham earns more than his contempories and thus the motion must stand. it's like saying, fish swim and so birds fly. anyway it was sad the opposition didn't pounce on this like a tiger on an injured prey. the RI didn't seem to realise that when you're being buzzed out, the best thing he should do is to wrap up, rather than go ahead and introduce a new point. it kind of made me feel like he just wanted to state that as a fact and hope that the judges would buy it. haha. i didn't stay on to watch so i cannot comment about the rest, but i heard the results were quite close. haha.

anyway. i should take a shower an head on to school soon. haha. debates. i miss debates during GP in RJ. dun you too herk? haha.

{8:19 AM}

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I watched bits and pieces of the debate. Was rubbish by both teams. Didn't catch the announcement of results, but was told that RI lost by about 4-6 points.

salvo//

By  Anonymous, at 12:07 AM  

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i hate being sick because it isolates you. you're stuck at home. in the bed. and when you cant seem to get to sleep, all you have for company is the sound of the fan tilted at an angle parallel to you so that it doesnt direct blow at you and cause pneumonia.

but of course it helps to have a sister who is sick as well. haha.

spent my day looking at different menu's for chinese new year reunion dinner. haha. decided i shall split the cost with my mum this year. so we should go somewhere nic-ER. haha.

i've taken this period of illness to try and see if i can fill my life up with as many people as possible. to see if i can jump start the waning badminton clique. to see if i can organise regular luncheons with my pals. i've been so caught up with trying to fill my life with their presences that i realise that after so long, i'm still so heavily dependent on them. haha. i guess i was a little frightened that the scenario of the past year might just play itself out again. wake up. go for classes. come home. log on. go to sleep. kind of a sad life. no purpose no meaning nobody. if i had to lead a life like that again, i'd much rather not live.

a frend of mine (name withheld to protect his identity haha) gave a summary of his girl problems recently. basically, the idea is this. if you like the girl and she likes you too, but she has a temper of a pregnant cat and treats you like grime on the pavement, then there is NO hope. period. that was his analysis. haha. i agree totally but my only question would be why anyone would want to make friends with a girl like that in the first place. haha.

anyway. i should be getting some work done. i feel i should pop by school to at least see tkm today. and maybe ask lang when he wants to play badminton. haha.

it's the australian open next fortnight. but with lindsay pregnant, justine out because of "personal reasons", and henman out due to injury, that leaves johansson, who's not playing like an aust open champion anymore, nalbandian who lost in the first round last week, and dementieva, who has yet to fix her serve. haha. woe is me! woe is me!

maybe i should be heading up to malaysia to watch badminton. haha. nah!

alrighty. have a good day everyone!

{9:21 AM}

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what a way to start the new year!

i'm coming down with a flu i think. muscle aches and cold shivers now. hate that feeling. just took 6 panadols throughout the course of the day. hopefully it'll get better soon. sigh.

everyone else, pls drink h2o and exercise more. weather isnt too good these days.

{9:23 PM}

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Happy New Year to one and all!!

i haven't thought of exact resolutions to make this year, but in general, the spirit remains the same: to be a better person in all aspects.

me disturbing francis who was "diligently" counting people.

spent the evening of new year's eve at the esplanade. was there for the countdown and fireworks display with liang. sadly, there wasn't a countdown, or if there was, we couldn't hear it (and we were standing almost next to the amphitheatre. anyway, saw francis and hz there also. BUT they were working haha. the fireworks were quite good though.

getting out after midnight was a nightmare. luckily i suggested walking to Bugis, and thankfully, liang remembered the way there from city hall. so, we made it to an almost empty Bugis station and got seats all the way back to Clementi.

fireworks!! hey there was a piece called fireworks rite? haha

anyway, spent the evening of new year's day catching up with rj band pple at shue's house. chatted with dilin after no seeing him for ages. all in all, it was an extraordinarily enjoyable evening. everytime i go for outings like this, i always think about the good ol' jc days. haha. will upload photos when francis decides to send them to me. haha.

i had a dream last night. no not of equality amongst whites and blacks. haha. but as with all dreams, i cannot consciously recall most of the details. i just remember being confronted by a throng of people and having a single other person stand up and defend me. and then when i woke up, i thought to myself: how nice it would be to fill your life with person(s) like that. those that are willing to support you even though your ideas seem radical. and then i asked myself if i could be someone like that for somebody else. and i couldnt give an immediate and resounding yes. so how could i expect something like that from a person but yet not be someone like that. haha. and besides, it's so easy for someone to just say that he/she would stand by you through thick and thin (think marriage vows), but in reality, how often do people really uphold them? i guess the only way really, is to wait for a mass of angry peasants to point their pitchforks at you and see if anyone jumps in between those pointy prongs and yourself. somehow, i wish my dream materializes someday. haha. for it is only in adversity that we can see the true hearts of men.

anyway, my niece is coming today for dinner. luckily my sister is around to "entertain" her. haha. i'm so bad with kids. i havent a clue as to what to do with them. if i could, i would just tie her to a chair in front of the television and ask let her have an entire afternoon of the disney channel. haha. anyway, have good rest today. teachers begin work tmr, students return tmr (other than NUS), doctors (HOs) changing posting tmr (and poor gerri's on call)... have a good start to 2007 you guys!

{10:46 AM}

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