Worrier me

Ok.. Been a while since I posted. This blog thingy is suppose to be some online diary that's open to everyone.. Somehow this blog seems to be rather lonely..

Time passes really fast when I'm in school. Its sememster 3 in a blink of an eye. NUS wasn't what I had expected it to be. Still, no girlfriend, and my bulge is returning to me.. Sianz.. Going to be the old Ah pui again.. Must jog!!

Ever since the last paper taken on Sem 2, that is CS1231, I developed this lethargic feeling towards studying. A few times i stopped and pondered, why the hell am I studying so hard for? I got no girlfriend. I will become one of the thousands of engineers in the market. I have no goals, no great body, no passion (yeah this lack of passion thingy is getting ahead of me lately. I feel lethargic even while playing soccer! WTF!). Plus, something happened in my family recently, that made me lose confidence in my parents.. I guess I had stepped onto this crossroad of my life, in which I still wasn't mature or prepared enough to handle it.

Sometimes I think that I think too much.. Worry too much. I had been a worrier all my life. I remembered vividly the few occasions my father would bring me out to kai kai when I was a small kid. On board of a crowded bus, me and father have to sit separately on different seats. i always sit the seat in front, so that my father can see me from where he was sitting. Then, there I was, turning my head every few instances or so, to check that my father was still there, that he didn't abandon me, or he dropped off some bus stop forgetting about my existence and stuff.. Worrier me.

Then when I grew older, i worried about my exams, friends, soccer skills, relationships.. Worried about where i will stand in this pragmatic meritocratic city state. Zhishun says I think so much. So do I. What the fuck, i am thinking that I think I think too much. My life is in a mess.

My third sem is fucked up. That EE2012, i knew I wasn't good at it, but i did nothing at all to savage the module. I was in a fucking daze, just worrying how bad I gonna get for the mod. That wasn't me! that wasn't the old Junjie. The old Junjie stood up against his Geography teacher, telling her "That's my answer, take it or leave it." The old junjie is about attitude. Full of vigor and passion. Unafraid. Full of energy at soccer, studies, anything. What had become of me?

Things to ponder:
1) Maybe its because I reversed my bio clock. sleeping during the day, study at night is not good for the body and brain.
2) not enough water
3) not enough excercise. Feeling lethargic all the time.

Remedies:
1) Reverse my bio clock. Make it right. Scrap all late night soccer
2) Drink at least 8 glasses of water per day
3) Go gym 3 times per week, go jog everyday, 5km
4) Get a life, go get a girl!
5) Quit online gaming. That's harmful and unbeneficial anyway

By the way, that's a picture of me in RF online. nice cheap online game, but its in chinese.. Its the first pic I put in this blog.. so watch it while it last

the last quater post for the fiscal year

Named this post as the last quarterly post of the year.. If you haven't noticed, I haven't post for a long long time.. Not that I don't have the time to do so, but this blogging thingy haven't become part of my habit. i mean, the whole idea of "remember to blog!" was tucked way back in some berefted corner of my memory lane.

Exam sucks. And I going through one now. Sianz. Sianz. Sianz.
This morning had that EE2005 paper. Thought its going to be an easy paper. But buang it. GONE FARKED HONG KAN liao.
FNA1002 was ok -- good candidate as an exam starter, boosted my morale really.
2005!! 2005!! Sianz. Was hoping to get an A for this.. now happy to live with a decent B. This sem, my CAP confirm guarantee chop chop chop, drop drop drop. There's also that frickin 2012 which I completely couldn't understand the basic drift of it.. Now all my hopes on 2004. Please dont' disappoint me!

Next sem Jia You!

Found on "Lost" threads..

Lengthy, but read and ponder..

If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor
butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering
place, it will land on its feet. With this in mind, if you attach a buttered
piece of bread, butter-side up, to a cat's back and toss them both out the
window, will the cat land on its feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground?

In theory, even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be
able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the
butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics
demand that the cat can not land on its furry back. If the combined construct
were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox. Therefore, they
simply do not fall.

That's right, you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal
can get), you have discovered the secret of antigravity! To expand on this
theory, a buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the
forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium
point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or
removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.Most of the civilized species
of the universe already use this principle to drive their space ships while
within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is,
in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies. Larger craft use the Maincoon
breed and a long ways sliced sourdough loaf.The one obvious danger is, of
course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs and they instantly
plummet.

This, as you all know, happened in Roswell 50 years ago. Of course the
cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since
right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship
and bewildered aliens crash on top of them.

Tired / childhood

I'm so tired of this life now.. Hope I can find the reset button and start everything anew. Something happened last night which reminds me of feelings I had during my childhood. Ah, good old childhood. When holidays are really holidays, and no one gives a hoot on your opinions. Lovely childhood.
Am working in Pokka now. In one big twisted circle, I ended up working in pokka again. Got to interact with that lobo Jimmy guy. So he's not the ultimate villain I thought he was after all. Anyway, whilst I was working, the sun was beating down on me, then this cool breeze blew. That, reminds me of childhood. When the sun beats, it produce this sepia-yellowish hue or tint on places around me. When the wind blew, everything comes back so naturally to me again. Forgotten memories, forgotten lines I used to chant when I was a child.
How I wished money wasn't invented!
Wrote the following when I was very stressed:
When Pandora opened her box, all the diseases, sorrows, vices, and crimes ever escaped onto poor humanity. Hope was with them, and it came out, last. Don't you think hope is evil too? How could it not be, when it's with them for so long? In fact, it could be the most evil; it clings onto us unsparingly, sends us the jitters when events twist and turn. Hope, is the mother of all evil. It is one evil that spoke to humanity; humanity felt attached to it. Hope brought about the catastrophe humankind wrought to itself. If there is ever one conclusion that hope can thus bring, it is that humankind is doomed to have no hope.

Working at Apple Inc Part II

WTF!!
Reported for work at 8 this morning. Open the door, and there goes the alarm.. What I learnt in army, an alarm doesn't mean shit in real life. No police will come; everyone will look at everyone, thinking who's going to fix that annoying noise that is reverberating inside the warehouse now..
Yet.. About half an hour later, some gal showed up, asked why the door was opened. Then some rude fat ass showed up, demanded who and how the door was opened. Thomas explained. Fatty ass continued to be rude.
WTF.
Then we realised the door wasn't supposed to be opened. It will trigger some alarm. Of course we were suppose to know that, since some obscured sign was pasted saying not to open the door (which we couldn't find even in the aftermath). Fucked up security, and fatty ass is blaming us for that? Why the door's not locked in the first place? And why paste a pathetic piece of warning to warn others not to open the fucking door?
This vacation, I'd learnt something: 1) Admin department is made up of fatty assholes with no proper academic credentials and only pretend to know they know something. Back-stabbing is inevitable, and no one will be by your side when trouble brews.
2) And that this " army's spirits" I had grew to accustomed to is quintessially seen everywhere. Army boys thinking only about ORD, you haven't seen the real world. Fuck. I think army is better, since the job is to cover the ass of the guy next to you when trouble brews.
3) And Security is a synonym for "futile-ineffective-worthless" piece of shit.

Working at Apple Inc

Was actually working at Jessen & Jessen packaging, packing Apple keyboards. But Apple Inc sounds posh right??
The work is alright, except the damn temperature that is around 38 celsius I guess.. No fan, no breeze. Plain hot.
Talking of hot, saw this hot malay girl on the job this morning. Super tight mini skirt, dyed hair, sweet makeup. Looks like a chinese girl at first glance, but her english gave her away. And I thought malay girls are supposed to be religious??
Nowadays, teenage boys have no respect for other people. Our boss was one amiable folk, who did his best to accomodate us to the working environment. All the young boys did in return is to ask and ask for more.. Wonder what they are teaching in CME classes nowadays.. Pissed me off they all..
Felt a bit sick. Could have caught the cold.
More updates later

Went swimmin

Today, I went swimming. Initially, suppose to swim with Yee soon, but too bad, he can't make it in the end. Come to think of it, I haven't been swimming in a pool for quite some long time.. My $70 goggles was covered with dust when I retrieved it from some ancient box in the attic left berefted eons ago.. And the army trunks weren't any better as it was covered with some sticky goo..
Nevertheless, I swam 34 laps. Gasp! That's 1.7km. Kinda impressed myself. My limbs felt so weak as I leave the water.
Anyway there was this couple in the pool that really digusted me.. One times male caucasian, balded; one times plump phillipino-look-alike gal, short. Damn they were simply frolicking and teasing each other in one corner of the pool. You called that swimming, I call that taking up precious space. Before you think I was jealous, you have to see it for yourself. In one disgusting scene, the gal was carrying the man's legs and moves in" f***ing" motions. Sick. Moreover there were like 5 or 6 hot-blooded teenage boys stationed about 5 or 6 meters away from them. Sic.
Tomorrow. Another 34 laps. I'll be as slim as a stick in time to come.

No sitting on fence. Its acceptance, or not. Your choice.

There's this book.. Ok. There's this famous book by Yann Martel, which based its plot mainly on religion, zoology and whether to "choose a better story" to describe this reality. Religion explains reality in a somewhat hodge-podge manner. It has loop holes that postulated more questions than answers. Then there's science. Logic, math, phyic -- stuffs created by people to make people understand more about this universe. In both cases, they left me bewildered.
However, Martel blended these 2 worlds together so well, at some points, that these 2 ideologies seems to complement each other.
Then the choose the better story part.. Example:

I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My
God!”—and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to
his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might
try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, “Possibly a f-f-failing
oxygenation of the b-b-brain,” and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss
the better story. ~Life of Pi chapter 22

Thought provoking huh? There's more to come. Follow the link and read it. 100 chapters in all. A story that will change your perspective on God.

Interesting Stuff on Pascal's Wager

I was wondering if philophers day-dream about stuff that I just might have thought about before. Then I came across this blog, talking about some Pascal's Wager. Pascal, as in the Mathematician that brought us the Pascal triangle, presented this funny rant, and then his somewhat logical conclusion that: we have all to gain and nothing to lose when we believe in Him.

"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide
nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being
played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn
up... Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see
which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good;
and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your
happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason
is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of
necessity choose... But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in
wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose
nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

My $0.02 worth: Wow, that was exactly what I had deliberated about on some previous lazy afternoon. Talk about great thinkers think alike.
But then, with so many choices, there is the problem of which God should you choose? If we follow Pascal's proposition, let's put the chance that He exists as 50%. Then the chance that we just might hit the jackpot and receive eternal bliss will of course be significantly lower than this 50%. Say, considering the major religions around the world, which includes Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Taoism, etc, etc, you may get something close to 10% as the final straw. Anyway, I guess that is the point of Pascal's argument. Believe, you may get your 10% chance. Don't, you get zero.

Then, there's these paradoxes that intrigues me. The one about Schrodinger's cat is by far the most interesting, followed closely behind by Zeno's paradoxes on motion.
In Schrodinger's cat, it involves a thought experiment that includes a cat that's put into a box. A small sample of a radioactive material is then put together with the cat into the box, as well as a detector that detects whether or not atoms are emitted by this piece of sample. If it does detect some stray atoms, it will break a vial of cyanide gas inside the box, that kills the cat.. Kinda cruel, but then its only a thought experiment. Come to think of it, great thinkers have somewhat twisted minds.. So, if the chance that atoms are emitted by this sample is 50%, then, without opening the box and inspecting the content, at any instant the cat will be, literally, half dead and half alive. Thus, the paradox.. How to have some kitty dead and alive at the same time?

My other $0.02 worth: The point about this experiment is that quantumatically, you cannot be sure what will be the physical outcome of particles or atoms, until you observe them with your own eyes. That is, you wouldn't know whether the cat is 100% dead or alive, until you peek at the box. Before you peek, you can only guess, and hence before you see, the cat is half dead, half alive. The use of a cat, or the cyanide gas, or the box is totally insignificant, I think. The experiment can jolly well proceed with any other animals, or any other methods to kill the cat.. So if you really can't find any cat around, a dog will also do..
The cruelty of this experiment is probably the mental impact Schrodinger wanted to instill to its audience. Since the novelty of quantum mechanics is hard to grasp and even more harder to accept, an interesting anecdote will keep the interest in his audience, and do the job better.
Actually, to see how the cat is doing is not the correct word in the quantum sense. Since light will be reflected from the particle into your eyes in order for you to see the particle, the momentum light photons possesses would have displaced the particles from its original position. Hence, what you see now is not the position of the particle at this instant.. In fact, if you had studied quantum physics in college, most likely you'll know that on a quantum scale, you cannot know exactly where a particle will be at a specific instant. Instead, PSI functions are used to find the probability at any instant a particle will be. Thus, my guess is that the cat here resembles the particle. You cannot perfectly know whether the cat's state, that is, whether its alive or dead at any instant; you can only use probability to guess. Then again, it will be meaningless when you use your eyes to see whether the cat is alive or dead, since state of this cat may not be its state at the instant you had peek.. Thus the paradox is not why the cat is alive or dead, but that one can only guess whether the cat is alive or not.
Chim right? Anyway, don't quote me.. Its Junjie the philospher at work.. and I'm only a year one Uni undergrad.. Engine student some more..

The one about Zeno's motion paradoxes.. They deal mostly with relative motion, and the what's if and what's not. Its discomforting to know that people long ago, through mathematical logics, had already grasp the concept of relativity, space-time and all those Einstonian thoughts. Clever right? Someone says, if people had pay more attention to Zeno's thoughts, we now could have nuclear weapons in stock at the Seven Eleven near you.

All these great thoughts about life aside, I'm working in Sony factory right now. Not a tough job, but mentally shag.. Imagine a job that is 12-hours shift, in which you only work 7 hours and idle the rest. The idle part is the mentally shag part. Anyway, here's a paradox of my own: Working inside a Sony factory so that I can earn enough money to buy a Sony PSP.. Heck, I can jolly well steal one while I'm at it.. But then I could have be a great philsopher in the future.. Cannot let such details taint my eulogy right??
Also bought Tao Ze aka David Tao's latest.. Wasn't as strong as his last.. He shouldn't have reprimanded Jay Zhou's albums, when he himself couldn't make breakthoughs. Also bought Love Phychodelico's "best of" album. The tunes are great, but the lyrics.. crap. Japanese should stop inscribing english words or phrases into their tunes.. It ruins them..
The last time I count, school is still eons away. Let's keep it this way. Anticipation is half the pleasure, as I always said.

Status of Exams, revisions and why I haven't post for such a god darn time

Wow.
How time flies. The previous post was at the beginning of this year. Now its April already.
Wow.
5 reasons I haven't been posting:
5) No one cares whether I post or not. No one read my posts anyway.
4) Too tired to post.
3) Nothing much to write anyway.
2) Exams!
1) Forgot there's a blog called plum in the middle of the ocean.

Currently having my exams now. Finished critical thinking and writing today. Not bad. At least I had an idea to write about, unlike that QET english I took last sem. Was totally clueless on what to do. Anyway got a high 82 for my assignment one. I worked damn damn hard for that assignment, and I guess I truly deserved it. This the first time I work super hard for something and the result did pay off.
Finsihed physics last saturday. The paper wasn't tough, but if you are a undergraduate in NUS, you'll know that's the problem. It was too easy!! How?? If everyone scores full marks, who's gonna be "at the bottom of the bell" (Quote: Victor Zhou, 2004)??

Neway, saw this muslim's guy blog last night. Guess what? Saw the real guy in toilet this morning. Quite short, suave, comical face. Interesting to see a web person alive huh?

Until next post, I still have maths cs1102c and discrete maths to study. Ciao, over and out.

Holiday coming to an end...

Everything happened so fast, it seem like a blur.

Holidays always went so fast. In comparison, school days, army days, work days drag on like a one ton concrete block being pulled across sticky mud.

Anyway, here's an update on what happened to me during this holiday:

1) Got back my exam results.Not exemplary, but nonetheless satisfied. A- CS A- Electronics B+Physics B+ Maths. S for that fricking Evolution for a global city state. B- for English. Whoohoo! No more history, no more vietnamnese as my english teacher ! CAP score: 4.23.

2) On the same day I got back my results, that is boxing day 2004, tsunamis struck the coasts of many south asian countries. Many people died and even more left injured and/or homeless. Felt sorry for them but what can a poor student like me do? Mourned for one minute with the english soccer fans on the match between Man Utd and middlesbrough.

3) Played soccer with Hieu and Qing wen a few times throughout the holiday. My stamina dropped like mad nowadays. I can't even hold on to my breath for 5 mins, Gasp! Got to run!

4) Bought whole lots of games. A few exceptional ones: Halo 2, great graphics, same gameplay. Wasn't a fan for the original, so wasn't too impressed by it. Fable, great graphics, pretty boring gameplay. Once you figured out what to do (which i did, mainly by looking into FAQs..), the surprises the develops kept in the game didn't turn out too well. Ninja Gaiden kicked serious ass! But the overall difficult is too hard. Turned me off in several occasions. Otogi 2 and Kingdom under fire, haven't got the chance to savour them yet. Well, I still have one week. Ratchet and Clank 3: almost like the same game as its predecessors. Almost gettiing bored by it. Jak 3, haven't seriously played through it yet, but something tells me i wouldn't like it. Splinter cell Pandora's tommorow is.. urgh. Bad stuff. Don't touch it. Prince of Persia, despite its many glitches, turned out pretty well. GTA: SA, wasn't a fan of GTAs, so didn't really catch my attention. Anyway, most of the time i dedicated to Metal Gear Solid 3. Going to play Deus Ex and Ninja Gaiden.

5) Singapore National team get into Tiger's cup final! After that disgusting second leg semi played against Myannmar in Singapore National Stadium, Singapore finally managed to ascend, with a bit of luck, to the final. Overall, Singapore beat Myanmmar 8-5 on aggregate. The myanmmars really disgraced themselves during the last 15 minutes of the game. During second half of extra time, Myanmmar's substitute goal keeper threw a water bag onto the neck of Subramani. He was sent off by the referee of course. That was the most digusting, worst display of soccer ethnics i had ever seen on TV.

6) Got my timetable for next sem. Had to get up before 7 every morning now. Now seeking ways to crash into other people's lecture. Else how am I going to study? There's the hostel alternative, but there's also the money problem. Then next sem had to take that critical thinking shit too. Was never a good GP student. Guess I'm in for it. Also CS1102C, hopefully i'm capable for it. Then there is the discrete structure, heard its seriously hard. And physics. Of course that prick-in-the-ass physics. Just hope that I can do well enough in sem 2 as i did in sem 1.

7) Resolutions for 2005:

1) Get good grades!
2) Get her!
3) Run!