Concert surprises!

Jerome happily came in to my room with a nice letter of absense for me. Considering I'm not really contributing to concert this year, this was a rather pleasent surprise!

Here's the letter explaining my absense from classes.



Not too bad, eh? I am entitled to 2 years leave. Drats...how am I to reclaim 2 years of leave that I've wasted :-s

-via iPhone

Raffles Hotel a.k.a. Renovated Blocks

I was so excited coming back from COMEX, having bought a new external firewire HD, with firewire and all... When I reached my room, I found my roomie on my laptop! He was surfing you tube, and wait, something's very different... His side of the room was now EMPTY!

Ok, so it turns out he was looking for the a youtube video that goes auf wiedersehen... goodbye... to greet me when I arrive back in my room. ARGH!!! depressed xia! he's all moved out and settled down in the new room while I'm still stuck with a whole room of mess taunting me, waiting for me to move. Anyway, he didn't manage to find the video, so there... I caught him while he was looking for it.

Anyway, I decided that I'm going to move bit by bit. Yup, just like your serial connection in EE2007, you move data out bit by bit, complete with handshaking, parity, error checking and all... Anyway, most of the crucial stuff have been moved to my new room, (i.e. my printer, notes, calculator, computer fridge, and everything I need to study. So I'll just study, until I'm tired of studying, then start moving some stuff again...

Cleaning the room is another story. The whole room was dusty with all the construction dust, made my whole pail of water like teh-tarik... But it's rather nice and cooling after moping the floor 5 times. We have new window panes too! They have a very mild, slightly off green tint, but transparent for most purpose. Somehow I feel that they are much cooler than the black ones we used to have, maybe because black absorbs heat. I was wondering whether it is those heat reflecting glass, which lets visible light in, but reflects the infra-red spectrum which heats up the room...hmm... but Tirza pointed out that those would be too expensive to be possibly used in RH... hmm, one never knows, since this whole renovation which seems very minor, already cost a few millions...

Tables are much longer too! nice color, and a lot more plug points than last time.

Lighting have changed, the color is not kinda daylight, but not warm white, which is yellow, hot, and dull. Well, at first, I thought I would prefer cool white, or cool daylight, but this one seems to be perfect, much more natural, and closer in temperature to natural light. It doesn't blink when coming on too, and turns on almost instantaneously when you turn on the switch... must be some kind of new energy saving light.

Ooo, and since I'm taking the end of the split, I get the whole end of the corridor to decorate and keep my stuff. Actually, each split level now has a door, making it quite exclusive/secluded/private, whatever have you. Would think of something to do with that extra space some time later...

Still, there are some hiccups. Some rooms still don't have internet access. Water is still muddy in some blocks. As of now, only 1 block have a proper water dispenser (by proper, I mean with attached filter). But the continuous email updates from our beloved Siew Teng is always ready to comfort the disheartened, and offer a pinch of humor when all else fails. Alas, I'm only 50% done in my shifting... :-(

Can't sleep

Very packed timetable this semester. Very little time for myself. Day starts at 9, ends at 6, by the time night comes, I'm just too tired to study.

Was worrying of what I should do next semester to lighten my schedule. It seems so impossible, so unlikely, that I will ever improve my life. I keep wanting to escape, hoping that life will be better in future. Keep thinking of how I would have done it if given a second chance...

But fact is, life has to go on, and nothing's changing... The only thing I can change is my attitude...

Keep worrying about what to do in the future, when the current problem is not even over... Gah! I need to worry less... I should just be faithful and take a day at a time...

Hope I will learn to take it to the Lord in prayer...

Very nice song, so meaningful words... No need instruments, the words speaks for itself... And the pictures, they fit just right with the words...

How often we fail to cherish how blessed we are to have a friend...

How often we overlooked the fact that help is waiting just right there...

Bird was outside my window...

A bird decided to feed on the fruit tree directly outside my window... So I decided to bring out my camera...


There was a yellow bird yesterday, but I didn't manage to bring out the camera in time, maybe we'll see if it comes back this evening... Oh, and I might look for Ying Wei to help me identify the species, or maybe shaun, or Daniel... Whichever...

Long Weekend

Well, my weekend started on Friday. Woke up to Mrs. Yap call, she was already near to NUS, so I brought her around NUS and had lunch with Timothy. We had lunch in BTC, very nice Jap food. Then we went to Takashimaya, before heading to her brother's house. Dinner was Laksa in her brother's house. Very nice.

Then Saturday, went out to meet mum in Suntec City. Sad, coz it was weekend, and porridge buffet wasn't cheap. Anyway, bought some groceries from cold storage, and a little bluetooth handsfree that is so convenient.

Worship practice was special today, it was JonC's birthday, and a few other celebration. Carol brought some really nice baking from her oven. My, she bakes very delicious.... uhm.... Scottish porridge. I've not idea why they call that porridge, it looks more like those muesli bars, except less crunchy, yet still chewy and nice, and sweet :) I had 2. I think, maybe 2 and a half. Oh, and there was fudge too, and I had 2 of that also.

After church, Simon took a very long time to decide to go out for lunch, Kai Ling was very hungry, and we had lunch at almost 3. It lasted thill 5, so I think it should be called Lunner, or Dinch, or something in between. Anyway, Jerome suggested Lunner, so lunner it is.

By the time we finished dessert, it was already 6 plus. I skipped dessert this time, because it was potentially going to be more expensive than the lunch I had, which was quite an authentic version of a Thai Tom Yam steamboat. I still think the Thai food in the expo back in Seremban last time was much nicer, but then again, you don't get those things all the time, do you.

So here's the steamboat, enough for one hungry person, but quite enough for 2 regular person, especially since it's so spicy, you tend to take a long time to eat. The fish were fresh, so were the prawns, very fresh.

We did finish it eventually, Lydia and I, long after everyone else has finished theirs. Not because we took a long time to eat, but because we had to wait for it to be cooked. :) This was how it looked like after we were done...

Exams Over

Yay, my exams finished yesterday. Hmm, it was so exciting, I thought my last exam was on Monday all the while, until a groupmate asked me about the exam venue on Friday early monring (1am). And she said that it was on Saturday, what a shock. Thankfully, I still have a day to prepare for it, and I did quite well in my preparation.

Alas, My exams are over, but hall is getting very boring, everyone else is having exams, and there's still a shadow of anxiety and stress all around hall, the people who finished their exams have mostly gone home, so yeah... I'm ~officially bored~.

Anyway, for those of you who haven't finished exams, there's a word of comfort. Study hard, and go out and do the best you can.

~You are not alone~
There's always purple bear to share your burden, by reading the book *upside-down* if you noticed

I'll miss you... CS1102C Lab 9

The semester has come to an end, and I have conducted the last lab for CS1102C, for which I was the TA.

This group was truly an amazing one. The skill level is also very widely spread. Throughout this stint of being with them, I realise that I had so much to learn from them, as much as I'm trying to teach them something that will benefit them in the future.

To be fair, programming is not for everyone. Some people get it, some people just don't. You can pass the exam with a few hiccups, but if it's not your thing, you'll just not excel. So that's the rule of thumb.

But I was forced to eat my words.... As I was marking the final sit in lab of my students, I couldn't help but notice that 10 of them passed all test cases, out of 22. That's near impossible. It doesn't happen in programming. But it did for my lab. One of them even include in his comment a thank you note for patiently explaining the question and concept so as to help him getting it all correct.

I can see their constant improvement throughout this semester. They had 4 sit in labs, and sit in labs are like exam. It's open booked, but they have a very unforgiving time limit (unforgiving that is, to most of them, all but the very good 1 or 2). They are not allowed to communicate, access the internet, and even the editing has to be done in a very limiting UNIX environment (limiting that is, to people who are not used to UNIX command line, and are so spoiled by Microsoft's explorer GUI). But the average class result has been increasing steadily, at a higher than normal pace, that I am almost certain they are doing much better than their friends in the other labs.

I'm so glad that they actually appreciate my teaching, that they were actually happy about being able to finally write a fully working program that meets all the criteria of the question.

Ah, teaching is so fun, I am beginning to love it once again. And to think that I was all jittery and wondering if I got myself up in hot soup, putting myself somewhere I don't belong, setting myself up for trouble, when I first entered the lab to conduct my first lab.

I am so thankful to God for this opportunity, so thankful that I didn't even need as much as an interview, and I got this wonderful job. God has his ways... And it was only last Monday that I realise the rest of the labTA needed to pass an interview before they were accepted into the job.

Oh, and to top it all up, the CS1102 prof gave me a sling bag, one from the regional programming competition held here in NUS. I always wanted to get another sling bag for me to carry to class (the orange NUS one is getting old, and the sling is coming off soon. And he suddenly offered just like that, so convenient, complete with a passport carrying case too :-)

Hehe, I'm so going to re apply next year... those of you taking CS1102C next year, I look forward to enjoying a wonderful time of learning again!